Win some, lose some...

The siskins have continued to visit the garden.  I thought it was just a pair and so was quite surprised this week to see four of them on a feeder.  One couple however fled before my attempt to record the moment.

Also visiting, apart from a few two- and seven-spot ladybirds, have been a number of buff-tailed bumblebee queens prospecting the garden for possible nesting sights.  They were really tricky to photograph as they were either on the move or ferreting around in the undergrowth.  I thought I was about to nail it when one of them disappeared down a crevice in the decking.  I must have waited three or four minutes for it to come back into shot, which it never did.  So either it escaped by another route without me noticing or hearing, or I can expect a bumblebee nest in my decking...

In the end I had to make do with a brief video of one visitor:

Buff-tailed Bumblebee Queen

Also heard but not seen in the garden and nearby have been a few chiffchaff.

Yesterday I was out for a walk at Geltsdale with V&A together with recent arrival E, who managed to sleep through the proceedings uninterrupted.

I soon saw a curlew on approaching the car park and found a couple of stonechat on arrival.  Eventually we headed South nominally hoping to happen upon a whinchat but without much conviction.  Instead we came across numerous chaffinches and a reed bunting pair.

Stonechat

Reed Bunting

Further sightings overhead were a couple of kestrel mobbing a buzzard and a possible pink-footed goose.

The weather was quite warm so there were also a couple of butterfly sightings - both peacocks.

Having covered the likely whinchat area, we set off back via the former quarry where short-eared owls have been turning up.  We were probably an hour or two too early to be successful.  Instead there were several lapwing and on the way a very distant roe deer

Lapwing

Roe Deer

The lapwing seemed to be on the verge of proving a display flight but never quite went through with it. 

I always think the rockier sides of the quarry area look good for peregrine falcon, who would be due to nest about now, but none were seen.

On the way back we did however meet up with a decent flock of fieldfare.  They saw us and kept on the move.  Distracted by another bumblebee queen, I missed the best chance of a photo. They can't be with us for much longer this year.

Yesterday I had planned to head West to Parkhead on the bike, but the cycle path was closed and I didn't fancy the proposed hilly detour.  Instead I took a more casual trundle along the banks of the Derwent, which did produce a couple of active goosander. 

Goosander

Returning by the Tyne was less productive apart from a couple of cormorants and a brief check at the hide at Clara Vale produced nothing of note at all.

"Win some, lose some..."

No surprises

In terms of rarities, you wouldn't say too much has turned up in the North East this year and so it has been with my own sightings.

I was pleased to see that the siskins have continued to appear in the garden so that I managed to get a better picture of the pair.

Siskins

However an instant drop in temperature to -4C the night after the butterfly appeared and a continuing chilly and wet spell has ruled out further butterfly sightings.

Last Sunday I met with J&J at Nosterfield Nature Reserve in North Yorkshire where we saw a number of birds but nothing to get excited about.  Here's a summary of the results, not necessarily in the order seen:

Cormorant et al	Curlew
Shoveler	Lapwing
Teal	Tufted Duck

Wigeon

However it was J who arguably made the best sightings, first discovering a flock of what we worked out were linnets in a tree and then finding a beetle.  Unlike another lady walker, I made nothing of it and didn't get the camera out.  Later I realised I had just seen something quite uncommon :- a bloody-nosed beetle.

Bloody-nosed Beetle Sign

Apparently this was the earliest in the year that one has been seen there...

Stirrings of Spring...

After several weeks of monsoon conditions, there have been several bright and warmer days with even some sunshine.

Not really to do with this has been the appearance of both male and female siskins in the garden.

A siskin and part of a siskin

Not a rare bird and sighted often locally but this is literally the first time I've found them in my garden here, perhaps because there are no conifers in the area apart from a few hedges.  In Dumfries they were regular visitors. Interesting that they've gone for the sunflower hearts and not the peanut feeder nearby.

I was thinking that I hadn't heard a greenfinch singing for ages and they too have started appearing.  There was one singing in a high tree when I set off down Hookergate Lane, then possibly more in a tree by some houses by the old Post Office on Sunday.  I tried to take a photo on my phone but it didn't work.

One thing I didn't expect on the same day was to get a close up of a goldfinch.

Goldfinch

Unfortunately it was dead but didn't appear to have been bitten so maybe flew into something.

However the clearest sign of Spring came yesterday when temperatures approached 15C and I made my first sighting of a butterfly this year.  It was clearly sunning itself.

Peacock

I suspect this may be the first sighting of butterfly in a garden on the facebook pages I visit, although small tortoiseshells have been spotted near Blanchland.  I've yet to see a bumblebee queen though I'm sure they must be about.

Spring What Spring?

The weather remains largely wet, notwithstanding the odd brighter day, and temperatures a variable.

Anyway I can report a first ever garden sighting following the confirmed appearance of a siskin.

The siskin is of course not an uncommon bird.  Up to now I have wondered whether it was due to elevation.

Actually it's more likely explained by the lack in this immediate vicinity of pine trees, which do of course occur at considerable height, is the causal factor.

I've also mentioned occasional appearances by male and female chaffinches lately, and a couple of days ago both turned up to feed off the ground.

It looks like chaffinches may now be a thing as one or other has reappeared recently.

Chaffinches

A recent visit to Boldon Flats also produced some quite nice sightings, notably a lot of wigeon

Shelduck Teal and Wigeon Heron and Wigeon Unfortunately it didn't produce any birds of prey or migrant rarities.  Just a little egret that, after showing well for a while, made itself more and more scarce.  I spent quite a lot of time grappling with camera technicalities. There have been some further signs of spring.  Last week a probable honey bee hovered around the open garage door.  At the tennis club, a toad was found crawling across court 4 to the river and I tried to rescue an early bumblebee queen, unfortunately on the point of dying.

Up in The Highlands 1

 After several attempts, I managed to catch up with a male orange tip visiting the garden - actually a notably small specimen, suggesting it hasn't been feeding well.

Orange Tip

This may however be one of the last orange tips to visit as I have started clearing out the garlic mustard, which had become far too dominant and was starting to die off anyway.

Last weekend I was on a nature break in the Highlands with Alex and Vicki.  We started with a full day at a location known for eagles and managed a few sightings, though all were at considerable distance.  Not long after entering the valley I could see an obviously large bird from the car window and did get one good sighting through the binoculars, when I managed to track a bird across the heather and could make out its tail feathers.

The rest of the day we spent trying to work out whether distant flyers were eagles or buzzards, mostly the latter, some of which may also have been kestrels but mainly to my eye buzzards that managed to hover against the breeze.  I was a bit surprised to find that the commonest bird otherwise was house martin, swooping around in large numbers in the afternoon.  Oystercatchers and gulls were also present in good numbers, as well as occasional lapwing and curlew.

It was a reasonably summer day so I undertook a couple of forages in the gorse next to the river and was pleased to find a first sighting - the bilberry bumblebee.  There was also what I think to be a moss carder bee, rather than a common carder bee.  I reckoned I saw one in Cumbria last June, but didn't get close enough to confirm.

Bilberry Bumblebee

Moss Carder Bee?

A slight doubt on the latter is that gorse isn't listed as a favoured flower.

On the second day, we took advantage of the time of year to visit Loch Ruthven during the mating season of the slavonian grebe.  This is one of the few locations for slavonian grebe and we had instant success as it was the first bird we saw.  Several pairs were clearly visible from the hide, passing through the weed. Again there were a lot of house martins swooping over the water and I think some sand martins too.

Slavonian Grebe

Our afternoon walk around the area of Loch Garten was however a disappointment.  Hoping perhaps for crested tit or crossbill variations, all we saw was a couple of siskins and chaffinches, a couple more bilberry bumblebees and lots of pine trees as well as bilberry bushes that had barely started to flower.

Here the seasons probably played to our disadvantage as we learned later that crested tits and crossbills are a good deal harder to find in the nesting season.  Loch Garten itself is known for hosting birds of prey including osprey and goshawk but it seems you're better off viewing the webcam images rather than trying to see them live.

Spring In the Air

 It's gradually getting a bit warmer, in spite or because of gale force storms which have made conditions rather unpredictable.  At least there has been no snow like there was last February to March.

Just over two weeks ago I took a bike ride to Matfen.  There were a couple of clusters of bullfinches working the trees but not a great deal else.

The Friday afterwards, I visited Gosforth Nature Reserve for the first time in ages.  Again the winds were approaching gale force and there was a remarkable lack of ducks and geese on the lake.  From the second hide I did manage a couple of possibly flirtatious herons and thought I saw some lapwings flying by in the distance.

In fact the main thing I saw in this area was actually well outside the reserve - a little egret that I managed to focus on several hundred yards away on the Gosforth Subsidence Pond.

Little Egret

On circumnavigating the western end of the lake there were some very dark shapes to be picked out that looked to be shovellers but it was impossible to pick out the colouration.

Just beyond that point, my attention was drawn to an area of undergrowth by some fallen trees.  I thought I could pick out the odd flash of red and I was wondering about brambling.  Eventually I got a clear view of a redwing through the binoculars.  When I tried to sneak nearer for a closer look, about forty or fifty of them went up where I would have guessed there to be about half a dozen.  It was quite pleasing though, as they were the first redwings I've seen all winter.

This Monday, there was supposed to be a Naturewatch trip to Big Waters, which was cancelled due to bad weather.  Noticing however that conditions were improving by lunchtime and that an Iceland Gull had been sighted there the day before, I decided to go along anyway.

Unfortunately the hides were locked but I was soon greeted by a flypast of a hundred or so lapwings, one or two of which showed signs of wanting to practice their mating display flight..

Most were sharing a nearby rock with some oystercatchers and every now and again, they would go up once more.

Lapwings

Further on there was another group of male and female bullfinches who might have been consorting but at the moment were more intent on demolishing a few buds.

Bullfinch

It's always tricky getting shots of them when they're foraging high in the bushes.  Ironically, another male showed up in the trees at the bottom of my garden the day after and posed beautifully - but I was upstairs at the time and didn't have the camera to hand.

 

At the West end of the pond I spent some time peering at the feeders behind the hide and picked up brief a sighting of a siskin, the first I've seen in a long time.  Unfortunately it didn't stay and didn't return.

On the lake there was a large squadron of greylags and another of canada geese, as well as a smaller group of wigeon, as on our last visit.

Wigeon

Saturday 10th April

 I noted some while back that spottings in my garden are a bit upside down in that birds that are normally common appear seldom - and vice versa.  A recent surprise was to spot two 'rarities' at the same time last week, a male garden sparrow and a siskin.  A female sparrow also turned up a couple of days later, as did briefly a goldfinch.  Both birds can be seen close at hand but don't usually visit the garden.  You'd really expect more siskins, given the amount of nearby woodland.

Siskin

To cap that I also got the best view I have ever had of a jay, which hung around for a couple of minutes just behind the bottom fence.  This happened while I was getting dressed upstairs, hence alas no photo.

The weather has done a major u-turn putting an end to butterfly sightings but Spring has now sprung and other species are abundant.  

A week ago on Friday Frances and I did a very scenic walk along the Blyth at Humford Mill near Bedlington.  There was wild garlic and other woodland flowers starting to come out all over the place, plus one plant I knew I recognised but needed to check - alternate leaf golden saxifrage.  There was less in the way of birdlife apart from a grey wagtail and a quick flash of a dipper flying downstream.

Grey Wagtail

Alternate Leaf Golden Saxifrage

Although the weather was already starting to cool there were a good few bumblebee queens on the move, one of which seemed to me on the basis of video evidence seemed to be a buff-tailed bumblebee.

One week later it was quite chilly when Malcolm and I set out from Low Newton to the outskirts of Beadnell against a northerly wind.

There were skylarks all over the place with a good number of meadow pipits, one of which posed nicely on a stretch of cut grass near a holiday park.

Meadow Pipit

It was one of those days when the further we walked, the more we saw.  By the time we got back we had also seen kestrels, stonechats, a flock of geese in flight that eventually landed at distance and looked to contain a mixture of greylag and pink-footed geese. there were a good few shelduck around, a couple of which were just about near enough to catch in the camera, though I never even spotted the curlew that was next to them.  A shallow pond produced a couple of gadwall and lapwing as well. however I was most pleased with a quick but unmistakeable view of a golden plover through the binoculars.

Shelduck - and curlew

Afterwards we stopped for a coffee back at Low Newton.  The tide was in and there was a proliferation of sanderling, redshank and oystercatchers on the crowded shoreline and a fleet of eider duck further out.

I reckoned there were some other small birds running around with the sanderling and took a few casual shots thinking to identify them later.  In fact I totally missed the foreshore and got instead a couple of blurred shots of birds in flight above the waves.  One had an upwardly curved beak but wasn't an avocet so I suppose possibly a godwit.  The other was a small wader but from what little I had looked more like illustrations of Temminck's Stint than the dunlin or knot I anticipated.  That however seems rather more unlikely.

If we had visited the foreshore at the beginning rather than the end of the day, I might have paid it more attention.

Thursday 4th November

 Having heard that there were crossbills and siskins in some numbers at East Cramlington Pond, I set off there a week ago.

The search was somewhat complicated by the fact there seems to be two locations answering to that name.  The one I found first was the Nirthumberland Wildlife Trust Reserve, which was pretty quiet but there were some honey bees around the artificial hives and some redwing in the trees on the western side, which was in sun.

I'd noticed there was an area of conifers to the North and headed towards them, thinking that they were more likely to attract crossbills and siskins.  Here there was another larger and less overgrown pond and a quite extensive area calling itself East Cramlington Nature Reserve.  I scouted around a good deal without seeing or hearing virtually anything but eventually did hear birds moving around the edge of one area.  Most of these proved to be long-tailed and other tits but I did briefly pick out one siskin among them.  No crossbills though.

With some time available, I moved on to Holywell Pond, where a spoonbill was reported about ten days earlier.  I missed the main path down to the pond after trouble parking and ended up approaching from the waggonway.

I found the area I took to be Holywell Pond, a wide area of shallow water set in ploughed farmland.  There were a few ducks at distance, which look to have been gadwall and in retrospect were a pleasing spot.

Gadwall

On setting off again, I could catch sight of another expanse of water which proved to be the real Holywell Pond, though in fact it produced less interesting sightings - just a few swans and gulls and some tufted ducks.

Yesterday, the spectacular sightings of a fortnight ago no longer much in evidence, I decided to take a coastal walk north from Newbiggin, watching out for any twite.

A very white gull with red legs landed briefly in front of me but eluded the camera and I had to puzzle
out what it might be afterwards.  The most likely explanation seems to be black-headed gull - without the black head of course.

Eider Duck

Down on the foreshore I got a good view of a rock pipit but on the whole there wasn't much about in the morning beyond gulls, cormorants and a good head of pied wagtails.

There were some smaller birds about but annoyingly they all seem to fly straight over me and into the sun, carried away quickly by a moderate breeze.  The only ones that landed took fright too quickly to be identified.

Further along I did see an eider duck diving repeatedly.

It was amazing to reflect that a hoopoe briefly turned up in the Lynemouth area, having first made land at Newbiggin.  I had no expectation that it would still be there, especially if it was as unimpressed by the scenery around the old aluminium smelter as I was.  Curiously though, there were a few stonechats in the bushes around th outflow from the mine contamination processing plan, which was about the same colour as them - rust red.

Things were a bit more lively as there were a good number of waders active as the tide moved in.  There were a few redshanks and some turnstone amongst others, and a lot more brown birds which were very quick to take flight when I approached.

On reflection, I suspect though that they were all rock pipits.

Rock Pipit

Sunday 11th October

The last butterfly I saw was on 6th October, a probable red admiral at Chollerford on the way to a small group walk at Miltonrigg Woods near Brampton.  It was an impressive piece of ancient woodland and a pleasant walk, although not much wildlife was spotted.  I did see a few long-tailed tits, a buzzard and a thrush.  Otherwise there were quite a few funghi around.

Tree Fungus

There were of course examples of non-wildlife around and we met these welcoming sheep, though fortunately not the bull that was supposed to be in a neighbouring field.

Sheep

I was back in the same area yesterday for a walk with son and fiancée around the Geltsdale RSPB reserve.  Ironically we'd had a recent discussion about not seeing many kestrels but I've never seen as many as we saw yesterday - scores of them, often three or four in the air at the same time.

There were a few buzzards too.  While we were watching a faster bird passed over with pointed wings and we concluded it was a peregrine.

Unfortunately there was a much sadder sighting - a wee barn owl chick that had fallen from the nest and seems certain to die.  Ages since I saw one.

Barn Owl

Others we saw were tufted duck, barnacle goose, goldfinch and siskin (probable).

There were several things we hoped to see and didn't, confirming that there are good reasons to go back there,  It's far more strikingly pictoresque than I had remembered...

Wednesday 10th April

I happened to revisit Whittle Dene Reservoir last Monday week on a bike ride and  there were now 30 or 40 sand martins flying low over the Southern Reservoir.  Another group member had to go back to retrieve a lost item and reported the same thing, except that she was lucky enough to see a little owl as well.

Wary chiffchaff

Last Wednesday turned out sunny so I again ventured off over the hills on the bike to Stocksfield.  Returning along the Tyne Valley, there were a number of chiffchaffs showing in the lower bushes and trees between Prudhoe and Wylam. I got the camera out a couple of times before capturing this slightly wary-looking fellow.

More surprising since temperatures were no more than 11 or 12C was to glimpse a couple of butterflies going down a steep path - one brown and one white but impossible to identify.  However, on the way back home from Ryton a couple of red admirals clearly flew across the road.

There was another trip to the Whittle Dene itself this Monday, but frankly last year's visit, a couple of weeks later in the year produced more interesting results.  Apart from a few long-tailed tits, the main event for me was actually managing to see a skylark singing fervently above until it slowly disappeared into the low cloud as it rose.

The most interesting changes have occurred around the garden.  The jackdaws have pretty much disappeared and the smaller birds have taken over. A siskin (a young female I suspect) frequently visits the nyger seed.  A nuthatch and even a jay (first time) have been seen passing through the silver birches and a chiffchaff briefly inspected a bush in flower. I wonder if the jackdaws are finding more to intyerest them in the farm fields round about.

The idiosyncratic features of the garden are still apparent.  Plenty of dunnocks (often chased away by a robin) but no sparrows or starlings.  It was typified when I was surprised to see a chaffinch on the lawn.

Meanwhile the two magpies are still lolloping around the place without any obvious sign of producing offspring or having laid any eggs.

Magpie pair

Thursday 21st March

I haven't managed any trips out over the past week but things have started to happen in the garden.

Almost as soon as I had finished writing the last post, and was regretting the lack of interesting visits to the niger seed feeder, a couple of siskins visited it and spent a prolonged period feeding away in a delicate manner.  There was one male and one female and this performance has been repeated a couple of times since.  It seems likely they are a pair.

Definitely a pair are the two magpies that are repeatedly rummaging through the prickly bush in the corner of my neighbour's garden.  As they regularly bring twigs, I assume they are nesting but so far there isn't a visible result and they've been doing it for about ten days.  I put a few sticks out on the patio table and some of them duly disappeared.

Today was warm enough to read a book in the summer house and, between snoozes I caught sight of the first butterflies I have spotted this year - probably red admirals - and a female woodpecker briefly visited the peanut feeder, the first to be seen for many a long month.

Sunday 26th November

Red Squirrel 

True to my word, I headed for a walk around Castle Loch on Tuesday in lieu of Wednesday's cycling.  As soon as I got out of the car, I noticed a flock of goldeneye on the loch just out from the bowling club, making the sightings of the previous week seem less remarkable. Afterwards I started off by checking out the feeders for a willow tit.  There wasn't one as there was a lot of traffic from other tit family members but I did see a tree sparrow moving around.  I would have got a shot of it as well but this little fellow (right) decided to come along and give a gymnastics display on the same feeder, which of course put everything else off.

Further round the east side of the loch there was this rather conspicuous example of fungal growth (left) that seems to have affected a number of the silver birches, though this was the most conspicuous example. I've no idea what it was.

Unfortunately the weather closed in just as I arrived at the castle and the rest of the walk was a bit of a yomp to get back to the car.  Impressively, it is now possible to walk right round the loch without going on the road except for a very short stretch past the ugly rich houses where the petrol station used to be.

Siskins

As Sunday tennis doesn't seem to be happening any more, I decided to try the same trick today and headed for Castle Loch again.  Unfortunately someone had forgotten to fill the feeders so I decided to head for Eskrigg Nature Reserve, thinking that might be the best alternative for a tree sparrow at least.

Once there of course no willow tit or tree sparrow appeared but I did get nice photos of siskins and goldfinches AND I was particularly pleased to get a not very good one of a treecreeper - not easy as it was constantly on the move. One of the goldfinches seemed to have particularly disinctive black and white rump markings, or maybe it's just a feature of the bird I hadn't noticed before?  The one I didn't get on camera today was the nuthatch, but I've had pictures of them before...

There were also a few red squirrels gamboling around and a lady trying to feed them right in front of her so she could get a close up. One red ran past me, went into her target zone and turned its back on her.

Goldfinch

Treecreeper

Wednesday 25th October

Well into autumn now but daytime temperatures continue to hold up well.

Last Wednesday I stopped off at Lochfoot, where there was a flock of canada geese in the shallows.  It was quite a surprise as most geese at this time of year seem to be barnacles.

Canada geese

The other thing I always notice at the nice viewing platform at Lochfoot is the board with illustrations

Bream or perch?

by the local primary kids showing all the wildlife that can be seen on the loch. Unfortunately one of the illustrations appears to be the result of a confusion as the fish depicted is supposed to be a bream but very obviously has some features of a perch, notably the spiny dorsal fin.  Both fish are present in the loch but there wasn't a separate diagram devoted to the perch.

Anyway, I rolled on down the road and was heading towards Beeswing, when I caught sight of a large bird of prey flying skilfully in and out of the woodland.  It was too nimble to be a buzzard, had a pointed wing shape in flight and a palish appearance.  I suppose the commonsense answer is sparrowhawk but that wasn't my instinctive reaction.  I couldn't say it wasn't a goshawk, just that it would be very unlikely at this time of year.

Almost immediately after there was a fleeting sighting of a bullfinch and a female reed bunting. On the way home I saw a red admiral at Shawhead, but haven't seen one since.

This week, riding to Caerlaverock against the sun I cursed the lack of sunglasses and more especially binoculars as there may have been a few redwing in the trees before the Canine Rescue Centre.  There were however a couple of siskins going up the hill toward the Craigs and another female reed bunting.

Meanwhile back at home, my attempt to attract more interesting birds to the bird table misfired spectacularly, as did that of a young pussy cat.

Probably not the best way to catch a bird...