Birds and Nomad Bee

Last Wednesday I took the bike to St. Mary's at Whitley Bay where a few birds have been reported, notably whitethroat and sedge warbler.  Although I've seen both before I fancied reacquainting myself.

Whitethroat was no problem at all as one was singing away merrily from a tree as soon as I got to Old Hartley.

There were a lot of sedge warblers around and they could be heard virtually anywhere but unfortunately i could only get shots of more whitethroats and a couple of reed buntings.

Reed Bunting

I have just started using the merlin app to identify bird song and it claimed it had heard an american duck called the Common Loon.  You'd think that was an error however as the hardline twitchers would no doubt have tracked that one down.

L:ast time I mentioned not managing to capture a small nomad bee.  Well this week I managed to get one in a bug box and could identify it as a Flavous Nomad Bee.  Although it can be confused with Panzer's Nomad Bee - and this discussion came up last year - my inclination on the strength of photos was much in favour of the former.  Unfortunately the photographic evidence has been accidentally deleted.

My recently installed bug hotel is now doing a strong trade with red mason bee guests.

Unfortunately they still keep falling into buckets of water and the last one came out so black, I at first didn't think it was a red mason at all.  But as it tried back the colour slowly returned from the abdomen upwards until it finally flew away.

Very wet red mason bee

Today I had another brief sighting of a patchwork leafcutter bee sizing up a large leaf and recorded my first definite speckled wood butterfly of the year.  Normally I would have seen 20 + by now.

Bikes, birds and bees

A couple of bike rides have paid off unexpected dividends since I got back from Scotland.

Riding back from Newcastle a week ago on Saturday, I paused briefly at a small meadow near the the Derwenthaugh Industrial Estate and managed to see a couple of small skippers nectaring on tiny mauve flowers.  This was a nice surprise since - as expected - the bird's foot trefoil was only just starting to show.

Small Skipper

On Wednesday, Kate and I did a run up the coastal track, mainly for the pleasant scenery and a visit to the ice-cream parlour at Amble.

As usual there were a few stonechats and goldfinch around but I was a bit surprised to see a linnet singing right next to the path.  

While we were scoffing the ice creams outside, we noticed that there was a plant growing from between the stones in the yard.  It reminded me of the scarlet pimpernel I used to see in my grandmother's garden in Hampshire - and so it proved.

Scarlet Pimpernel

Its appearance in the North East is classed as unlikely though I guess the limestone tracts in Co. Durham might be a favoured habitat.

On the way back, we found a birdwatcher, who it turned out was observing a whitethroat that was gaily singing from the surrounding trees.

Somewhat surprisingly, the linnet was still in the same area on the way back, just after we had observed some Highland and Galloway cattle, and gamely hung around while I fumbled for the camera.

Linnet

Back in the garden I have finished clearing away the garlic mustard with the expected decline in butterfly sightings.  I've also stopped feeding peanuts for the birds as I got fed up with constant flow of jackdaws snaffling all the food.

However the bees have continued to enjoy the various flowers that are still out.  For a while I was mainly seeing garden bumblebees but now the buff-tailed bumblebee appears to predominate.  Occasionally I have suspected white-tailed bumblebee but have yet to provide the proof.

One bumblebee that I hadn't seen in the garden before was an early bumblebee that turned up on the chive flowers.  And one non-bumblebee that wasn't the expected mason bee was in fact a chocolate mining bee - a species I did once encounter here a few weeks ago.

Early Bumblebee

Chocolate Mining Bee

Meanwhile there has been some interesting bird activity at home.

Young birds have fledged and a series of them have been visiting the garden with their parents to be fed.  Tits often do this and this year the blue tits have been particularly brave, regularly feeding their babies in the plum tree while I am sitting on the decking no more than three yards away.

A new development has been mother and baby woodpecker doing the same thing while I watched from the kitchen.

Woodpeckers

Then the latest was a whole family of greenfinches that turned up on the lawn, as many as five or six at one point.

Greenfinches

On a day trip to meet with family in Boroughbridge, I was interested to note that there is a day fishing ticket on the River Ure.  Someone landed what looked like a pike while we were there.  Further on we happened to see another whitethroat.

Back in the garden the foxgloves are out and attracting bumblebees.  As I suspected, these turned out to be garden bumblebees, the first I have positively identified.  They are keen on foxgloves and have long tongues to reach the pollen inside.

Whitethroat

Garden Bumblebee

This morning while making breakfast, the jay turned up in the garden again and was showing well close to the tree.  I was tempted to run for the camera but would have burned my food!

The return of my bike after a wheel replacement has led to an increase in cycling activity.

On the 12th June, I took a brief trip up the Waskerley Way, hoping to see some butterfly species that haven't been showing up so far.  The only result in that direction was a couple of passing red admirals and a speckled wood.  Once up on the moorland, I did find a bank of bilberry not in flower, a good bit of uncut fern and some advanced bird's foot trefoil but no resulting pollinators. Lapwing, curlew and skylark were around but otherwise the most noticeable feature was the impressive view.

Waskerley Way

The most exciting thing was a momentary sighting of a redstart on the path on the way back down, just after I'd had a close up rear view of a red kite.

On Wednesday I set out from Newbiggin to head for East Chevington Pond, where one or two rarities have been spotted.

Going slowly, I again kept a careful eye on the bird's foot trefoil between Lynemouth and Cresswell but again no common blue were seen.  What I did see was a collection of what I was fairly confident were linnets around a house just South of the first caravan site.  A few turned up later coming back along the dunes but in both cases they didn't hang around.  Linnets are nervous birds.

Stopping at the north end of Cresswell Pond, I didn't really expect to see the spoonbill that had been reported a few days earlier. After returning from inspecting the undergrowth and stumbling upon a red admiral, I spoke to a chap who thought he had seen a little egret.  However another chap with a telescope confirmed it was indeed the spoonbill and I could pick it out in a field on the other side, snoozing with its beak tucked in.  There were some avocets around but I didn't spot them, just a lot of gulls including a little gull.

It was only on the way back in the afternoon that the spoonbill was active and I got a good view of it.  Apart from my visit to Minsmere several years ago I hadn't seen them in this country before.

Spoonbill

Little Gull

Compared to that East Chevington pond was a bit of an anticlimax as all I saw beside more gulls was several cormorants.  At least I got the chance to check out where the hides and approaches to them are.

On the way back more individual red admirals were around, none of them settling.  I counted five by the end of the day.  Again there were a lot of skylarks and several meadow pipits around, on a couple of occasions perching quite close.

Unusually I only saw one stonechat but a nice surprise was a whitethroat on a lone bush in the dunes.

Whitethroat

... Or at least I think it's a whitethroat as I'm still not sure when a whitethroat is a lesser whitethroat.  

On a fitness ride on Friday, I think I may have seen a meadow brown or two, but very much in the passing.

Monday 11th May

I held back on the last couple of items on the last flowery post as I needed to email a friend (and indirectly his Ranger daughter) on a couple of identification issues. Now the panel can reveal that one of the other items was in fact wood spurge.  I should have realised too that the other was wild cherry but had not realised they can grow to 20 metres in height and had therefore discounted the idea.

Wood Spurge

Wild Cherry

Following a lead from my sister last week, I took a longish ride to Weetslade Country Park in the hope of seeing a lesser whitethroat, a bird which didn't feature in Dumfriesshire so I was keen to get a confirmed sighting.

Social Isolation

On the way through Wylam it was amusing to see the effects that social isolation has had on the local population.  I took the road up past Close House to Heddon, seeing the odd white flattering around and a few speckled wood on the cycle track through Darras Hall.

I didn't hang around much until I got to Weetslade and quickly identified the suspect area.  I think I probably did see a lesser whitethroat but it was difficult to be certain, as birds kept scurrying around in the gorse and other bushes. The light was also very bright, making it hard to pick up the colouration well.  So much so in fact that I thought the first birds I saw in the treetops were female blackcaps.  In fact they were common whitethroats.

At one point I definitely spotted a slimmer, brighter bird, which was probably lesser whitethroat but it was so brief that I couldn't register the definite sighting I wanted.  In retrospect, I wish I'd done a bit of homework to distinguish the whitethroats but I hadn't realised there would be so many commons. Other casual sightings were lapwing and skylark, quite good views of both.

I only got one distant photo of a whitethroat at Weetslade, which the bright light made impossible to identify for certain.  Then quite by chance, one popped up at the end of Prestwick Carr.  But this one was clearly a common whitethroat.  Note the pink legs and wing markings.

Common Whitethroat

Green-veined whites have become much more apparent in the garden, and this one settled still for over five minutes on the garlic mustard.  I thought it might be laying but there were no obvious signs afterwards.

Green-veined White

Monday 11th June

Female nuthatch

Of course the day after I complained about the jackdaws yobbish behaviour putting off other birds, a nuthatch turned up on the peanut feeder for the first time, a female.  It hasn't stopped me cutting down on the bird food over the past couple of days, though partly because I've been out most of the time.

I did a bike ride along cycle track 10 to Stamfordham and enjoyed the flatter landscape in the area.  There were some flowers just past Seaton Burn that I at first thought were orchids and haven't managed to identify, again lots of skylarks singing and most pleasingly a male redstart that appeared in some oaks just west of Stamfordham. Plus some sort of maple I wasn't totally sure about.

I held off reporting this as I knew that the Prudhoe U3A Nature Watch trip to Hawthorn Dene near Easington was coming off today, a venue that is known to be rich in wildlife because of the magnesian limestone geology (dolomite).

This inevitably lead to a profundity of less common flowers being seen and frankly I really did find it more or less impossible to keep up with the sightings.  We certainly saw some bee orchids and some mouse-ear hawkweed but eventually all the new names just swamped me. I stuck to what I know more - butterflies and birds.

And there was indeed a fair bit to occupy the attention in those areas.  Having not yet seen a blue this year, it was pleasing to see at least twenty common blues at different times and get a decent picture.  I saw my first small heath of the year and managed to get a picture of a dingy skipper (though it was very dingy) as well as a chimney sweeper moth.  I don't think I've seen as much flower meadow in one place for a long time.

Common blue

Chimney sweeper

Dingy dingy skipper

Ogling female kestrel

We did actually manage to get a glimpse of a skylark and an excellent view of a female kestrel, which some people thought was eyeing us up so it could move in to hunt in the same area once we passed on.  I was particularly pleased to see a whitethroat passing through.  There were also sand martins, a few swallows and pipits, a fulmar and a reed bunting.

The general consensus was the area will produce even more sightings in a couple of weeks in view of the delayed summer.

Maybe I will return.

Tuesday 4th July

Busy, busy lately, so this is just a quick summary of what happened on the nature front.

A fortnight ago swifts were flying around the estate merrily.  One bird seemed to be entering the eaves of a house across the road.  I was starting to have ideas of videoing them but the weather broke at the end of the week and I haven't had even heard them screeching since.

That Thursday I had a meeting in Kendal and was surprised to see a grey wagtail hopping around on the pavement in the town centre.  Fair enough the River Kent was not many yards away but I haven't seen one in an urban environment before and if you see a wagtail on country roads. it's always a pied wagtail.

Last Wednesday there was a short bike ride to Ae Forest which I was happy to keep short as I had a heavy cold.  I took my time and looked out for redstarts by the stream just before Amisfield Moor without result in by now downright dreary weather.  On the moor there were a few pipits and a couple of willow warblers to be seen and I also heard a whitethroat on the run down off it.

Just before the crossroads at Ae Forest a large volley of siskins went through the trees, just as a group of fellow cyclists drew up behind.

Yesterday I was at Kingholm Park for other reasons and another mysterious brown butterfly moved away out of the grass just in front of the Pavilion.  That is the third time I've had this experience recently and not been sure what I'd seen, but I'm inwardly convinced it was the same species each time!

Thursday 15th June

Half of June gone and the promising weather of late May has not continued.

On Tuesday I decided that the aubretia's attempt to invade the edge of the lawn had ended in a stalemate of World War 1 proportions and so was pushing it back and cutting the resulting long grass away when a large green frog emerged from where it had been.  This was ironic as I'm sure I had been telling someone I never get frogs in my garden any more.  It hopped off sharpish but no idea where it ended up as I'm sure it couldn't have leapt the wall.

I interrupted the Wednesday bike ride to do a little foray along the Nith south of Kingholm Quay, as one of the butterfly group told me it was quite good for birdlife.

Peek a boo! Baby Whitethroat

It was indeed a most pleasant short stroll.  I got
a good view of a willow warbler, though not a photo. Then there were some grating noises from some birds from an area of elder bushes and dog roses. The culprits were pretty elusive too, but I finally got a shot that suggests to me they were juvenile whitethroats.  That was one of the species my butterfly contact had indicated (forgot the other one!) and it was sort of confirmed when a senior whitethroat appeared a few yards down the track.

I also got a good snap of a song thrush, a poorish one of a goldfinch and a fleeting glimpse of what I took to be a rather pale looking painted lady - can it still have been one that overwintered?

Continuing the bike ride, I took a detour on the way back to go down to the entrance of Caerlaverock Wildlife and Wetlands Trust.  This only produced a nice sighting of a yellowhammer plus one of an otter constructed in lego before I retreated back to the high road in the grips of a major hayfever attack.

Lego Otter

Wednesday 20th May

Nothing really to report last week until last Saturday when I was driving to umpire a cricket game in Cumbria. Following the Hexham road past Houghton Garden Centre near Carlisle, a large, grey flecked bird of prey emerged from a line of trees and flashed off into the open country to the East.

It seemed to me too big to be sparrowhawk, peregrine or cuckoo. The body was sturdy and the wings large.  If it wasn't a goshawk I don't know what it was but, as so often with birds of prey, it flashed across my field of vision in a couple of seconds so there was no way of being certain.

On Wednesday, took a very long bike ride or the way to Gatehouse of Fleet.  Trying to keep up a tempo against the wind there wasn't much time to check sightings but I did see a bird hovering and singing just north of Shawhead.  I suspected a pipit but it came down in a blackberry bush and I was able to identify a whitethroat.  Later I heard a distant cuckoo in the Glenkilns and another way up in the heights past Laurieston Forest.

Kites Circling

Rather tired on the way back I did manage to stop to photograph the red kites (about 50 in total) above the Bellymack Farm Feeder Station. Then I briefly stopped by a stream and saw only my second squirrel since the end of winter.

Passing through the Glenkilns again, I heard and stopped to look for the cuckoo again.  Then I heard a second one near to the road ahead.  Sure enough, I saw it move off as I cycled towards it and spotted it's outline twice more before it found its way into a small conifer forest to the left.

Otherwise all I saw up there was a couple of pipits and a buzzard. Still no sign of a wheatear.

Friday 22nd June - Saturday 23rd June

Bike trip to Fugen and back, not really a nature day but did run over a toad/frog in transit and saw a strangely patterned dark bird going into trees and a tree sparrow outside hotel.

The day after I went back to Fugen as there is a bird trail.  This started out well as quickly spotted garden warbler and several whitethroats but did not really deliver, although did see my first ever black squirrel and watched some swallows feeding their young.

24th June

Day before yesterday bike ride to Penpont via Morrinton.  Bullfinch by station, first sighting for a long time.  Also whitethroat on minor road west of Cairn.  Return journey ruined by heavy rain.

Today RSPB Geltsdale, Stagsike/Woodland Walk.  Nice mixture of habitats.  Surprised to see linnet on farmland.  Black swan and canada geese on lake, then osprey being mobbed, seen from distance on way into woods.  Several meadow pipits and two kestrel.  Female stonechat and, saving best for last, female whinchats near Howgill Farm - another first sighting.