Late Summer Sightings

Long-tailed Tits

The long-tailed tits are still very keen on the suet ball feeder. Typically they arrive in good numbers but are clearly nervy and make off at the least disturbance so visits don't last long.  I notice too that they won't come much if the feeder is well-filled, perhaps fearsome of something bigger than them, but prefer to wait for the other tits to whittle the supplies down somewhat.

Up until about a week ago, large numbers of small tortoiseshells were continuing to visit the buddleia, often eight or nine at a time.  As the buddleia blooms gradually died back, it was possible to see as many as four or five clinging to the same sprig, occasionally landing on the shed or elsewhere to warm up a bit when the sun weakened.  In one case elsewhere proved to be my foot.  This was pleasing as about a month ago a red admiral landed on my shoulder.  I got the photo but accidently deleted it and so had no proof. 

Small Tortoiseshell on large foot

On the 20th,  the buddleia also attracted an early bumblebee queen.  I gather there have been a few on the wing and probably saw one a few days before as well.  On the same day I had been on a bike ride in mediocre weather not seeing much at all and certainly no butterflies.  Having also thought I'd already seen my only painted lady for the year it was bit of a surprise when one turned up on the route past Ryton Golf Club, and kindly posed on the track for a few seconds.

Painted Lady

Alex and Vicki visited at the weekend.  On Saturday we spent a good deal of time in the hide at Clara Vale, hoping that a kingfisher would turn up.  It didn't.  We just saw a little grebe and a couple of moorhens and nothing more to add on a tour of the small Nature Reserve.

The day after we made a trip to Holy Island on what was palpably the last day of the September mild spell.  Although a little too early for spectacular sightings we did manage to see a raven, redshanks, rock pipits, sanderling, ringed plovers, razorbill, cormorant, guillemot as well as a school of seals.

Bar-tailed Godwit

Ringed Plovers

Seals

There was also a little brown job that was in the same area as a flock of pipits but I didn't think it was one.  Awaiting identification on that one...

Lastly, on a quick visit to the Gertrude Jekyll Garden near the castle, we stumbled on my third painted lady of the season.  They all looked pretty fresh.  Perhaps there are more around than I thought.

Another Painted Lady

It's getting to the time of year when I wonder what will be the last butterfly I see.  The latest contender on the buddleia anyhow was this red admiral, found clinging to the last decent sprig of flower in the wind yesterday.

Red Admiral

Lincoln and Back Home

After losing out a bit on Day 2 in Lincolnshire, I decided to swap bike for car to make up for a bit of lost time.

I started at Whisby Nature Park, an attractive if somewaht domesticated venue where nightingales can appear.  I didn't find any though and apart from many speckled wood and a fair few tufted ducks, there wasn't much to see.  One thing that did catch my attention was a duck that looked a bit like a misplaced diver.  It turned out it was a juvenile great crested grebe, looking quite different from the adult form.

Great Crested Grebe

Next I finally made it to Chambers Butterfly Garden and Woods near Bardney, not the most heavily signposted place I have ever come across.  By now the sunny periods were becoming less frequent and although temperatures remained high, overall results were also disappointing.

In fact the highlight was a completely chance sighting on arriving at the garden.  While parking the car  I noticed some feeders at the edge of the wood and a bird a little too pale to be a sparrow visiting one of them.  On checking I think my suspicion was correct and I had accidentally managed my first firm sighting of a garden warbler.

Garden Warbler

The garden itself was very pleasant with plenty of flowers and the standard nymphalidae plus what I perceived to be a female common blue.  I found myself wondering about it afterwards as it seemed too plain.  In this case the camera doesn't lie and it's quite clear it was in fact a tatty male common blue subject to a trick of the bright light that made it look darker.

Common Blue

The walk round the wood was pleasant enough but I didn't manage to see the hoped-for brown hairstreak or gatekeeper which had both been active just a week before, just more speckled wood and the occasional peacock or red admiral.  A very enjoyable bike ride through many villages the day after produced the same plus one more common blue.

Lincolnshire reminded me a bit of the continent in that the vast flat areas perhaps mean that the likes of birds are more thinly spread.  It was also noticeable that much of the vegetation was brown with just isolated flowers.  It was only at the Butterfly Garden and Southrey Woods that there were larger expanses of flowers in bloom.  Ideally I would have gone a week or two earlier in the year but was determined to avoid the school holidays.  One strange thing was that I didn't see ant day-flying moths.

Back at home the tortoiseshells are dominating proceedings on the remaining buddleia.  As the blooms decrease in number they are constrained to occupy less space and I have had as many as four on a single sprig.  They have also landed on a flowering chive plant and on this stray sunflower.

Small Tortoiseshell on Sunflower

On Thursday I looked at a large buddleia just before my train arrived at Hexham station and spotted a single painted lady -- the only one I've seen this year.

Yesterday I went fishing at Horton where some sizeable bream and tench have been caught this year.  It proved hard work and no-one caught much.  I stuck to big fish tactics on the leger but sweetcorn wasn't doing anything and bites on worm were none too frequent.  Eventually worm accounted for a fingerling roach, a small skimmer bream and this angry wee tench which at least put up a good fight.  If they'd all been four times bigger, it would have been a good day.

Tench

My time away definitely did me some good and will need to be repeated soon.

Staycation Time

 As if to prove the wisdom of my last post, a speckled wood came sunbathing on the garden furniture on Sunday but departed again without showing any interest in the buddleia.

Speckled Wood

The same could not be said of the small tortoiseshells, who increased in number as a not especially warm day went on. At one point I counted nine in total on the three buddleia bushes in the back.

Small Tortoiseshells

Apart from (mainly large) whites, only one red admiral showed up.

The day after I set off for planned staycation in Lincolnshire,  Apart from a much-needed change of scenery, I was hoping to find some butterfly and bird species not available on my home patch.

The plan got off to a good start when I rode along the track into Southrey Woods in a heatwave and quickly noticed some brimstone butterflies nectaring on blue flowers that looked like snall cornflowers.  At first I thought they were the pale version of the drimstone but his may have been down to the brightness of the sunlight.  There were about 20 seen in the total time I was there.

Brimstone

There also a good piece of fortune when a single silver-wsshed fritillary started to fly around at speed near where I was having lunch.  Unfortunately it never settled and an attempt to video it in flight didn't come off.  Although I had seen brimstones near my grandparents' house as a kid, that was definitely my first UK silver-washed fritillary sighting,  Also observed were a good number of green-veined whites, small tortoiseshells and red admirals - and this time a couple were feeding near to a peacock - a few small white and a single comma.

There was also a very large fly that looked like a hornet with a yellow hood but I think from facebook posts of similar sightings in Dumfries and Galloway, it is some form of horsefly.

All around the drains there are common darters and I managed to get a photo of one that settled at Southrey.

Common Darter

Things went less well later and on the following day when I was looking for two sites that are known to have the brown hairstreak as I couldn't find either of them!  Apart from a lack of signposting, in one case it was down to a major navigational error on my part.

After seeking creature comforts in Bardney, I decided to ride back very slowly along the Witham with my eyes open and was frankly dissappointed by how little I saw,  A couple of whites, a few swallows and very little else.  It was a bit like the Canal du Midi two years ago.

One minor positive was that I managed to catch an example of the larger dragonflies that crazily landed in a hawthorn bush. It's a southern hawker.

Southern Hawker

I'm pleased with this from a photographic point of view, shot from six metres away in dense foliage.

Red Admiral and Small Copper

A few weeks can make a  difference.

Last Saturday I was in Alnwick again, when we started out on the same dog walk we did last time I was there.  All the meadow by the River Aln had been cut back and as a result there were less butterflies around but in a way it was more interesting as I was pleased to see a couple of small coppers around and another two wall brown showed up as well.  All the other species we saw last time had disappeared apart from the odd meadow brown.

Small Copper

I was well pleased about the small copper as I was starting to think I wouldn't see one this year.  Perhaps they do better later on in the season around here.

There were no butterflies around when we took a walk along the River Wear at Chester-le-Street on Monday after the cricket was cancelled because of Covid 19.  However we did see a couple of very pale looking big slugs, which I thought abnormal though apparently variations in colour are frequent in this species, arion ater.

                                                                             

Arion ater

Things have changed a little in the garden too.  The weather has remained cool and overcast but when the sun has appeared, it has been the occasional small tortoiseshell and red admiral that have been visiting the buddleia bush and not the groups of peacocks that predominated last week.  So my theory that red admiral and peacock are infrequently seen together continues.  The only butterfly that doesn't seem attracted by buddleia is the speckled wood, which occasionally lands on the hedge or shrubs instead.

Red Admiral

Also popular have been the suet balls in the cage feeder at the bottom of the garden, which have brought in good numbers of long-tailed tits from time to time.

Butterflies Strike Back

Peacocks

I certainly spoke too soon in bemoaning the demise of the nymphalidae family in my last post!  It just took a couple of days of decent sunshine and they were out in force on the buddleia and gradually outnumbering the whites - first the small tortoiseshells on Sunday and then the peacocks, which were dominant by Wednesday when not a tortoiseshell appeared.  

Red admirals were however not to be seen, reinforcing my perception that they don't appear much when there are large numbers of peacocks, one of which got up close and personal, landing on my shoulder.

Things got even more interesting on Tuesday morning, when I noticed a wall brown nectaring on the buddleia.  I thought I'd seen it the day before but took it for a comma that disappeared when I investigated further.

Not only is wall brown not a common sighting in this area, I had never seen one on buddleia before.

As if to cap it all, the following day, a comma did turn up and spent a great deal of time gorging itself.

Then the whole thing came to an end and the murk descended again.  Today there wasn't a single butterfly anywhere.

Wall Brown

Comma

All Quiet on the Nature Front

By comparison it's been a quiet couple of weeks with no new sightings.  The often dreary weather hasn't helped.

I've been bemoaning the lack of nymphalidae on my now several flourishing buddleia bushes.  Setting off on a bike ride a week ago on Wednesday, I noticed with envy that there were a couple in a neighbour's garden, since when small tortoiseshell, red admiral and peacock have appeared in mine but very infrequently and singly.  I have yet to see a comma.  It may just be that the best is yet to come but my suspicion is that it is a very bad year for these species.

By contrast there has been a larger number of whites, I think possibly more than most years.  Far and away predominant has been the large white with jut occasional appearances by green-veined and small white.  Initially it was mainly females but males have come more into prominence recently.

Female Large White

One red admiral seemed to prefer the flowery pattern on my rather tatty peg basket to the buddleia.

Red Admiral

Otherwise I've been looking out for plasterer bees but haven't seen any.  I haven't been putting out the peanut feeders in the plum trees as much as I want to give the plums a decent chance to ripen without getting pecked.  However, long-tailed tits and a male nuthatch have visited on a couple of occasions.

Yesterday I was out fishing at Brenkley and never had a bite.  It was mainly an attempt to familiarise myself with the tactics of fishing banded pellet so I wasn't too worried and reckoned a good carp could come along at any time.  In fact no-one caught a carp and there were no definite signs of carp activity so it was probably just one of those unaccountable days when they aren't feeding.

Another New Sighting

One of the buddleia on the front garden has flowered early, inspiring a couple of visits from small tortoiseshells but so far nothing more glamorous.  Peacocks have been non-existent lately and red admirals have been seldom apart from four or five seen on a walk in Cumbria.

Somthing I have never seen before is a jackdaw sprawling out on the lawn.  I thought it was in distress but it had flown off when I went to take a look.  Perhaps it was just sunbathing?

Jackdaw

Anyway the frog wasn't too concerned.

For the Big Butterfly Count I decided to return to Wingate Quarry, being aware that I had made no attempt to keep a tally on numbers when I went before looking for the marbled white.

My totals over a 15 minute sunny period around midday were:

• Marbled White 14 (making my guesstimate of approaching 100 in over an hour last time fairly credible)
• Common Blue 6
• Meadow Brown 3
• Ringlet 2
• Geen-veined White 1
• Large White 3
• Small White 2
• Small Heath 11
• Small Skipper 3

Surprisingly, The Big Butterfly Count didn't require the last two to be reported, which was a bit of a shame.  Marbled whites weren't quite as numerous as last time, when it was often possible to see five or six at the same time.

Although looking very blue in flight, the one common blue I tried to photograph was clearly female.

One photo I did get was a poorish snap of a moth that I have found it hard to identify.

Moth

It looks a bit like a feathered gothic but doesn't seem quite right.

A surprising absentee from my quarry visits has been the small copper.  I also haven't seen a dingy skipper this year.  I did however spot a couple of peacocks at distance on my way back to the car park at Wingate.

Yesterday as planned for a while I took a bike ride to Cambois to see if I could catch up with the grayling butterfly.  Luckily I saw one - by complete chance as it landed right near me as I pushed the bike back from the dunes.

Grayling

One other suspect was spotted on the wing.  Identification on the wing was however a little troublesome as there were a large number of meadow brown about.  I was expecting the grayling to be larger but in fact the one I saw was about the size of a meadow brown, whereas some of the meadow brown were distinctly bigger than normal.

There were again several small skipper and his time I did manage to catch up with a male common blue.

Male Common Blue

I noticed that the land right up to the coast has been acquired by the car battery factory, so hopefully it's not the begiining of the end for the grayling at Cambois.

My latest adventure has left me wondering what butterflies present in Northern England I still need to see.  Apart from the marsh fritillary, which is on the hitlist for next summer the obvious answers would be large skipper and small blue.  The former is reasonably abundant and it may be that I have misidentified it as small skipper in the past.

But the small blue would probably necessitate a major expedition to even find it away from a private site in Teesside.

Oh, and I suppose there is still the mountain/northern brown argus.