It's noticeable that I haven't posted much recently, for the very good reason that not much has been happening. Continuing wet weather spells have made going out looking for birds on spec unattractive. Usually there are one or two winter rarities turning up in the North East and staying around, but this year not very much at all is getting reported - a couple of fleeting appearances of little auk flocks at least capturing my interest briefly.
I had hoped to see a few waxwings sometime but it's clear there hasn't been a major irruption this year and for the most only single birds have been reported. Apparently there haven't been any hawfinches either, except a good deal further South.
Anyway I participated in the Big Garden Birdwatch again this year. The scores were: Blue tit 5, long-tailed tit 5, 3 each for jackdaw, wood pigeon and collar dove, 2 for coal tit, great tit, nuthatch and bullfinch and just 1 for robin, blackbird and dunnock. There were no sparrows or starlings, which is mostly the case.
I was pleased with the five long-tailed tits, as they've only appeared sporadically this year and a bit surprised that coal tit didn't outnumber great tit, which it might have done on any other day. An odd number of collar doves was interesting, since I invariably see them in pairs.
This was probably the most successful Big Garden Birdwatch I've had here, as in the past they've produced few simultaneous sightings.
Today I got out for only the second lengthy bike ride this year, as the rainy day forecast did not materialise. As a first sign of better times, I saw my first few clumps of snowdrops this year and later a whole bank of them - as well catching a rare hour of sunshine.
A curse upon Chopwell Woods! I keep visiting in the hope that it will produce some reasonable sightings and invariably come back disappointed.
On my last attempt about three weeks back, the main notable event was the almost total flooding of the southern path into the woods from Blackhall Mill.
I only managed to start the walk at all by scrambling through the puddles next to the bushes and the best thing I actually saw were a few clumps of snowdrops by the River Derwent after getting off the bus.
In spite of wandering around fairly extensively through the western part of the woods, it was pretty much like a desert with hardly a thing to be seen and precious little to be heard - just a couple of blackbirds, the odd pigeon and a few blue tits.
Even when I strayed into Chopwell East Field during a burst of sunlight, the only change was a slight increase in the amount of bird song. You would usually reckon to see a squirrel or two somewhere, but absolutely zero - just our canine friends and their captive humans.
A couple of bike rides - to Bolam Lake and yesterday to Corbridge produced nothing at all either.
So once again my interest has been tied to what happens in the garden and nearby.
Red kites have been active over the village and on one occasion right over the house as I drove into the front drive. Coal tits and long-tailed tits have been doing well, the latter being the second most-spotted tit visitor and interestingly both are more prevalent than great tit, which seems to have dropped down the rankings for some reason. A pair of blue tits inspected the nesting box, but as in previous years, did not pursue their interest.
Robins have visited frequently and I noted that two of them were untypically tolerant of each others' presence. Then it became apparent that some mating behaviour was starting and one day I suddenly spotted THREE robins on the gravel within an area just one metre square - but of course it only lasted a couple of seconds or so.
As well as the regular dunnocks, a wren has been seen twice.
Marsh tits have been past occasional visitors - meaning literally once or twice a year - but last week one actually turned up on three days out of four. After several attempts when it proved nervy, |I finally managed to get a reasonable photo of it on its last visit.
Marsh Tit
It hasn't been seen since, but of course that doesn't mean it hasn't been back.
Overall though, my campaign to up the level of bird sightings this winter hasn't been a great success and I'm now looking forward to the return of butterflies and bees over the coming weeks.
Which reminds me that at by this time last year, I had already seen my first red admiral. What a difference a year makes!
A variety of bits and bobs have caught my attention over the past week or so.
A bike trip to Stamfordham didn't reveal much except for a few long-tailed tits and a fleeting sighting of a reed bunting.
A considerable surprise this week was to see a couple of pigeons getting fruity with each other in the birches behind the garden. Surely they didn't think Spring had already arrived? It's been pretty mild.
I often wonder where all the food on the bird table goes to. Usually it disappears when as soon as I turn my back and I tend to blame the jackdaws. The other day I got a pleasant surprise when I witnessed eight or ten coal tits visiting in quick succession and departing each time with a few seeds. At one point there was half a dozen strung out between the clothes on the washing line. Usually it's just the odd one or two. Maybe I'm too hasty in blaming the jackdaws.
Last weekend I was in Dumfries and went with the family to RSPB Mersehead. The weather was questionable and sightings limited as a result. My son wanted to see the barnacle geese, which was as ever not a problem to arrange.
Barnacle Geese
From Bruaich Hide we could see a few teal and wigeon and one of the former was preening itself to reveal the green underwing patch. Unfortunately we had to wear masks which steamed up my glasses and when the young ones went outside for a clearer view, everything took flight.
We moved on to Meida Hide where there was just a few greylags but in time for the starling murmuration, which was pretty impressive and lasted for a good half hour.
Murmuration
I knew there was a murmuration at Mersehead but I thought it was considerably smaller. Comparing it to the one at Gretna/Rockcliffe, I noticed that the birds flew in a broader formation. It was almost as if they were hoovering up smaller groups of starlings. At Gretna, the formation was higher and did not cover such a wide area.
On the Monday I checked out St Michael's Churchyard for waxwings. As suspected, there weren't any yet though the yewberries have started to ripen and blackbirds were eating them. I was interested to see an unexpected nuthatch climbing up one of the walls, and later a song thrush.
On Thursday I took a bike ride from Kirkley to Abbey Mill near Morpeth, where hawfinches had been sighted several days in succession. I was very conscious of the sod's law of binoculars, which postulates that if you don't take binoculars, you will see something of interest in the distance. Sure enough approaching Saltwick, I reckoned I could see some visiting throstles feeding in the fields at about 300m range. Depending only on my camera, I took a few shots to see if I could identify them later - only to then find I'd picked out a group of starlings! From what I could make out from views in flight, I reckoned that the winter visitors were pretty much entirely fieldfares. Probably most redwings are still feasting on berries.
As to the hawfinches, my main aim was to establish precisely where they had been seen. After a bit of a wander I managed to find the twitchers who were looking for them. They reported that there had been no sightings so far. My immediate instinct was that the hawfinches had moved on and, sure enough, no further sightings have resulted. I hope it wasn't my high-vis cycling jacket that scared them... or maybe it was the high-vis leggings of the lady joggers who also passed through.
On Friday I did a walk at East Cramlington Nature Reserve with a friend in the hope of finding some crossbills. In the event it turned out to be more of a survival exercise as we ended up on a muddy track next to a drain. Afterwards we took a look at the well-stocked bird feeders nearing dusk, when I was surprised to see an unexpected bird coyly visiting the feeders. At first I thought it was a linnet but expert advice suggests it is a female reed bunting.
Reed Bunting
I've never seen either species on a feeder before.
Expectations are often disappointed but occasionally exceeded and sometimes you get a nice surprise.
Looking for a walk last Monday, I decided to try Whittle Dene, which is pleasant early in the summer, for butterflies. However it was all a bit overgrown and dry and there wasn't much to see - some whites, a few peacocks and a single pair of speckled wood. It only served to pose the question where all the speckled woods have got to this year, though I've seen a small number since. And no meadow butterflies at all.
So on the Tuesday I decided to be more targetted and headed to the heathland area at Havannah, thinking I should easily be able to see some common blues, dingy skippers and some burnet moths plus a few others. In fact after a single burnet it was the others that made the time worthwhile as blues and skippers were absent, leaving me without a single one this summer.
After thinking there may be no butterflies at all, I started to see some small heath and, after some foraging, three or four small copper. The latter were particularly pleasing as I didn't see any last year when I looked and, come to think of it, I'm not too sure when I last saw a small heath either. I was also treated to the sight of two small coppers chasing each other around crazily, presumably in some sort of mating ritual. I hadn't seen them do that before.
Small Heath
Small Copper
The back end of the week was spent in Dumfries, where the temperature was about 6' higher. We made a little trip out to Mossdale to walk the Paddy Line track briefly. Unfortunately it had been rather spoiled as the Forestry Commission have put down a roughcast road on top of it and the rocks have spilled over onto the roadside vegetation. Target was the scotch argus and there were a few about, if somewhat unsettled. In the end we saw about six, along with a dozen more peacocks and a few red admirals. So it was one expectation achieved. I also had an eye out for the wall butterfly and may have seen a couple but couldn't prove it.
Scotch Argus
Nothing new to report in the garden apart from a young wood pigeon but I have enjoyed watching the juvenile robin gradually acquire his red breast. It's not quite there yet so he's more of a chaffinchy colour just now.
There have been one or two spontaneous nature occurrences over the past few days.
On a trip to Morpeth I had a bit of time to spare and caught up with a goosander among a group of gulls being fed at the edge of the river .
Goosander
Last Friday I was cycling back along the Derwent Valley from the gym and it was a bit of a surprise to see two bullfinches and two jays before anything more mundane turned up. There was also a grey heron above the fish pass near Winlaton so I suppose that shows it must get used, even though I've never seen any sign of fish in the Derwent and only ever one angler.
On Tuesday I finally managed a long-postponed trip to the hide at Clara Vale, which I found after some faffing to be very near the cricket pavilion i use in the summer. I wanted to check whether rumours of a kingfisher being there/not being there were correct.
As soon as I arrived, the kingfisher arrived on a lone branch just ten metres or so in front of the hide. It hung around while I fumbled with the camera and I was still fumbling when it landed briefly in a willow just to the left of the hide window.
For the next half hour or so it rotated around the pond at different points and you could see it splashing into the water to catch a tiddler. Just as it was starting to get dark it again perched in front of the hide and I finally got the shots I wanted. Just before I packed up it flew towards the hide. I momentarily thought it was going to fly in my face before it veered off into the woods to the right. As I got ready to leave I could actually see it front on through the side window of the hide - almost as if IT was observing me!
Kingfisher
Yesterday there was an amusing game in the garden. Grey Squirrel appeared again but instead of making for the sunflower hearts feeder, he started trying to dig up bits of the lawn. I gradually realised he wanted to hide some nuts. The lawn was quite frozen so he had no success until he started at the bit where I had dug in the rescued buddleia. Just before this, one of the thuggish local jackdaws started paying attention and following him around. Eventually the jackdaw sneaked up while he was digging and gave him a nip on the tail before fluttering off towards the decking. Grey Squirrel seemd deterred by this and retired, whereupon the jackdaw moved in and started pecking into his hidey hole. As I didn't see any nuts being buried or retrieved, I suspect there was no victor in this little contest.
It's not only around the house that there have been a lot of squirrels. I saw at least a dozen on a short walk in Chopwell Woods this morning - plus literally hundreds of wood pigeons.
The magpies have continued their nest building efforts. Though at times I was thinking any of the three little pigs could have done a better job, it does now look reasonably stable though not fully visible through the bushes. So far there is no sign of chicks.
Perhaps also looking for a nest site, two or three fat tree bumblebees have worked their way through the garden. More amusing however have been the antics of some of the pigeons as they seek to feed on the ivy berries out the back. One even looked like it was having an ivy bath. A wren has also visited and I got a nice shot of it singing from the 'dreadlocks' bush, so called because I don't know its real name.
Pigeon
Wren
On a bike ride last Wednesday I heard my first chiffchaffs of the year as soon as I was out of High Spen and they are now around in the woods at the back of the garden. Between Wylam and Matfen skylarks were about and on the River Pont in the village there was a dipper that was spending so much time underwater I started to wonder if it was a small duck.
On Friday there was a Nature Walk at Whittle Dene Reservoirs. Quite a few birds were seen but mostly at very long distance, notably wigeon, teal, goldeneye, curlew, cormorant, grey heron and greylag goose.
Towards the end of the afternoon the wind dropped and we did get a few better sightings near the Southern Reservoir. There were a couple of feral pigeons at the farmhouse, a few pied wagtails and a good view of a meadow pipit on the fence. I thought I'd seen a warbler but others disagreed. The best thing we did see was a quick flypast by a sand martin, the first hirondine of this summer. From all that, the only decent photograph I got was this heron.
Some rather mixed recent weather and a need to address my increasing post-Christmas weight have limited my recent excursions.
I rode to Newcastle by bike on Saturday for non-nature reasons but encountered a group of twitchers on the Tyne at Blaydon, one of whom amusingly said they were trying to change a chaffinch into a brambling. I understood - bramblings are like that.
On the way back I cycled up the hill from Rowland's Gill and saw a series of five low-flying red kites between the town centre and Highfield. In between there was a brief sighting of a seagull pursuing a much smaller finch-sized bird. Not something that normally occurs but I supposed it was a dispute over a garden titbit.
On Sunday morning I attempted to take part in the Great British Garden Birdwatch. Gale force winds meant that I spent most of my time twiddling my thumbs and produced a not particularly typical final count of six jackdaw, two magpies, one wood pigeon and one blue tit apart from four unidentifiable seagulls flying high above.
Typically of course a posse of long-tailed titis turned up towards dusk and this morning blue tit, great tit and coal tit all visited the bird table that yesterday had largely been ignored.
Today the red kites were back in evidence again at Rowland's Gill. I had a few minutes to spare at the viaduct when one hovered low overhead offering good views. The resulting mobile phone footage gives an impression of greater distance but it was pleasing when another bird joined in.
A male and a female perhaps?
There was another guy on the viaduct who told me that there were only 36 red kites in the area, but I think that would have been the original release number. Presumably they will have bred.
There has been an outbreak of gang warfare in the garden between the jackdaws and the pigeons. I was surprised to see that it was the pigeons who seemd the more aggressive. Maybe it was a case of size matters.
Wednesday was forecast to be sunny so I rode up the Tyne valley some way past Bywell in the hope of spotting some butterflies. But it was one of those days when the forecast couldn't have been more wrong. It was overcast the whole time and not a single butterfly to be seen. In fact the most interesting thing I did see was possibly this farmer's field full of blue flowers. I'm not sure what they were or what they were grown for but it did strike me as kind of odd.
There were quite a few skylarks singing high up in the gloom and it took me most of the day before I saw one. On the way back along the Tyne, there was an area on the edge of the Spetchells near Prudhoe where trees have been cleared to allow sand martins to nest and there were a few flying about.
By coincidence, the next U3A Naturewatch walk on Friday was to the Spetchells, and this time the forecast was spot on - very gloomy and so I gave up hopes again of any butterfly spotting. One orange tip did turn up just as we set off, but that was it.
Apart from sighting a kestrel above the river, we were soon into flower-spotting. Once again I was straight out of my depth but I did manage to identify a few items as below:
Germander Speedwell
Orchid
Bird's foot Trefoil
There was a bit of argument about the orchid as it might have been an early purple or a marsh orchid. Obviously I couldn't possibly comment. It does seem that there is some hybridisation anyway.
What interested me more was the amount of mining bees that were around in spite of cooling temperatures and a shower. There were holes all over the place in some parts. All of a sudden a moth turned up and landed on the chalk. At first I thought it was a common carpet, but further research proved it was a treble-bar. Quite pleased to have worked this out as I don't normally do moths.
I have now been installed in my new home for three weeks and have been keeping a keen eye out to see what turned up in the garden, which is a good deal more rural than the one I had in Dumfries.
I put some fatballs out in a feeder at an early stage and attracted all three common tits, a couple of robins and a blackbird that managed to get its head through the outer cage.
Once unpacked, I started putting food out on the bird table, which attracted more or less the same plus a regular dunnock, a wood pigeon and a magpie.
Log-tailed tits
On going for a walk around the area, I saw a couple of red kites circling and on a bike ride to Newcastle, I saw a grey squirel run across the road and heard a skylark above the hills and a chiffchaff next to the Tyne near Newburn.
More recently I acquired a caged peanut feeder and, gratifyingly, the first observed visitors were a pair of long-tailed tits that were not part of a larger flock. Then a jackdaw turned up.
It seemed to me that the bird table was emptying rather quickly and after a couple of days, the peanut feeder was lying on the path spilling its contents, so it was getting clear that there was an intruder of some kind. Something was also splitting open the striped sunflower seeds on the bird table and leaving the husks around.
I suspected Squireel Nutkin and was not surprised when one turned up digging in one of my pots before surrying off at speed. The day after it turned up again, shimmied up the stem of the bird feeder and scoffed most of the food. Mystery solved!
That's where all the bird food went!
The day after I saw a red kite quite clearly from my kitchen window. I think they like to circle over Garesfield Golf Club, which is nearby.
So far I have seen one or two bumble bees and a moth but no butterflies, though one or two small tortoiseshells have been reported on nature websites.
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.
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.
