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...

A Minor Breakthrough

Things have been pretty quiet still - until yesterday.

Last week I had some time on the way back from Matfen on a bike ride, so I did a diversion via Whittle Dene Reservoir in the hope of seeing a little owl, though the few minutes I spent there meant there was little realistic chance of success.  I spent longer at Wylam to check for early run salmon at the fish pass but the river was full and the current possibly too strong for them to take it on.

Then yesterday i took advantage of the next spell of reasonable weather to follow up reported sightings of a slavonian grebe at Killingworth Lake.  As ever there was plenty of activity at the car park end where the ducks get fed and as I moved round anticlockwise I got good sightings of tufted duck (always a favourite) and goldeneye (one single male and a pair) and eventually a great-crested grebe.

Tufted Duck

Great Crested Grebe

Male and female Goldeneye

Eventually, I got to the far end of the lake where the slavonian grebe was said to be, only to be told by a twitcher that I'd missed it by about two minutes...

So I started foraging along the bankside, only to find a couple of greylag geese sailing along.

Greylag Goose

Then, on doubling back to where it had been first seen, there it was again! It seemed perfectly at ease and at times came within a few yards of the bank where we were taking repeated photos, paddling strongly and diving now and again for tiddlers.  It wasn't a first sighting as we encountered several breeding on a loch near Findhorn when I was there with V&A - but I certainly would not have expected to see one at Killingworth Lake. I was also surprised that there was only one of them and still in winter plumage.

Slavonian Grebe...

...in close-up

The above shots were taken when it got close to.  You can even see the drops of water on its back from diving.

Buoyed by success, I decided to try my luck at Clara Vale hide, where a green woodpecker had been seen a few days back.  A young lad was there already and said that though he had occasionally seen the green woodpecker, it had been an extremely quiet day with no notable sightings.

But as he was speaking, he caught a partial view of a little egret the other side of the island. Sure enough, it emerged briefly to allow a few photos before being frightened off, probably by some playing squirrels.

Little Egret

I think you can just about still see a fish in its beak.

Then it began to rain and we downed tools.

Meanwhile, there have been sightings of a white-tailed eagle at East Chevington. I ignored them at first, thinking it was probably a juvenile seeking territory and would move on quickly.  However it seems it has stayed on for at least a few days...

A miss and a hit

The long-tailed tits have continued their massed attacks on the relatively few suet balls still in the garden feeder.  I reckon the maximum number seen at the same time was eight, though things can change pretty quickly as this video shows:

Long-tailed Tits

Elsewhere my third attempt at the grey-headed lapwing at East Chevington drew  another blank.  The trouble with this bird is it doesn't keep its appointments.  Like an unreliable employee, it turns up three of four days in a row then throws a sickie and wasn't sighted at all on Friday.  All the signs were good with a healthy clutch of twitchers peering over the suspect field but an hour later all had left bar me.  All I got was a couple more distant fieldfare sightings and a suspected redwing that turned out (I think) to be a song thrush.

Fieldfare

Song Thrush?

It was bit hard to tell as the low sun was casting a lot of shadow and focusing was quite tricky.

In complete contrast to the absent lapwing the equally rare white-billed diver at Druridge Country Park  proved highly reliable.  Also one you will not find in your Book of British Birds, it has been described as the most photographed bird in Northumberland and ended up performing its stunts pretty much in front of the touristy cafe.

White-billed Diver

It's also a bird that generally does not favour fresh water lakes. 

Apparently it doesn't get on well with cormorants and I noted that the male tufted ducks were going round together in solidarity.

Tufted Ducks

New Year Bonuses

The pattern over the rest of the festive period has been for restricted sightings but with the occasional bonus prize.

I did a quickish walk around the QEII with a friend when there was very little to see in the way of ducks or waders but a single herring gull turned up among the swans at the hotel end.

Herring Gull

For a while I did wonder whether it might be a different gull but the expert opinion was 'third winter herring gull.'  So there!

I spent New Year with V&A in Crawford, driving there in pelting rain.  We didn't get out the next day but Alex got a great shot of the Northern Lights!

Aurora Borealis

I hasn't to add I didn't get a thing and it wasn't even visible to the naked eye.  But pretty good considering we weren't further North.

On the 2nd we managed a trip to Airds Moss, which looked very promising but seeing anything following the sudden temperature drop and in an almost total lack of wind was hard going.

A heron flew along the valley at one point and, thanks to Alex's supreme spotting skills, we picked out a flock of goldfinches feeding in some distant trees, although getting a decent shot of them was a different story as they hid behind the withering catkins.

He then managed to spot a good number of distant fieldfares feeding near a large collection of molehills. Again, getting at a decent view was difficult, this time as they were at considerable distance.

Goldfinch

Fieldfare

Just to prove there were more than one each:

Goldfinches

Fieldfares

This was however the first time I have seen any fieldfares for a very long time, so worthy of note. As far as I could detect, no redwing were present.

A couple of days ago I made a visit to Whittle Dene to check for a little owl but it looks to me that some of the cracks in the wall where it supposedly nests have been filled in.  

The fishing lakes were pretty clear apart from a couple of mallard, gulls and a couple of tufted ducks a very long way off.  

A little investigation up the back of the nature reserve proved fruitless.

Yesterday the snow came down heavily and there was a frenzy of birds at the feeders.  At last the long-tailed tits participated fully and there were five of them at one point attacking a nearly empty suet ball feeder.

It wasn't the best photo, but the little things don't stay still for long!

A Bag of Mixed Surprises

On the whole you could say not much has happened over the past couple of weeks but just occasionally something did happen that I wasn't expecting.

Last Sunday, I returned to the QEII as a female smew had been reported for two days in succession.  I couldn't find it over a two hour session but did spot a juvenile red-throated diver at considerable distance, and there have been no reports of them for a while.

Juvenile Red-throated Diver

Numerous gulls and tufted ducks turned up and I wasn't surprised to spot a couple of great crested grebes near the bank. But another distance shot of a mystery item hanging around with the mallards had me scratching my bird brain for answers.

Great Crested Grebes

Mystery Item

Hungry Mute Swan 

It was probably some sort of hybrid.

Similarly I didn't see the apparently injured whooper swan, which hopefully wasn't accepting bread offerings from the irresponsible tourists at the motel complex. 

But while I was checking a reed bed for the smew, this mute swan decided to get up close and personal. It was clearly begging for food and I could easily have reached out and stroked it.

Thinking of another mute swan I had seen earlier that was sitting motionless by the path and looked in poor condition, I decided it was best not to lay hands on the King's property and moved on.

In any case the last time I got anywhere near as close to a swan while fishing as a kid, it was hissing at me and threatening violence.

The trend to slightly unexpected but not monumental sightings in the garden has also continued.

Last time I mentioned the occasional visits by nuthatch, woodpecker and blackcap and the set was complete when a marsh tit visited the nuts last week, albeit briefly.

Nice surprises also were the appearance of a song thrush, which doesn't happen often and the fact that a pair of bullfinches, which usually lurk shyly around the back fence picked up enough courage to come and visit the peanut feeder.

Song Thrush

Bullfinch Pair

In fact Mrs Bullfinch has visited again today.

Surprise and Disappointment

 As expected the buddleia hasn't lasted into October well enough to have much chance of attracting further butterflies, as just two or three reasonable sprigs remain.  The last red admiral to visit was sighted on 24th September.  Perhaps surprisingly though, the penultimate visitor on the 21st was a one-off comma.

Comma

Holly blue sightings did manage to rise by one, making a presumed final total of 14.

On Friday I finally got round to manage a planned visit to Hammerlands at Moffat (now apparently The Green Frog) to see if I could catch a trout on my father's old fly fishing gear.  Unfortunately most of the lake was heavily weeded and I didn't catch anything - and neither did the other two visitors on the day.  I did however manage to see some hefty looking trout but most were moving around at considerable speed and seemed disinterested in any offerings.

Staying over with my son in Crawford, we then got out for a birdwatching trip to Lochwinnoch RSPB  that proved my theory that you will often see nothing interesting until you are on the point of giving up.

Although it was a pleasant walk, there wasn't that much birdlife around, the main items noted being shoveler, heron and long-tailed tit plus some distant views of goldeneye.

Goldeneye

One interesting section was the boardwalk to the Peel Tower, where there was an abundance of himalayan balsam.  We noted several bees and wasps nectaring on it, all of which seemed to have white markings on the thorax.  I wondered if the first one we saw was a rare bee or if some kind of disease was prevalent.  We eventually concluded that it was in fact pollen from the balsam as it affected all of them, including honey bee, carder bee and buff-tailed bumblebee.  Attempts to photograph it were  in vain as the marking simply doesn't show up well.  This was my best attempt:

Buff-tailed Bumblebee

On a nearby lake, we did manage to add great-crested grebe and tufted duck to the list for the day.

Tufted Duck

Great Crested Grebe

Giving up on further sightings, we headed for Lanark where we bought fish and chips, which we decided to eat at Lanark Loch, mainly because it is a known carp venue.

Leaving binoculars and cameras in the car, we found a bench near the water and opened up the chips.  It was no surprise when a couple of swans came over but they were then followed by up to 20 gulls we couldn't immediately identify.  It turned out they were bonaparte's gulls, an occasional migrant from North America.  Fortunately, Vicki managed to record this first ever sighting for me on her mobile phone.

Bonaparte's Gull

Exciting Springtime Sightings

 Starting with a bit of bad news, I found this dead great tit in the garden last week.  

Great Tit

I sort of assumed that it had crashed into the summerhouse, but on inspection it seemed to have a wound on its upper breast so maybe got nobbled by something.

Yesterday, I went on the first big trip of the year with son and fiancee to Leighton Moss, which provided a sufficient parade of sightings to justify even the £9 entry fee for non-RSPB members.

We saw a good number of marsh harriers flying at considerable height, which surprised me a bit.  On previous occasions in the Netherlands and at Leighton Moss before, I'd been used to seeing them flying low looking for prey.  Often they were in groups of two or more so I supposed that it was some sort of pre-mating routine, disturbed by occasional buzzards.  Anyway, I was delighted to get a photo of one in flight with my pocket camera, even though it wasn't brilliant.

Although we didn't manage to see one, we did hear numerous bitterns booming, which was a first time for me.  I must say 'booming' is a bit of a misnomer.  As one of the signs pointed out, it sounds much more like someone blowing over the top of an old-fashioned glass milk bottle.

Also not seen was the bearded tit.  We hadn't really expected them to show at this time of year although apparently they are still around.

One bird that is present is the ring-necked duck and I thought I might have seen one at distance from the tower.  In fact it proved to be just another tufted duck.

Shortly afterwards, heading for lunch I spotted some small red fungi next to the path.  I think they are called scarlet elf cups.

At the last hide we visited there was a view over several bits of land sticking out into the water, surrounded by various ducks.  A group of twitchers reckoned there was a water pipit working its way along one of them.  Unfortunately, try as we might, we couldn't confirm or deny it as a sighting as the photos we took of the wee bird were all too blurry.  Apparently it had been identified earlier by someone using a powerful telescope, so presumably correctly.

Overall, there were just too many photos to post individually, so I've amalgamated them together in  brief video.  Unfortunately there is no background music as that now costs extra from Microsoft!

A pause in the action...

I'm not too sure why but I've seen remarkably little of note recently.  Perhaps the mild weather has meant that local birds are still finding plenty of food without visiting my garden.  Also I'm maybe just not so tuned in to looking out for birds above as more in the habit of looking down for bees and butterflies.  That's not to say there aren't plenty of interesting visitors stopping off on the Northumberland coast and makes me think that I must time my visit to Holy Island a little later next year.

Having failed in an attempt to see the subalpine warbler at Tynemouth on a bike ride two weeks ago, I thought things would change in the garden when I started putting out suet balls again but there was virtually no response when I hung them in the same location as last year.  Even yesterday I noted there were still a couple of bees around but various attempts to find an ivy bee have failed and only produced wasps.

One more promising note is that, for the first time in a while, I have seen an occasional coal tit coming to the feeders, and a robin has started to investigate the suet balls.  Otherwise it's been hedge-to-hedge jackdaws with the occasional blue tit, great tit or dunnock.

A brief walk at Chopwell Woods two days ago produced the usual - i.e. virtually nothing heard or seen apart from three grey squirrels.  

I had been lined up to go on a U3A visit to St Mary's Island today but had to cancel because of a domestic issue.

Slightly better was a bike ride yesterday.  Having got to Hexham without finding in the countryside except a rabbit and a big roost of chaffinches near the Tyne, I decided on a detour via Whittle Dene Lakes on the way home.  Here, alarmingly, two waters were closed because of blue algae, which seems remarkably late in the year.  However, there were a few cormorants, a single lapwing in flight and a kestrel hunting as well as a few canada geese and tufted ducks.

Unfortunately none of these resulted in a successful photo.

Which reminds me that I did very nearly get a good picture of a young kestrel perching in a nearby tree  last Tuesday - until it saw me! 

New Sightings

Not a bad past ten days even if the bird rarities aren't showing up in the numbers they were last year.

A week ago on Monday I decided to finally walk a stretch near Gosforth Golf Course, where I knew ring-necked parakeets had once been seen.

A few hundred metres after the start, an old chap with a crutch stopped to chat and told me that parakeets are often in the trees in the area where we were standing, but weren't there today as he would have heard them squawking.

I can't have gone on fifty yards before I did hear squawking and could make them out in the trees overhead, about four in total I reckoned This was a fair slice of luck as hardly anyone else I encountered muttered even hallo unlike most areas I visit.

For the rest of the walk I didn't see anything much beyond a few goldfinches even though I ventured into a North Tyneside designated ecozone, which was actually a rather unpromising strip of land sandwiched between the North end of Longbenton and an industrial estate.

On the way back I was wondering what else I had hoped to see and came to the conclusion it was redpolls, which turned up in some number at the end of last January.

Anyway, the parakeets were still in situ in the same couple of trees when I ended the walk and seemed to be pretty static, not crashing around all over the place like when I saw them in Brussels.

Ring-necked Parakeet

This was the first time I have seen a parakeet in this country.  They are in the region but not in anything like the numbers in the South East.

The day after was a bike ride to Belsay, when I heard skylarks for the first time in a while and spotted a yellowhammer in a hedgerow.  There were also a couple of buzzards, a kestrel and a probable sparrowhawk.

I tried a walk round Shibdon Pond at the weekend, an area that always strikes me as attractive but doesn't produce much of interest.  Apart from large numbers of barnacle goose, I did manage to spot some shelduck and tufted duck on the pond itself.

Shelduck

Tufted Duck

The other thing I have noticed in the past few days is that a robin has started visiting the peanut feeders, not something that I've ever seen before as far as I can recall.  I'm wondering if it's something they've learned from the numerous tits..  The winter has so far been mild so you wouldn't think food was in especially short supply.

Friday 7th May

 As if to prove my point a minor extreme weather event hit the area not long after I finished the last post.

Spring?

There were a few rolls of thunder, a flash of lightning and the village was suddenly bombarded by a heavy strafing of hailstones at least the size of marrowfat peas, which quickly covered the roads and gardens.  Who'd want to be a butterfly in that? 

Today a fortunate set of circumstances led to a more fortunate outcome.

I was supposed to be going cycling but my friend cancelled.  A recent cricket injury to my thigh was feeling tight anyway and I was worried I might do myself more harm than good by getting the bike out.

At breakfast I noted that a yellow wagtail had been reported at Bothal Pond and a ring ouzel at Nebiggin.  So I decided that chasing them up would be a healthier thing to do with not too much walking involved.

Flukily I turned up at exactly the right location at Bothal, as what was in fact a black-headed wagtail turned out to be in a horses' field on the other side of the road from the pond. An extensive band of twitchers had already custered by the hedge.  At first all I could see was a couple of swallows.

Amusingly the wagtail was spending its time following the horses to pick up whatever they were turning over in the field.  At first it was favouring the horse furthest away but when a woman entered that part of the field it switched horses and came gradually nearer.  Meanwhile one of the twitchers drew my attention to a wheatear on a dungheap and a couple of horses came over as if to ask what all the fuss was about.

Wheatear

At times the wagtail got really close to either end of a horse and on one occasion, looked like it was in danger of being eaten by one.  It was as if it was a matter of luck that the bird was hungrier than the horse!

Black-headed Wagtail - with horse

Among the twitchers there was some talk about a mockingbird having been seen but I decided to move on to Newbiggin to see if I could catch up with the ring ouzel. Before I moved on a quick glance at the pond revealed some tufted ducks, lapwing and greylag geese, so relative small beer.

At Newbiggin I missed my way slightly trying to find the path to the links when a couple of women in a car stopped to ask me what bird everyone was looking for.  I assumed the ring ouzel was meant but they showed me a picture of another large gathering of twitchers at a rather run down looking location.

I got to the relevant bit of waste ground just off the main street where apparently the bird had been showing all morning before moving off.  It then reappeared briefly on someone's shed just long enough for me to get a hurried shot before disappearing again.

Mockingbird

I waited for half an hour eating an apple but it didn't show up before rain moved in ahead of forecast.

Overall it was a remarkable morning.  The black-headed wagtail does turn up in Northumberland but is one of the rarest wagtails and the mockingbird was several thousand miles away from its normal haunts.  Plus it was complete chance that I found out it was at Newbiggin.

I owed both sightings to the activities of twitchers, who in particular pointed out where to look for the wagtail.  But another mystery must be:  What an earth inspired someone to check out a piece of waste ground in the centre of Newbiggin in the first place?

Monday 8th March

Recent paucity of nature news can be blamed on poorish weather and continuing lockdown, hopefully better is soon to follow.

A slightly bright nore has been offered by several appearances of a male nuthatch in the garden and, on one sole occasion that of a woodpecker.  Yesterday I planted some wild flower seeds at the back of the garden as it is only now that frosty nights are starting to look less likely.  Part of the thinking here is that the copious amount of garlic mustard that used to grow in the same area hsn't yet appeared.  Maybe I was too radical when knocking it back last summer.

I've done a couple more walks in Chopwell Woods, whose main success lay in finding further routes that avoid the heavily-used car park and ice-cream van.  During the first one, there was at least some birdsong to be heard and evidence of jays in the trees, but that was all apart from a grey squirrel, the odd robin and a single wren.  Last week the second one was a return to the baffling near total absence of birds.  I can't understand it.  You'd think among so many trees there'd be treecreepers and even a crossbill or two.

One thing I did come across on the way in was a heron on nearby farmland.  This evokes the question I wondered about often in Dumfries.  Why do herons visit farmland in winter - to seek out worms and insects or because of fishmeal compost?

Heron

This one is obviously next to some flooded land but I can't imagine it would hold fish and it seems to be looking elsewhere.

More interesting was a visit with Malcolm to check out some of the lakes maintained by Wansbeck and Cramlington Angling Club during a brief warmer spell.  Walking up to Milkope Lake there were a good number of skylarks in the fields.  They were flying low in pairs rather than soaring alone and it looked like this was some sort of pre-mating activity.  On actually reaching the pond, a good number of people were fishing and catching small stuff.

On Horton Lake nearby, one elderly angler took about half an hour to land a near 6lb bream on fine pole tackle and a visit to Brenkley Lake established that it had recently produced a 19lb carp.  We've taken out membership and I hope to report on some fishing activity before the end of the month.  I had wondered if it would soon get warm enough for butterflies to be seen early but the weather quickly deteriorated over the weekend

A bike ride the Monday after started in mist temperatures of 3C rather than the anticipated 9C but at least led to the sighting of a group of tree sparrows huddling in a tree,  I was out riding again today in warmer but windy weather and did get a closer than usual view of some tufted ducks at Bradley Pond on the way home.

Tufted Ducks

Tuesday 22nd December

It continues to be a period when I'm seeing more activity in the garden than on my trips out.

A trip to Holywell Dene only revealed a few tits and a walk at Wallington Hall some more tits and a single nuthatch.

Long-tailed tit

However my garden nuthatch still visits the bird table often, and several long-tailed tits often appear though generally just for short raids.  Coal tits are still the most frequent visitors, ahead of blue and great tit and the larger birds.  Wren, dunnock and blackbird have all turned up plus the 'not quite right' greenfinch (see previous two posts).  The long-tailed tits have started feeding a good deal on the fatballs, which have been neglected right through the autumn period for whatever reason unless I had removed them from the feeder and put them somewhere else.

There has also been a surprising first - a goldfinch.  Although common locally, I've never seen one in the garden before.  Overall, it seems the shorter days and the need to feed intensively around the middle of the day is the main cause of the increased traffic.  

On Saturday I did take a trip to Swinsty Loch in North Yorkshire for a socially-distanced walk with daughter and fiancé with slightly better results, starting with a good view of a red kite over the village as I set off.

The walk around Swinsty Loch is advertised as a gentle stroll on a gravel path.  Unfortunately the youngsters had decided instead on a hike through the moors to Badger Dyke Loch, which unbenown to them proved to be a tour of the local swamp grounds and quite hard on both lungs and legs.

However we did happen on this couple of peacocks on the way.

Peacocks

They were wise to shelter in the little hollow as a full-scale pheasant shoot was underway at Badger Dyke Loch.  Apart from dead pheasants we managed to see several score of wigeon at the peaceful end of the water and a handful of tufted duck on the way back down the other side.  In the fields a few fieldfare and redwing were around without showing too well.

To be honest I was slightly disapponted by the wigeon as I had thought I had spotted some pochard in the group.  At least I felt well-exercised and wholly justified in not doing any exercises at home the day after.