Staying Close to Home

Finally following a resolution made some time ago, I got out to a couple of locations nearby recently.

Last Wednesday I did a double trip to Thornley Woods and the Far Pastures Reserve.

After wandering around a bit in search of some reported redwing, the hide at Thornley Woods was fairly quiet.

A few tits visited the feeders and I caught sight of a nuthatch and a treecreeper as well as this woodpecker, which was deemed worth a photograph since they don't come to the caged feeders I now use.

Female Woodpecker

At Far Pastures there was a bit more action and I was quite pleased to see a few teal and a family of gadwall, though I think teal is pretty much resident here.

Teal

Gadwall

The first bird I saw puzzled me a little as I took it to be a juvenile little grebe but could not see any parent birds. However it seems to be an adult in winter plumage.

Little Grebe

There was also a good deal of activity around the feeders at the car park.  I hung on for a while in fading light. just in case something memorable turned up.

Today I took a look at Stargate Pond and Beweshill Reserve which was pretty much a total failure as a bird watching trip but interesting in other ways.

I knew that Ryton Angling Club had a location in this area and sure enough there were four or five anglers trying their luck and with some success with the roach, quite impressive in temperatures of only 5C.

On talking to one of them it seems there is a good range of species present including tench and carp. If and when I start fishing again, this may well be where I go. 

It's also not a bad size and, as a former quarry, quite deep.

The positive view was endorsed by this cormorant, the only bird I saw apart from swans and a magpie. 

Cormorant

Sure enough a roach was being landed as I moved away.

My verdict on the venue was that it might be one for the summer.  

In particular the notice boards suggest that a good range of butterflies can be found there including dingy skipper.  Small copper would not surprise me either as they are certainly present at Ryton Meadows a mile or so away.  However I've never seen Stargate Pond mentioned in local reports on butterfly sightings.

I also spent some time on the other side of the main road trying in vain to find further ponds but did spot another marked wildlife area, which may well also be worth investigating.

Butterfly in February

The next time we played tennis, the teal were still on the weir and afterwards we stopped to watch a group of long-tailed tits messing around in the trees and spotted a treecreeper - my first for some considerable while.  I was also sure I heard a bee buzzing around my head at one point but couldn't see it.

Temperatures were rising and the day after (21st February) they were up to 14C so I went for a longish bike ride inland along the Tyne after dropping my car off for a service.

There was another goosander on the Derwent just upstream from Derwenthaugh but it dived for a long time once it saw me and didn't resurface anywhere nearby.  

Then came a big surprise just behind Blaydon station when I got a clear view of a red admiral flying over the track.  I had wondered if there would be any insects but was thinking more of bees rather than overwintering butterflies.  So I notified it to Butterfly Conservation North East and got a message back saying it was the first report they've had this year.

I didn't see any bees but got momentarily excited by a drone fly on ivy while I was having a break at Wylam Bridge.  After midday it clouded over and my attention turned to food.

On a less fortunate note I have decided to stop putting the peanut feeders out in the garden for a while as a number of brown rats have been visiting lately.  A pity as I recently had a one-off visit from a chaffinch and even the dunnocks had started using them.

Friday 4th September

Some of the Naturewatch group did an informal walk around Bolam Lake last Wednesday.  Perhaps relieved to be out again, there was more chatting than spotting.  Apart from tits, we did see a treecreeper and heard a buzzard but that was about all and the main feature was perhaps the scenery in the early autumn sunlight.

Bolam Lake

It was surprising that, apart from a number of mute swans there was nothing on the lake at all in the way of ducks or waders.

A ramble around Chopwell Woods with Malcolm on Sunday wasn't very revealing either.  We did see five speckled wood butterflies and a (probable) common hawker but his dog found a corpse at one point and smelled of maggots all the way to the local pub.  I thought I saw a slightly different carder bee but the camera proved otherwise.

Since I have reflected how frequently you think you have seen something possibly unusual and get the camera out in evidence, only for the target to disappear before you can capture it.

On a bike ride to Belsay during a windless day I was a bit surprised to see a couple of buzzards.  The one on the way back seemed to have red on its tail.  It settled nicely in a tree within camera range and I was wondering if it might just be a red kite, which would have been interesting so far north.  All I can say is that it behaved much more like a buzzard in making its departure.  

The only other thing of note was a grey squirrel scrambling across the road between two farm fields.  A little bizarre.

Similarly in the garden a very slight and slender white butterfly with few dark markings rested on the plum tree and I started to wonder against all the odds about a wood white.  However it flew off strongly, unphotographed, and was almost certainly just a small white.

Unfortunately, the buddleia is now almost devoid of blossom and it remains to be seen whether it can produce any more sizeable blooms.  So this may be the last small tortoiseshell to visit me this year.

Small Tortoiseshell

A booted warbler, a species of which I had never heard was reported at Whitburn Country Park a few days ago, so I decided to take a brief trip out there, well aware that it would probably have departed.

It had.  However as soon as I entered the park, I did see a wheatear, which obligingly posed on the sign at the entrance.

Wheatear

This is apparently a pretty typical appearance for an autumn female.  As an advert it was though totally misleading, as it was the only bird of I managed to see in the park apart for a couple of pigeons.  Still, it was the only one this year.

Saturday 14th March

After various delays and some help on location from a fellow birdwatcher, I made a successful second attempt to track down the Middleton crane.

On the way down to the river, all I spotted was a good cluster of tree sparrows in the hedgerow to add to the heard but not seen skylarks above.

After scouring around the fields along the Wansbeck to the West of the village, I turned tail and headed east along the North bank,  A few hundred yards along from the wooden bridge there was what looked like an old wildfowling area on the other side of the river.  I thought I heard a sort of croaking noise from the area and was saying something aloud about not knowing what a crane's call was like when it was flushed out from behind the reeds and flew off further East at some speed.

Unfortunately it settled at some way away from the far bank so that after a good initial view, I could only get a couple of distant shots once I caught up.  Then it flushed again and I was momentarily surprised to see that there were two birds.  For a moment I thought it was two cranes, which really would have been something as only one wintering juvenile bird has been reported. However it was apparent that the lead bird was in fact a grey heron, the crane as if in pursuit of it from behind.

Common crane

Crane pursues Heron

This concludes a rather fruitful week.  The treecreeper recently observed in the oak tree out the back paid a visit to the mahonia and, after giving it a work over, did the same on the back fence.  There has also been a sighting of a small brown mouse picking up left over bird food, a brief visit from a chaffinch (not particularly common here) and a quick sighting of a jay on the lane near the old school. And there was a kestrel hovering on the way back to Ponteland today..

Wednesday 4th March

A prolonged period of low temperatures to end winter plus a couple of domestic inconveniences have set a limit on my recent activities.

Unfortunately the latter have included a couple of nature-related issues. A small garden tree with interesting weepy twigs gave up the ghost during the winter storms and keeled over, so there was nothing for it but to chop it up and take it to the tip.

Slightly more distressing was the sight of fluffy flakes descending from the area of my roof. It proved that some starlings had broken through the cladding and were making merry with my loft insulation.  Fortunately there had been no attempt at nesting so it was simply a case of getting the hole blocked so they couldn't get in. I've no idea what they were doing - just roosting or stealing themselves some material for a nest elsewhere but the resulting mess isn't simple to tidy up.

One walking and a couple of cycle runs on better days having produced nothing of note, the garden has pretty much been the total focus of my attention.

The female blackcap appeared once again on the feeders after the mahonia had wilted, but not again, making it unclear whether the mahonia was the main attraction as is my instinct.

At the end of last week there was a sign of Spring when a pair of bullfinches turned up to steal some of the shoots sprouting by the back fence. The male didn't hang around but his partner was more patient and hung around for a while, breakfasting on the buds.

Bullfinch

I think that is the first time a bullfinch has been spotted from my kitchen window,  Then today there was another first when, at distance I caught sight of a treecreeper shinning up the bald oak tree by the burn.

I think there may also have been a visit from a bird of prey.  Yesterday one of the feeders was found on the grass where it had fallen from the pear tree.  I assumed misbehaviour by jackdaws or squirrels as per normal but on closer inspection I noticed that there were a few small feathers lying around.  So it looks like a tit might have been taken from the feeder by presumably a sparrowhawk, or quite possibly a merlin as they definitely occur here.

As they say, I will never know.

Sunday 9th February

Lady Blackcap put in a couple more appearances over the past week, oscillating between the feeders and the mahonia.  The latter is now sadly depleted, which may be the end of her visits. Luckily I did manage to snap this fairly typical and somewhat charming pose. Still rather unclear though, as she tends not to stay in the same place for long.

Blackcap

I also finally managed to get to Wallington Hall, if by a rather roundabout route. The common crane that has been sighted in Northumberland over the past few weeks is actually in the immediate area so I went up for a bit of a scout around.  This proved unsuccessful, though I did with another birdwatcher managed to pick up a few tips about access from a local lady out with her dog.

So I went round to Wallington as a reserve, with the notion that bramblings might be a possibility.  There was quite a bit stirring at the heavily laden feeders over a period of time, including most notably loads of coal tits, a nuthatch and a couple of glimpses of a marsh tit. Initially there was also plenty of chaffinches but I couldn't find a brambling among them.  I noticed that, every now and again, all the birds suddenly dispersed and suspected a bird of prey in the area.  Sure enough, a male sparrowhawk parachuted in right below one of the feeders and started looking around for easy prey.

After he flew off and birds slowly returned, a treeecreeper turned up and, as on my last visit, started to become more of a groundcreeper, picking up sunflower seeds that were lying about beneath the tree.

Sparrowhawk

Groundcreeping treecreeper

So quite a rewarding visit for a fallback!

Thursday 2nd January 2020

A one-off New Year's Day trip to Prestwick Carr proved productive. In fact there were more birds in terms of numbers than I have seen there to date. We started off by almost immediately spotting a large brown bird on a distant gate which, when it took off hovered unmistakeably like a kestrel and reappeared a couple of times during the walk - a great, plump thing it was too.  Further along walking west we got a brief view of a woodpecker.

Near the platform feeders there were really large numbers of birds, especially tree sparrows and occasionally a willow tit as well great, blue and coal tits and the odd chaffinch.  One short-eared owl (presumably) put in an appearance in silhouette flying along above an adjacent hedgerow.

Willow Tit

Tree Sparrow

We knew there was a chance of a genuine rarity as an eastern yellow wagtail has repeatedly turned up on the Carr and we were lucky enough to get directions from two other birdwatchers.  Sure enough it was exactly where they said, in a horse's field scampering around to pick up bits of food from the mud. It had been showing right next to the road but had moved off somewhat by the time we got there, scurrying back and forth on more or less on the same line, with a group of pied wagtails and meadow pipits in the distance behind it.  Probably the rarest bird I've seen in the UK and a really simple sighting.

Eastern Yellow Wagtail

Treecreeper

We looked out for the short-eared owl as dusk fell on the way back but with no success.  There was a single dunnock and we stopped to watch the antics of a treecreeper working its way up and down a gnarly bush. It was the first time I've seen one here and I was a bit surprised to see it on what wasn't a large tree.

There hasn't been much activity on the garden feeders.  I've increased the number of fatballs but basically because I suspect that they are of poor quality and would like to get rid of them.  The case seems to have been proved.  One or two red kites have been sighted, one flying low over Rowlands Gill and another above the garden, being hotly pursued by a corbid.

Monday 4th February

Well sometimes you just get lucky...

Things were looking up a bit in the days after my paltry Great British Bird Watch, as a volley of long-tailed tits started turning up on the garden feeders with some regularity for a few days afterwards and the odd red kite continued to sail by at low altitude.

Then yesterday I had a meeting with a few friends in Hexham.  Having read on the @NTBirdClub twitter feed that a smew and a red-breasted merganzer had recently turned up on the river at Tyne Green, I chucked a pair of binoculars and a camera in the bag on the off-chance there would be time to take a look between trains.

Indeed there was, and when a couple of us got down to the river, who we should bump into but @birderlewis, a fifteen year old lad who had posted the info on twitter and told us that he'd seen both and the smew was still around close to the opposite bank.

I got a snap of a suspect that eventually  turned out to be a female goldeneye.  We foraged around a bit and saw a couple of treecreepers at work, before deciding to see if we could get a better shot of the "smew".

Moving back downriver in fading light, I caught sight of a couple of ducks playing around near the edge of the far bank under neath a falling tree.  A quick check in the binoculars showed they had brown heads and so I took a shot and concluded "job done" we'd found a couple of smew - subject to photographic confirmation as the distance was too great and the light too poor to be certain.

Inspired by this success, I decided to cycle the 20 miles back to Hexham today (against considerable headwind I might add) to see if I could bag the merganzer.  I thought I'd found them but in fact they turned out to be goosanders - as did the photos I took last night.

Still thinking that I was getting merganzers, I took another snap of these four today, only to find on returning to the computer that the one trailing behind is a smew!

Goosanders and Smew

Still I'd never seen a smew before.  As I said earlier - sometimes you just get lucky.

Wednesday 16th January

Wallington Hall

Deciding I couldn't fancy another trip to windy Whitley Bay after snow buntings, I decided to take a run up to Wallington Hall in Northumberland.  A hawfinch was reported there in December but I wasn't surprised not to see any.  Nor did I see the lesser kestrel or spotted crake that apparently have visited lately, nor a red squirrel.. Nevertheless I really liked the place, clearly designed for enjoyment and with a rich variety of interesting features within easy walking distance.

I took a relaxing stroll to the main bird hide, where the birds have been encouraged to come very close and are as a result quite tame.  It was pretty much the normal assortment of species that turn up on feeders, pleasingly including quite a few greenfinches and at one point, a jay flew in and settled briefly on the ground.  One woman thought she had seen a brambling abd I spent a fair amount of time watching the chaffinch flocks without being able to confirm.

The best moment though was when a treecreeper turned up and instead of creeping up the trees, affixed itself to one of the feeders for several minutes. It then surprised me even more by landing on the ground underneath the seed feeder and foraging for fallen crumbs.

Treecreeper on nuts

Treecreeper on ground

I think this must be learned behaviour.  I've never seen a treecreeper behave like this before.

I ended with a quick tour of the lakes in the East Wood, which revealed a couple of shovellers, mallard and a little grebe.

A pleasant day.

Tuesday 8th January

Towards the end of last week, I did a bit of a wander round locally to investigate the red kite trail a bit more and possibly check for further merlin activity, of which there was none.

It was a bit depressing to see how much litter had been dumped on the roadside verge down Spen Lane, all

Tree

things that could have been placed in a recycling bin. You can't hold out much hope for people changing their habits to save the oceans when many still think it's ok to casually dump household waste.

Anyway, what I did see was a treecreeper creeping and a couple of goldfinches, proving that they are in the area even if they don't visit my niger seed.  Then by the bridleway, I caught sight of this tree.  Too white to be a normal silver birch, I'm sure that I've come across it before and noted it in this diary.  But without any leaves showing, I was unable to re-identify it so will probably have to wait until the summer.

Reports of a sociable snow bunting on St Mary's Island led me to attempt another twitch.  In spite of scouring all the grassy areas I could find I didn't see it.  The weather was a good deal less hospitable than had been forecast so it wasn't a day for hanging around for a long period.  I was however glad that I took the trouble to go over the causeway to the lighthouse, when I happened to come across this brent goose working its way through the rocks on the foreshore.

Brent Goose

Like the snow bunting, it doesn't appear much on the west coast so I'd never seen one before I moved.

Otherwise, it was quiet on the inland pond apart from a lot of teal and mallard.  I think there were a few greenshank too, though it was hard to hold the binoculars still enough to tell in the frisky wind.  As the tide started to move in, a few others started to appear, notably a healthy flight of lapwing flying around over the sea's edge.

Monday 10th December

I seem to have been more preoccupied with fitness than nature over the past few weeks.

My attempts to tempt smaller birds into the garden and discourage jackdaws have pretty much failed.  The one thing that has clearly been established is that jackdaws will eat niger seed.  I'm surprised they bother.  Anyway I'm playing more with the idea that the lack of cover since I cut down the larger pear tree (the smaller one is of course entirely bare now) favours the jackdaws more than the woodland birds.  The lack of frost so far might also mean less pressure for them to find food.

Today the Naturewatch group today visited the Washington Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust reserve.  It was fine from the point of view of getting some close up views of domesticated exotics such as the black-headed

Buff-headed goose

swan, buff-headed geese and chilean flamingoes but when we got to the main Wader Pond it was covered in ice and we didn't see much apart from a few moorhens and a couple of snipe skulking in the reeds.

We had lunch in the Lagoon Hide by the Wear where a bit more was visible, notably a number of teal and a redshank until everything was disturbed by a spooked roe dear that was bolting along the bankside.

In the end we probably saw more woodland birds - some redwing on the walkway, a volley of long-tailed tits and a good selection of 'usual suspects' on the very extensive display of feeders in front of the last hide. 

Bullfinch and coal tit

A couple of pleasant extras were treecreeper and a few bullfinches though I never saw anything in the way of a greenfinch, tree sparrow or marsh tit.

Right at the end I did enjoy a good view of a pair of eurasian cranes from the tearoom window.  They were

Eurasian crane

probably domesticated too but as they have started to recolonise East Anglia, they represented in my head a more genuine sighting.

It was quite apparent that there are many more fascinating visitors to the reserve than were around today.

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

Holiday am Bodensee

I cycled round Lake Constanz last week, starting and finishing in Bregenz. This wasn't exclusively a nature trip but I was keeping my eyes open as usual for interesting sightings.

On the first day, I took a detour around a part of the Rhine Delta, which quickly demonstrated that the main duck to be seen was the great crested grebe. There was also some sort of long-tailed pipit that didn't hang around, a theme that was to be repeated several times during the week.  Checking in the books it looked like a paddyfield warbler (Feldrohrensanger) but the location was wrong. Out on the lagoon there were a few reed warblers (probable) on the move

In a way the most interesting discovery was a good look at some long-tailed tits that got quite close when I stopped.  At first I thought they were juveniles, but research made it clear that they are a good deal paler than the UK variety and have almost totally white heads.  Of course, a couple of wagtails I

White Stork

saw were of the white rather than pied variety.

Moving on from the delta to the farmland on the edge of the nature reserve, there were a couple of white storks.  I saw storks in Bavaria seven years ago but this time I got a much better photograph.  I also noticed a nuthatch near Arbon that was tapping on a tree trunk as it fed, almost like a wee woodpecker.

Stopping to watch a guy fish (using maggots under an enormous float) there was a single common blue butterfly.  This was to be a rare occurrence.  The weather most days was overcast and the total butterfly sightings throughout the holiday amounted to three common blues (one female), a couple of red admiral, a few assorted whites and one brown, probably an argos (Mohrenfalter) of some kind.

The second day of the trip from Arbon to Gaienhofen was an almost total washout from a nature point of view as the weather was appalling and I spent most of the day cycling into a storming gale with a German couple.

Maine Coon

Before the weather worsened I was slightly amused to be sitting behind a maine coon that appeared to be looking out to sea near the harbour at Romanshorn.  I decided to photograph it when all of a sudden it atrted making for the harbour itself - the reason being that a fishing boat was coming in.

Fragmentary sightings were a kestrel, a red kite and a panicky treecreeper.  There was also a very dark squirrel that I thouight might be a black squirrel, but they don't occur in Germany so it must have been a 'maroon' red squirrel.

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.

Sunday 30th October

Took my first nature walk for a long time and chose to go around the Threave Castle area.

On the way to the Stepping Stones hide I saw the first goldcrest for a very long time.  It hung around obligingly but I could not get a camera shot that showed it up amongst the tree foliage.  At the hide there was a score of corbids sitting on an island in the middle of the river, presumably rooks.  One or two were stockier than the others and I wondered if they could be ravens.  In any case I have never seen either bird behave in this fashion before.

Whooper Swans

Then three whooper swans flew up the river, not quite fully mature as they still had bits of grey on them.

In the trees just before the castle on the far side, there was a flock of birds foraging.  I had a quick check to see if they were all blackbirds and indeed thought I saw several redwing, though the

Fieldfares and a couple of blackbirds

photo I took shows clearly they were fieldfares.

There were a lot of them in the woodland near the other two hides, but they weren't offering more than the most cursory sighting.  From the upper hide, I saw a tree creeper but not much else and from the lower just a couple of roe deer and a pair of birds in the reed grasses I could not identify. They were behaving like whinchats and flicking their tails but surely it was too late in the season for them.

The weather was still very mild and lots of flies on the wing. Ducks and geese were not to be seen but apparently there have been some pink-footed geese very recently.

Tuesday 29th December

On Sunday in post-Christmas recovery mode, went for longish bike ride from Lochmaben to Sibbaldbie, but saw basically nothing.  In any case I left the binoculars at home so wouldn't have been able to identify much.

Just on the way back into Lochmaben at the very end of the ride, there was a very large flock of geese that had settled on a farm field. With the naked eye, I reckoned they were greylag geese but they were too far off to identify positively or check for interlopers with out the glasses.

On Monday I had a rather better day walking along the paddy line westwards from Mossvale.  There was a jay clearly visible from the car on the back road to Laurieston, and the inevitable flotation of red kites, holding steady in the considerable wind.  I got a close-up view of one of them hovering just by the village as the walk got underway.

Long-tailed tit

I found a new path from the old railway that led down to the Black Water of Dee, always one of my favourite-looking small rivers. In the railway cutting beyond the bridge, a volley of long-tailed tits were working their way through the trees and I was able to follow them for a hundred yards or so, trying to take photos as they became slightly less tame. Also spotted a treecreeper at one point.

But the real purpose of the visit was to suss out the moorland at the end of Loch Stroan for any birds of prey, in particular hen harriers, as this is where Tony reckons he regularly sees them.  I found myself a nice perch on a collapsing drystone dyke and hung around for a while, but the sum total of widelife observed was a solitary meadow pipit and a skulking roe deer. I don't nkow if it's something I've been doing wrong, but this area hasn't proved productive for birds of prey over a number of visits. At times I have the distinct impression there is less wildlife around than there used to be.

Although I continued the walk back past Mossvale Loch, nothing more was sighted. Dropped in briefly at Kingholm Park as a short-eared owl has been seen there.

Black Water of Dee

Another view

Sunday 3rd May

Quite a busy week but one interspersed with interesting sightings.

Had to take new bike for service at Castle Douglas on Thursday, so wasn't much focussed on checking the surroundings on the way there.  There were the usual goldfinches and the odd skylark and after appropriate research I was able to confirm that the wagtails along the military road were not white but pied - today anyway.

Nuthatch seeks Peanut

With a little more time on the way back, decided to break at the place on the way up to the Glenkilns where the birdboxes are.  I mentioned in a previous post that I thought them too low.  As you can see however, it transpires they were probably not for nesting at all.  Someone had filled one of them with peanuts and this nuthatch took full advantage by raiding it repeatedly (see photo).  Several other tits and a tree creeper were also lurking with intent, but only one great tit was bold enough to steal a nut while I was around.

Moving on over the moors, there were a number of meadow pipits playing around on the walls and fences, probably in mating mode, and a fleeting hare, but no wheatears.

A pleasant surprise was to see that the sand martins have returned to their nesting haunt on the Nith just south of the cycle path.  It was a surprise because there was no sign of them when I rode through at 8.00 a.m.  However there were far more on the Wear at Chester-le-Street on Friday when Hilary and I paused during a househunting trip on my behalf.  We also fitted in a quick walk round Seghill Nature Reserve on Saturday where there were a few swallows and big numbers of skylarks, some at quite close quarters.

Tuesday 7th April

Last foray this Easter was a woodland and hill walk from Langholm - something I've meant to do for a couple of years or so.

On the way out past the sports fields, signs were promising with a good deal of birdsong.  The woodland area itself is clearly long-established though and the birds I was hearing were some fifty feet above my head and pretty difficult to spot.  There was a massive pheasant enclosure on the way so I saw easily the largest amounts of pheasants I have ever managed in one go - maybe a thousand immature birds I reckon plus a couple of escapees, not that I was counting.

Did manage a quick sighting of a treecreeper in a windfall area, which was the first for some time but it was with a sense of disappointment that I turned off the path up towards Potholm Hill.  This sense was somewhat increased when I saw how steep it is! The climb was in fact rewarding as there were several meadow pipits active in the near vicinity.  And I also managed to see a couple of the many skylarks heard singing and as ever proving difficult to sight.  It was quite fun to distinguish them from the pipits, which were also indulging in dive-bombing the moor.  Also saw another kestrel hovering for prey just as on my last two bike trips.

I would not have selected the summit of Potholm Hill for my first butterfly sighting of summertime, but sure enough a couple of small tortoiseshells emerged in the temporary sunlight, one of which kindly posed (see photos below).  After that I got a bit lost on the way down from Castle Hill and ended up going through some rough and swampy ground which put an end to nature-spotting activities, apart from one young and alarmed hare that obviously thought I was after it.

I did not see any other birds of prey in the relatively still conditions, or any wheatear in spite of their known arrival further West.  One bird I had expected to see was the stonechat, not for the first time reflecting that they seem to have become much scarcer.  I used to see them regulalry.

Potholm Hill

Spot The Pipit

Summer's First Butterfly

Wednesday 12th March

Plenty of birdlife on the run to Corsock, so decided on a count and reached 20 different species, notably not including red kite and coal tit, which were not seen.  Best sightings were treecreeper and a pair of nuthatches, one of which exhibited a baleful call note that must be typical.  Last two species - goldfinch and long-tailed tit - were both on the Caledonian cycle track and sort of emblematic for the times.  Also saw a single butterfly and mating attempts by buzzards and hares, though not on each other.  Hares were running down the road ahead of me for a time.

Wednesday 1st May

Not much to report over the last fortnight. Last week's Wednesday bikeride took place in wind and rain, making it hard to see anything at all.  Today saw a young deer and a treecreeper plus a bird of prey that Tony thought was a sparrowhawk, though I didn't see much brown on it. Went looking for willow tits at Castle Loch yesterday but feeders have been removed and nothing interesting showing around the castle. Ended up sunning myself.

Have however seen a male siskin in the garden and heard greenfinches on new road. Chiffchaffs now audible most places.