A One Off...

The weather since New Year has discouraged excursions and cycle trips except for the most hardy.

With some reluctance and in need of exercise, I decided to take a walk in Chopwell Woods on Monday afternoon in freezing but sunny conditions.  I always expect the most common form of animal to be seen in Chopwell Woods is the domesticated wolf, and fear that I won't see anything like the amount of things I would see in the garden anyway.  On Monday, this comprised blue tit, great tit, coal tit, long-tailed tit, sparrow, chaffinch, bullfinch (3) and nuthatch as well as robin and blackbird.

This fear was largely fulfilled - just a few robins and tits around until I noticed an area near Victoria Garesfield where some birds were advancing from a patch of evergreens to drink in a small stream that hadn't frozen.

Some distance away using a lot of zoom, it turned out that one of the birds showing flashes of red turned out not to be a robin, but a redwing.

Redwing

Now this wasn't really a one-off as it's clear from what others have been posting that there is an influx of redwing in the area just now.

However, for me it was the first redwing I have seen since I relocated to the North East nearly eight years ago, so for me a definite landmark that made the whole walk worthwhile.

If I'd actually been looking for Redwing, Chopwell Woods isn't where I would have started.

Is November the new October?

I mentioned in my last post that a very late and accordingly feeble sunflower is still trying to grow in the garden. So here it is for all to see:

Sunflower

The point of course is that we would normally have had a substantial frost by now and it looks like we will be into the second half of November before there is one, so it's good to focus in on the flowers we wouldn't normally be seeing.  In fact there are several garden patches where things are continuing to bloom, notably a couple of sweet peas and some survivors from a pack of seed I hopefully spread on one of the borders next to the lawn.

Sweet Pea

Border

Border

There are a couple of hanging baskets still thriving and one or two other bits and pieces.

The trend has continued on my trips out. On Saturday I finished off a cycle run at Wylam on the off chance there might still be ivy bees around.  There weren't but the ivy was certainly still in flower and there were honey bees and a single buff-tailed bumblebee plus an imitator that I haven't so far identified.

Honey Bee

On Sunday I had another trip to Seaton Sluice where I again failed to catch up with the snow buntings.  Here there was a fair quantity of white dead nettle in flower and a few sprigs of what is apparently Valerian (never heard of!)

Valerian

As far as the birds were concerned, there weren't any stonechats this time, but I did find a couple of goldfinch feeding on seed.  Sometimes also you notice something new about a bird that's common - in this case that starlings have some brown wing feathers.

Starlings

Goldfinch

Similarly, what did these sparrows find so interesting about the harbour wall?

Sparrows

Although temperatures will be falling slowly, it looks like the October weather will last for at least another week.

Spain - Day 2

Oh dear, what a catastrophe!

At teatime on day 2 perhaps still jetlagged after getting up at 3.15 am on Monday to make the flight from Stansted, I managed to permanently delete all the photos I had taken during the day including good views of some notable first time sightings.  So all I can do is tell the story of what I saw without the evidence.

The day started well before dawn when we drove a few miles to an observation post at the Southern corner of the lake.  It was still pitch dark but after half an hour, vague shapes could be made out and I used the moon setting on my camera to see lines and lines of cranes in the distance...

The story with the cranes is that they gather on the Laguna di Gallocanta before migrating northwards across the Pyrenees. Each day at this time of year some will make the flight, some will remain and others will move in.  

So as the light improved, they started to move off in increasing numbers, flying straight over our heads in an overwhelming display except for one lone individual that came back.  Someone joked that it must have forgotten something.

We were told that there were around 15,000 cranes in the area on the day but the hotel organised a competition for us to guess how many there would be on the last day of our stay, just before the start of the "crane weekend" when most are expected to make the move north.  The number counted on that Friday was over 27,500, many more than any of us guessed!

Also seen on or the lake were some distant flamingos, shelduck, shoveler and teal as well as calandra lark, merlin and marsh harrier nearby.

Later in the day we travelled around a bit seeing crested lark, several linnets rock sparrow and roe dear. indeed it was going along in the van that led to a spectacular sighting when one of the guides saw two great bustard crossing behind us in his mirror as he drove along!  They disappeared straight away but we caught up with them again by circling around and managed good views. 

Something similar happened not much later when a bird of prey flew out of a tree in front of the advancing van.  Some thought buzzard and some thought marsh harrier but it flew off speedily to a corner of a distant field, where it could eventually be identified as a booted eagle

You can see why I was fed up about deleting the images.

I did manage one photographic capture that evening. In a garden near the hotel there was a bush full of twittering birds, which could only be seen fleetingly as they left and entered the foliage so I tried without much success to video them:

Tree with invisible birds

The Merlin app suggested spanish sparrows but I think not. Bog standard house sparrow is I think the correct answer.  I later learned that spanish sparrow is a more rural species.

Much ado about Sparrows

Since being mislead by the pale starlings last week, I've experienced a good bit more uncertainty - this time about sparrows.

It struck me that there was something slightly odd about a bird I thought was a sparrow. It spent a good long time sitting in the plum tree before finally feeding for a long while at the bird table - not too sparrow-like in itself.

Dunnock

It's the head pattern that troubled me, the rather dark head and white neck band and bib. Anyway google lens thinks it's a dunnock, which surprises me as there's not much flecking on the breast.  I wouldn't normally have much trouble spotting a dunnock.

I'm please to say that a female nuthatch has visited my new caged bird feeder several times over the past few days.  However it makes sure it lands so it's mainly obscured and flies off as soon as I point the camera at it.

Also still at it is the grey squirrel, so there must be more nuts buried somewhere under the lawn.

Where are my nuts?

The sparrow fixation continued when I finally got to Holy Island yesterday, on a day when people generally agreed not much was going on.

The first bird I saw was again motionless in a tree, as if resting, and appeared at first sight to have a yellowish sheen, suggesting perhaps a female yellowhammer or even an exotic warbler...  So I took more photos and tried to get closer.

Sparrow?

Sparrow

Yes, it's actually the same bird.  The yellowish tinge on the first bird is a trick of the low sunlight, the erect posture somewhat untypical and the apparently large beak an illusion.

After a quiet spell, I got another shot of a bird in a tree, largely facing away from me, wasn't sure what it was but thought "Probably sparrow."

Linnet

So google lens thought linnet - entirely possible.

There was however no mistaking the sparrows that decided to assault the remains of my coffee break.  Not many species learn to be so cheeky.

Definitely Sparrows

After the lunch/coffee break - I wasn't sure which - I got what were some quite pleasing results with the camera.

Heading towards the harbour, a call of nature diverted me to the nearby cliffs where a kestrel was hovering.  I tried to video it but it kept moving and then started hovering at more or less head height no more than five yards or so to my left.

Kestrel

So, if you like, I got a bird's eye view of a bird.

In the harbour area I caught up with another ring-necked plover and was particularly satisfied to pick out one of a pair of rock pipits from a well-camouflaged background.

Ring-necked Plover

Rock Pipit

Google lens however thinks the rock pipit is a corn bunting - oh dear, I don't think so!

But probably the best was this pale-bellied brent goose, because of how far away it was:

Brent Goose

You can't see much of the neck stripe because of its head position.  Incidentally that isn't blood in the water but the reflection of the paintwork from a nearby boat moored at the water's edge.

There was just the one.  However the chap at the crab sandwich stall (I was still hungry) reckoned there had been as many as 6,000 but most had gone inland.  Sure enough, when I ventured further towards the causeway, there were 20 or 30 more, including I think some of the dark-bellied variety.

Brent Geese

The End Of Summer

It has been an ambition of mine for some while to coax the buddleia bushes into retaining enough blossoms past the end of September to attract a few last butterflies.  This year has to go down as a near miss.

A red admiral managed an appearance on the 29th September and there was a large white on the 30th but by today there are so few flowers left that it looks like there is no realistic chance of further visitors.

The last Red Admiral

Frustratingly I can't know if anything turned up in the good weather yesterday as Malcolm and I decided to go to Holy Island, where there had been a couple of sightings of a rustic bunting..

There it was still pretty much summer weather all day but we didn't see anything of great note - let alone the rustic bunting - and neither did anyone else we spoke to.  In fact we didn't see many birds at all in our wanderings.

There were a few sanderling and turnstone plodging in the mud near the pier, the latter seeming to be between their summer and winter suits.

Turnstones

Further along the bay there was a pair of eiders and a heron, but nothing in the Vicar's garden apart from one cockerel lying on a flower bed.

Male Eider Duck

We paused at a pub for liquid refreshment and shared a picnic bench with a number of crumb-stealing sparrows, the one species we did see a lot of, more in fact than I see anywhere nearer home. It was nice to see them close up.

Sparrows

Walking further around the island produced even more sparse results - mainly a stonechat posing nicely and this oversized owl.

Stonechat

Owl

We stopped at the bird hide where there were a large number of ducks on the shallow lake. However identification was difficult against the light and because they all had their heads tucked firmly down. In fact some of them looked like they were completely stuck in the mud. Definitely present were mallard, mute swan, coot, little grebe and probably teal.

It was pleasing not to see any dead birds but we did see this partly exposed human skeleton on the archaeological dig at the sight of a possible mediaeval monastery.

Skull

Presumably it belonged to a mediaeval monk rather than a twitcher who waited around too long for the rustic bunting.

Sunday 7th February

Quite an interesting last ten days in a phase where continuing harsh weather has restricted activities to a large extent.

The last walk I undertook in Chopwell Woods revealed only a red kite en route and a sole buzzard on the way out.  Since then the paths have become so muddy that I've restricted myself to walks around the village, seeing just a few goldfinches and sparrows.

What particularly enlivened things was the appearance of eight or ten new little brown jobs at the back of the garden while I was getting dressed on Friday 29th, some venturing into the garden itself.  Having quickly dismissed sparrow and chaffinch as possibilities, I thought I caught a flash of red and wondered about redpoll.  

Once downstairs I could see some flecked breasts and yellow beaks through the binoculars and loosely considered twite.  As numbers decreased I managed to get a few hurried shots with the camera which conclusively proved they were indeed redpoll.

Redpolls

The last couple of years the Big Garden Bird Watch has brought disappointing results so it was pleasing that a couple of redpolls turned up in the trees at the appropriate time and the session was further enhanced by the appearance of a nuthatch and a better selection of tits than normal. 

Then on the Monday of this week, there were at least twenty redpolls systematically working their way through the birches behind the fence, but annoyingly a bit too distant and obscured to get a decent shot of them.  There were a few more on the Tuesday and then no more, the supply of birch seeds having presumably been exhausted.

During this time my attention turned to wondering whether they were lesser or common redpolls.  It appears that some commentators argue that the lesser redpoll is no longer recognised as a separate species, but this has been gainsayed by most authorities somewhat to my disappointment as I don't feel competent to distinguish between the two.  However, various other members of our Naturewatch group have had redpolls in their gardens and the consensus seems to be that there are at least some common redpolls amongst them.  So my guess is that the influx is partly down to an irruption of common redpolls from Scandinavia.

Later on on the Monday I managed an exercise bike ride, avoiding the parlous and overcrowded state of the cycle tracks and saw what I thought was a sparrowhawk but turned out to be a kestrel behaving like a sparrowhawk.  I assume the apparent white wing barring is a trick of the light.  Shortly afterwards a deer bolted across the road a few yards ahead in a state of some panic.

Kestrel

Tuesday 14th May

A fairly inactive spell ensued after my Cyprus holiday as I pursued various health issues and found how frequently health professionals contradict each others' advice.  The weather hasparrs also been quite chilly for the first ten days of May.

Specked Wood

Meanwhile sparrows have appeared far more frequently in the garden than last Spring and there have been fleeting appearances by a woodpecker, grey squirrel, greenfinch, orange tip and the first speckled wood and peacock of the season.

I got out for a lengthy group bike ride on the Waskerley Way on Sunday that was more fitness than nature orientated but did see lapwing and orange tip and again heard a few skylarks.

Yesterday I put my main plan for the month in force by ignoring the Naturewatch trip to the Derwent Reservoir and heading instead for Dipton Woods near Corbridge in pursuit of the Green Hairstreak. A navigational error took me first to the Dipton Mill Inn near Hexham and cost me a pint of beer to sort out as I sought local advice.

On finally reaching Dipton Wood, I began to think the odds were stacked against me as it's quite a large area.  However I eventually decided to stop just past the south western corner on the road to Slaley and walked back looking for a way into the wood.

A couple of "Private Land" signs hinting that intruders could be shot by rifle made me nostalgic for the no privacy law in Scotland before I happened on a public footpath heading east.  At first it didn't look promising as it led up by an area that had clearly been heavily deforested.  But as it got higher there were small bilberry plants nearby on either side, so I started to become more optimistic as bilberry is the food plant for green hairstreak caterpillars in Northern Britain.

Then at a clearing by a neglected stone wall there was a sunny area where the bilberry mixed with a heathery-type plant (note scientific description) and two green hairstreaks flattered along the path towards me and settled.  I felt really lucky to have hit such a hot spot by chance without knowing where I was going.

The hot spot

Green Hairstreak

I walked a fair way up the path and back down again.  Overall, I saw 35 green hairstreaks plus a couple each of speckled wood (photo earlier above) and green-veined white.  The hairstreaks seemd to be settling at least as much on the heather as the bilberry, but in areas where the sun was coming through fully and the bilberry was already well in flower or early fruit.  Several times couples engaged in circling behaviour and overall I had the impression it was effectively early season for them.

Two Green Hairstreaks

The other thing that was noticeable was that almost everywhere was overrun with ants and I encountered the biggest ant heap I have seen on the way back down!

Ant heap

Green hairstreak was a first sighting, so a very successful day.  Now I'll have to think what else to do this month...

Holiday am Bodensee (concluded)

The ride from Konstanz to Friedrichshafen was quite productive.  There was some nice maple trees near the Insel Mainau (which I didn't visit this time) and an assortment of squirrels, some very red and one in particular with an acorn between its paws. The bird selection was about the same but there was another mystifying pipit type bird I couldn't identify on the way to Wallhausen.  The mystery pipit phenomenon happened at least three times during the week and on each occasion the culprit escaped promptly, suspending any attempts at identification.

After a serene crossing to Uberlingen, I was immediately impressed by the place and in particular by the town gardens, where the bright flowers and the cacti really caught my eye - and I'm not generally the sort of person to go overboard about formal gardens.

The cacti at Uberlingen

At the Pfahlbauten Museum at Unteruhldingen there was a large shoal of small perch, clearly visible in the clear water, plus a couple of cruising carp and a grebe you could watch diving to the bottom to pick up weed.

The last day of the holiday was in one way the best in that it was the only day I actually made a couple of totally new sightings.  

The first was going through the Eriskircher Ried, which seemed to have much more going on than the other wetlands I visited and seems to be a hot spot for orioles.  I noticed a lot of squawking coming from some deciduous trees and after some difficulty got a brief but definite view of a woodpecker that looked 'different'.  I'm pretty sure it was a grey woodpecker and my suspicion was substantiated by an old chap I bumped into who confirmed they are in the area.  

I also got a view of one of the many hyperactive nuthatches and concluded they are slightly more slimly built that the UK variety and have a thinner headstripe, or so I thought.  There was also a good view through the binoculars of a jay carrying an acorn it its beak.  At first sight I thought it might have been a bird of prey but these remained few and far between barring the odd red kite... except for one buzzard I briefly observed overhead.

Mediterranean Gulls

Then right at the end of day I stopped at Lochau on the way back to Bregenz, finding a seat at a pleasant looking estuary.  There were a few birds about but notably some small gulls that flew up the estuary to pick bits of weed from the surface of the stream.  I don't normally have much regard for gulls but these seemed more dove-like apart from some minor bits of squabbling.  I was able to identify them as mediterranean gulls.  In German they are known as Lachmowe which, interestingly, gets translated on internet dictionaries as black-headed gull.  It's only by crosschecking the latin names that you can clearly see that this is an error.

But in a way the star bird performance happened slightly earlier when I was resting at Lindau and a cheeky sparrow took a fancy to my plum tart.  I enticed it onto the table but couldn't persuade it to eat from my hand.

Cheeky sparrow

It was a nice note for the last day of a holiday.

After my arrival home I was pleased to note that a red admiral landed on the last remaining sprig of buddleia on 21st September, the latest I have yet achieved.

Tuesday 21st February

Took advantage of some briefly favourable weather to take a trip to Mersehead RSPB Reserve on Sunday morning, although the sun had pretty much disappeared by the time I got there.

The volunteer at reception spoke of some twites having been seen in the treetops near Meida Hide, which immediately caught my attention.  But first I took a quick look at the feeders and bird table behind the office to see what was going on.

On the bird table - greenfinch, sparrow, yellowhammer, chaffinch

There were a few greenfinches around and a female yellowhammer that had me thinking how hard she would be to distinguish from other species on a fleeting sighting. No sign of a tree sparrow though.

So I decided to head for the narrow wooded area near Meida Hide.  However, scanning the trees revealed nothing but tits and chaffinches apart from one single treecreeper quietly going about his business.  Nearer the hide there was a rookery that was far from quiet as the occupants circled around the place. The only other thing to catch my attention was a greyish roe deer casually wandering along the woodland edge thirty yards away but it must have picked my scent and moved off more sharply.

There wasn't much to see from the hide either.  I did pick out a couple of tufted duck (a few of those around just now) and someone else saw a pintail.

Then, heading towards the shoreline, I thought I might have seen what I was looking for as there was a dead tree to the left of the path that had several finch-like birds sitting in its bald crown. The only thing was that they looked to me more like linnets.  It wasn't too easy to tell as it was becoming misty but I was fairly confident I had got it right. One or two birds had some slight reddish colouration and all the ones i checked had grey beaks and grey heads.

The wind was also getting up so I decided against a walk along the beach in the hope of spotting a little egret and doubled back.  The tide was out anyway, which I always think diminishes the number of birds about. I couldn't contact the linnets again but did see a song thrush on the edge of the wood and a couple of reed buntings in the hedgerow.

And of course there was loads of barnacle geese.

Thursday 11th December

Bad weather has all but put a stop to trips out, gale force winds making cycling dangerous this week.

Did attempt a viewing of the Gretna starling roost yesterday after a matinee cinema visit, but only reached Rigg a half an hour after sunset, not having realised that "Mr Turner" was 150 minutes in length.  Apparently Rigg is where they have been settling, although it does seem to vary from time to time.

This morning marked another sporadic appearance of a coal tit around the garden, but more interesting was a strangely marked sparrow I have seen once before.  It has two white wing bars and the first time I saw it I thought for a moment it was a chaffinch.  Perhaps it is slightly leucistic.

This afternoon, took a walk round the Threave Estate, where I was greeted by a wren that was so light brown that I thought it was a butterfly flying across the path in the cold.  Then it sat in the hedge just in front of me like a huge chestnut.

On arriving at Blackpark Marsh lower hide, the whole area was flooded and a first look suggested no birds at all on the total expanse of water.  A second look with binoculars confirmed this, but maybe the birds knew what would happen next.  Contrary to mild weather forecast, a severe storm blew in from the west, turning to hail that was even accompanied by a couple of thunderclaps and sheet lightning.  A flock of barnacles passed by overhead as if disorientated.

Spot the bullfinch

As soon as the storm subsided, birds started to appear but the poor light made it hard to distinguish any colours until I managed to pick out a few widgeon and a several lapwings .  The next thing there were as many as 200 lapwings circling above the marsh, more than I have seen together since the early sixties, when lapwings commonly follwed the plough at harvest time.

Eventually fleeing the hide as it grew colder, I spotted a bullfinch playing in the undergrowth and four dark-coloured deer on the farm field but not much else beyond a few dunnocks, tits and a couple of geese and swans.

Tuesday 16th April

U3A walk to Rutherford Monument at Gatehouse.  First swallows of season (!) sighted on the way back and chiffchaff heard.  Also nuthatch in treetops at Cardoness.

Last Wednesday Wheelers' bike ride was to Caerlaverock.  Mainly chatting so not much seen but did hear skylarks along Craigs.  A couple of strange sightings this week - what appeared to be a harrier overflying the estate and a sparrow being pursued across the rooftops in hawklike fashion... by a wood pigeon.

Sunday 3rd February

Quick trip to Old Graitney to check over Kirtle Water again.  Saw yet another sparrowhawk on the way.  They and sparrows seem to be doing really well.

River was much lower but still very deep.  Lots of rocky stretches on nearside.  No sign of fish and looked a bit daunting today.  There is however a sign warning about casting near overhead power lines.

Saturday 2nd February

Brief trip to Castle Loch, looking for willow tits.  Not seen but did see nuthatch (2), treecreeper (several) and log-tailed tit (up to 50).  Standing in front of a tree and just waiting certainly better than wandering around in the marshy undergrowth, which is bound to make noise. No bird on tree stump today.

Met birder who said he had heard willow tit and last year had seen one at the feeders on the west bank.  This is slightly contrary to info on the yahoo D&G birdwatching group, which suggests the feeders are too near the road to attract willow tit. Had been planning to try West bank anyway and just saw more of the usual range of birds on feeders, but a pleasant day.

Yesterday an excellent view of sparrowhawk in close pursuit of a sparrow across the rooftops while I was waiting for a bus.

Also on my last visit to see mum on Monday this week, two male bullfinches in the tree outside her window.

Saturday 15th September

Did a 'bikebirding' effort round Glenkiln loop hoping to see 16 species excepting crows and gulls (which were strangely absent anyway) rather than trying to actually spot anything.  In the end only 14 as wren repeatedly heard not seen, as were a jay and a curlew.  For the record: wood pigeon, sparrow, chaffinch, house martin, meadow pipit, swallow (loads of), blackbird, chaffinch, black swan, greylag goose, buzzard, blue tit, starling, goldfinch.  Didn't count mallard or mute swan as too common.

The bird target this winter has to be the waxwing.  Next fishing target a river chub.  Research suggests that they are not as frequent on the Annan as they once were, but have come back a bit in the Sark and Kirtle Water.

Monday 7th November

There was also a profusion of sparrows feeding in the bushes outside my mother's place yesterday, and making a major racket.

Today set off on the Glenkilns loop via Terregles and regretted it at first as it was cold and misty.  But the mist cleared a bit before Shawhead and the sun got out. Came across a field full of greylag geese and some canada geese at the back.  Slightly further on spotted a few linnets, although I only eliminated twite after looking in the bird books.  The neck is the best distinguishing feature by the looks of it.

There were two small buzzards on successive telegraph poles on the road up to Glenkilns Reservoir, where there were lots more greylags and canada geese as well as some mallards and the inevitable pair of black swans.

I saw a couple of volleys of long-tailed tits in the trees at the back end of the lake (they are doing well) and, almost to order a few stonechats on the way over the moors, messing around in the dead bracken.  Unfortunately, the weather seemed to get colder again as I went down into the Cairn valley from the tops, so I wasn't for hanging around on the way back.

If I'd named two birds I wanted to see today it would have been linnet and stonechat, so you can't really have better than that. And the bright light over the reservoir and the moorland made for some lovely views - great to be out on the bike again.

One bird NOT seen today or on Friday was the meadow pipit, so perhaps they're all away to the merseland.

It made me think that winter isn't too bad a time with days like this. I think my key targets this year will be twite and waxwing, so that's something to aim for.