Monday 10th September

The last few weeks has produced various bits and bobs though nothing really spectacular.

Towards the end of August there was another visit from the long-tailed to the feeders tits and in fairly big numbers,  I reckon there are seven of them in the photo.

Long-tailed tits and others

Also in the last week of August I tried a bike ride to Prestwick Carr where short-eared owls can sometimes be seen.  I didn't see them but there was a peacock and a red admiral and a number of green-veined whites feeding on the remains of some thistles.  I hadn't seen any for a while and so wondered if they are double-brooded, which it seems they are.  On the next clump of thistles there were more whites but they were almost exclusively small whites, as if some sort of segregation was going on.

Sequoia

On Friday 31st there was a Naturewatch walk along the Devil's Water near Corbridge.  There wasn't much in the way of birdlife around but we got a fair view of a comma sunbathing and there were some funghi and unusual trees.  One was identified as a sequoia.  Apparently treecreepers like to roost in the crevices of the trunk, though I don't suppose they were responsible for leaving a shoe there.

Last Monday I went back to Dumfries.  I spent some time looking for salmon leaping the caul, which I never saw in all my time there and still haven't.  Waiting at the station, I was quite amused by this train-themed flower display (below).  I've no idea what the dangling maroon flowers are but they're very effective.

On Sunday at Riding Mill, my reappearance on the cricket field and early dismissal lead to me sighting a large number of lapwings flying over the fields in the distance.  You couldn't make them out properly from a photo taken on my mobile but there were moments when I reckoned there must be a couple of hundred of them in the air - a far greater number than I can remember seeing before in my adult life.

Flower Train

Today there was another Naturewatch walk from Hagg Bank to the most Eastern of the Spetchells.

Our first sighting was a couple of improbably large pumpkins in the allotment.  By the pond there were three herons resting in the same tree and a few house martins overhead.  Possibly sand martins too, but I couldn't be sure in the conditions.

On a cool, sunless day it was a bit surprising to see speckled wood butterflies out and a couple of blue dragonflies. Also more funghi.

As we got to the chalky areas, we started to find the rarer plant species.  As ever, I couldn't really keep up but there were definitely some yellow wort.  Apparently the italian alder here were frequently used to replant old mining areas as they are fast growing and resistant to noxious soils.

Walking back to the car park at Wylam, we noticed a man fishing with the assistance of a dog.  I don't suppose that it helps the catch much, and if so, that it is permitted by the local Anging Club.

Huge pumpkins

Funghi

Fishing with dog

Friday 24th August

The last week  has been dominated by social events but what I have seen was interesting.

Last week I ended up cycling back from Gateshead along the Tanfield Railway path and took a rather ill-advised shortcut.  This took me along a rough bridle path through farmers' fields but I did get a quick view of a couple of bright male linnets on the hedgerow.

The same day I followed some recent advice and took a look at the viaducts on the cycle track near Rowlands Gill to check them out as possible places to see purple hairstreaks.  The idea is that the height gives a good view into the crowns of some oak trees and two of the three do indeed have oak trees growing right next to them.

The weather was already rather mixed and I did not see any hairstreaks.  A bit like in May with the green hairstreaks, I got the vital information just a bit too late and will need to store it until next year.  What I did see however, somewhat to my surprise, was the back end of a red deer disappearing into the bushes, no more than a mile or so a way from the town.

There has been a drop in temperature over the last couple of days and it has coincided with the sudden reappearance of long-tailed tits on the garden feeders - as many as four or five at the time.  I hadn't seen them all summer so it was a bit of a surprise.  However it does sort of coincide with my memory that you tend to see them more in colder weather.

Long-tailed tits and blue tits

I think some of them look like young birds.

Tuesday 13th August

Again not too much to report...

I went on a walk near Castle Howard with my daughter and her boyfriend on Sunday but not too much turned up in spite of some nice scenery with some impressive oaks and hornbeams. We did get a good view of some blackcaps in a bush (a lot of blackcaps this year?) plus the customary goldfinches and speckled wood butterflies and a momentary glimpse of a hornet.

Lake near Castle Howard

One thing that did puzzle us was this flower which was growing in large fields and was presumably cultivated as a rotational crop. Anyway we couldn't identify what it was.

Mystery crop

Apart from that and the smallest shetland pony I have ever seen, there was nothing further to note.

Yesterday a rather raggeldy looking red kite flew over the estate.  Nothing new has turned up in the garden.

In the evening I went out with the U3A Naturewatch group to look for nightjars near Slaley.  They have appeared there for the last couple of years but it was a rather wet and dark evening and all I saw was a furtive hare at dusk and a few pigeons.  A while after dusk we did hear some churring but at a such distance it wasn't even worth recording.

At the moment I have the feeling of being in a bit of a nature void. Summer is pretty much over and autumn hasn't started.

Monday 6th August

By contrast this week has been fairly quiet.

Yesterday evening I made a trip out to Waldridge Fell in search of the purple hairstreak, which has been sighted there a few times recently.  I did manage to find a good number of oak trees but did not see the butterfly. I found some consolation in my first sighting of the wall brown butterfly this year, basking on a bit of open grassland - plus a couple of meadow browns and the inevitable whites and speckled woods.

There was however a moment of humour later when I headed down a woodland path and saw what I took to be a small brown dog trotting towards me.  Its ears seemed to be getting larger as it approached when it suddenly stopped still to eye me over, metamorphosed into a hare and trotted off casually in the opposite direction.

Otherwise it has been bits and pieces - a red admiral flying over the tennis court or a hayfield and a peacock on a quick walk along the river at Prudhoe.

Peacock

However the main sense of success of the week also came yesterday.  One sprig of buddleia I brought over from Dumfries unexpectedly survived the harsh Spring weather and has produced a single, long flower.  As I arrived home around lunchtime there was a red admiral on it, which I disturbed in passing.  I went into the house to fetch the camera and there was a peacock hanging on it upside down instead.

A satisfying moment...

Friday 27th July

Vapourer Caterpillar

An interesting few days...

In the garden the hoped-for return of the marsh tit has not materialised.  On investigation of the sudden decline of one of my pot plants I was however able to identify the culprit as a rather pretty caterpillar.  I reckon it to be the caterpillar of the vapourer moth, one of the more spectacular varieties.

I think that if I'd photographed it from the side, there would be more red spots visible on its leg hairs.  It has certainly vapourised a large part of the plant in question.

Dry weather has continued but I had to wait until Wednesday before attempting the Big Butterfly Count.

I put in a couple of sessions at the Spetchells and apart from very many small whites, there was a good head of speckled wood, several meadow brown, a sprinking of small heath and ringlets, four green-veined white, two common blue and a single small copper.

On the other hand dingy skipper did not appear and one other suspected skipper could not be identified. On the way there were a few large white by the river but they didn't show on the hills.

On Thursday I did a long walk in Derwentside Park with a friend, when there were scores of speckled wood and a dozen or so meadow brown.  The two most interesting things we saw though were a male bullfinch close up in the undergrowth and a comma puddling where some dogs had been going in and out of the river.  We were also struck by the number of wild cherry trees.

Meadow Brown

Comma

Today I went on a U3A walk at Watergate Forest Park, Lobley Hill, just as the forecast thundery weather started to move in. Again speckled wood and meadow brown were very prominent but the star siting was a couple of holly blues we saw shambling along the hedgerows. One stopped long enough to enable a couple of us to make a positive identification, and then disappeared. There was also a grasshopper - possibly meadow grasshopper?

I did this time catch up with a few small skippers and also a shaded broad bar moth - or so I gather.

Small Skipper

Shaded Broad Bar Moth

Wednesday 18th July

Since getting back from Bulgaria, I have been out on a couple of bike rides. Two weeks back Route14 had plenty of speckled wood, meadow brown and ringlet but I couldn't much be bothered with them after the surfeit of species in Bulgaria.  And on a ride to Corbridge, there was a nice example of a comma as the peleton passed by.

I did go to a meeting of the local Butterfly Conservation Group.  It seems the small copper has had a particularly good year here, which is interesting since I've only seen a couple.  There was also a chap who has seen some aberrant colouration on a small heath and small tortoiseshell, whereby normal colouration is partly replaced by white, like a form of albinism. I forgot the precise name for the condition.

Marsh Tit?

I had seen nothing interesting on the birds front until yesterday morning, when what appeared to be a willow or a marsh tit suddenly appeared in the plum tree, trying to get to the peanut feeder. Unfortunately, the one shot I got of it doesn't help a great deal in further identification and it didn't hang around, put off I suspect by other visitors.  I've noted before that willow tits in particular are easily put off by the presence of other birds, even blue tits.

In this case, however, it was more likely to have been a marsh tit as the habitat is predominantly woodland rather than the damp marshy areas that willow tits frequent.

Bulgaria Day 8

The last day of the holiday threatened to be a total rainoff.

We set off along another upland track similar to the one on Day 3 but it only lasted for half an hour or so. We had seen a sombre tit and a lesser spotted woodpecker and I got a photo of a brown argus before the heavens opened.

A strange butterfly

It looked like it would be in for the day and so we headed for the nearest town to do a little sightseeing instead.  We did see one butterfly there, though not of the kind we had been looking out for.  One of the group needed some dental treatment so we had lunch in town too, which all took a while.

Out of nowhere it then brightened up and so we headed off again, scouring some roadside meadows.  The butterfly sightings started to come slowly but surely and when we entered a small meadow near a river, there was half an hour when they were turning up in almost the same quantities we had experienced during the middle of the week.

We moved on to another couple of meadows towards the end of the day, but things were already quietening down somewhat.

Most were things we had already seen but there were some additions, notably idas blue, sloe hairstreak and eastern baton blue.  I think though the joy at seeing a good number of butterflies on the wing again that was more important than hunting down new species.