Rude birds and Chance photos

I finally accepted the challenge of a possible twitch.

A firecrest in summer in the south of England or as a passing autumn migrant on the East coast is no big deal but I couldn’t resist tales of an overwintering firecrest near Low Hauxley and duly set off there on Sunday morning.

Immediately on heading past some wasteland I spotted a few curlew and, perhaps overexcited by the prospects of a rarity, took a look at what I thought might be a flock of redpolls. The binoculars showed they were in fact goldfinches but I took a snap anyway.

Shortly afterwards I came across some twitchers and had no problem finding the relevant hot spot near the Nature Reserve.  During the next hour I got several sightings of the firecrest darting around very much in the manner of a goldcrest but, frustratingly without getting it in the lense of either camera or binoculars.

It was only when I looked at the earlier photo that I realised that two of the birds in it were certainly not goldfinches and may indeed have been firecrests!

 Firecrests and Goldfinch 

It was a bit rude of them to turn their backs on me but the head pattern would appear decisive.

While I was waiting for the firecrest to turn up I noticed a number of tree sparrows nearby, who also managed to present a rear view to the camera. No matter, I clearly saw the markings anyway. 

Rude Tree Sparrows 

One of the twitchers had reckoned that there was another firecrest at Druridge (so clearly there have been two in the area) so I decided to take a walk there. It turned out he meant Druridge Pools, which was too far for me so I baled out for a coffee at Druridge Visitor Centre.

Setting off to return I took a look at the bird feeders and fortuitously noticed a marsh/willow tit approaching them.

This time I managed to got the camera out before it turned its back on me.

Marsh Tit

Of course it is a bit of a toss up between marsh and willow tit and the habitat could have suited either. On balance I plumped for marsh tit, noting the pale neck and hint of a mark on the beak. 

Back at Hauxley I caught a quick glimpse of the firecrest at the hot spot before the sun left the trees and I waited 40 minutes in vain for it to turn up again, not knowing what was already in the camera. 

Festive Famine

Not much to report over the Christmas period…

Having told someone I don’t see any chaffinches in my garden, one typically turned up two days later and another, a female was in the plum tree on New Year’s Day.

I spent Christmas at my son’s, where a damaged fence has been caused by a badger breaking into their garden to get at the bird food, exciting much interest from their cats. We did a short walk up Galahill where I briefly spotted a flock of bullfinches, otherwise there were several woodpigeons. 

Last Wednesday, I did a seasonal self-guided walk at Weetslade Country Park, which was quite interesting as it covers a far larger area than you see from the cycle track. We got a good view of a kestrel hovering but a visit to the bird feeder area was disappointing as the feeders were all virtually empty. You’d have thought they’d have filled them especially.

However we did get a nice view of a little egret on one of the wee ponds.

Little Egret

Later it proved there was a pair of them. There is now a nature conservation area and it is apparently possible to find otters and water voles.

The garden has continued to be a haven for tits of all four main varieties when the jackdaws aren’t around, with occasional robins, blackbirds and dunnocks.

Tits

In fact I’ve now run out of bird nuts, so quickly have they been disappearing.

A Cold Snap

I returned to Prestwick Carr a few days later, hoping to pick up some more sightings towards dusk. Unfortunately it was already very dark an hour before sunset and visibility was poor. The hen harriers didn’t turn up but had been about and a willow tit appeared a couple of times, as did a sparrow hawk, stonechat and kestrel.

On the way back it was just possible to pick out a flock of redwings in the trees and this time they were accompanied by a fair few fieldfare.

Earlier on I saw a large brown bird taking refuge behind a clump of bushes. It might have been the woodcock reported by others but I really couldn’t say.

A trip to Low Newton as the weather deteriorated didn’t produce very much but it was fun to see hundreds of sanderling running up and down the beach and the waves came and went.

Sanderling

In the garden, a burst of snow a week ago heightened interest in the feeders. Repeated volleys of long-tailed tits has visited twice a day and all three other tit family members have been particularly voracious.

Long-tailed tits

What interests me is the fact that robins have been coming to the feeders over the past year. I don’t think this is particularly rare but I also can’t remember them doing that beforehand.

Robin

The occasional kestrel has been seen during the bad weather,looking out for prey in the cold.

Improving Slightly

Typically, the day after my previous post, there was a minor invasion of long-tailed tits on the suet balls, which was exactly what I hoped would happen when I put them out in the first place.

Long-tailed tits

There have been a few visits since but only in small numbers.

Otherwise sightings have been unremarkable, having been too preoccupied with other matters to chase up some of the rarities turning up at the coast, notably the pied wheatear that hung around entertaining the tourists at Whitley Bay skate park for several days.

Yesterday was better. I took a ride to the Cheese Factory via a very flooded Prestwick Carr. Disappointingly the feeders at the Carr were empty but there were several suspected redwing around, which I eventually managed to confirm with the binoculars though the resulting photos were poor.

Redwing

On the way out I noticed a couple walking along with a tripod and, sure enough, on the way back there was a small group of twitchers clustered on the track.

The main reason for the excitement was a couple of female hen harriers, one of which showed nicely for a while and I tracked it in the binoculars, getting mobbed at one point by a  crow. There were also several stonechats and a distant sparrowhawk but no sign of the short-eared owl. The redwings had also largely moved on.

But the strangest thing I saw was actually this orange peel fungus growing out of the Cheese Factory building edge.

Orange Peel Fungus

I’ve no idea how common these are but I’ve never seen one before. It was so intricate, I even wondered if it had been sculpted by an artist, possibly from Red Leicester cheese…

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! 

Autumn in Berlin

So it's been a rather long time since my last post declaring the end of Summer.

I've been mainly preoccupied with writing my "Death in Berlin" article (q.v.) following a very enjoyable return there in the middle of October.

Although not out looking for wildlife and without my binoculars, I did nevertheless happen on a couple of interesting sightings.

While wandering through leafy Zehlendorf, I was a little alarmed when an object from a tree landed on my shoulder and several more thudded down onto the roofs of parked cars nearby.  At first I thought they were conkers but a closer look showed it was a volley of acorns.

Clearly on the lookout for them were a trio of hooded crows and one of them was sufficiently interested to come onto the path near me.

Hooded Crow

I think there must be a lot of hooded crows in European cities.  The last one I saw was in Vienna.

Also pretty common on the basis of internet research was this firebug found on the wall of the entrance to the Gents' toilets at the Haus der Wannseekonferenz.

Firebug

While still in Zehlendorf  I came across what I at first thought was a flower but is in fact clearly a shrub.

Mystery Shrub

It looks a bit like a cultivar but was growing freely at the edge of a woodland area.

I'm still searching for answers on that one...

In spite of temperatures reaching 24C on the day in question, I only saw a single butterfly, a white.

The End Of Summer

It has been an ambition of mine for some while to coax the buddleia bushes into retaining enough blossoms past the end of September to attract a few last butterflies.  This year has to go down as a near miss.

A red admiral managed an appearance on the 29th September and there was a large white on the 30th but by today there are so few flowers left that it looks like there is no realistic chance of further visitors.

The last Red Admiral

Frustratingly I can't know if anything turned up in the good weather yesterday as Malcolm and I decided to go to Holy Island, where there had been a couple of sightings of a rustic bunting..

There it was still pretty much summer weather all day but we didn't see anything of great note - let alone the rustic bunting - and neither did anyone else we spoke to.  In fact we didn't see many birds at all in our wanderings.

There were a few sanderling and turnstone plodging in the mud near the pier, the latter seeming to be between their summer and winter suits.

Turnstones

Further along the bay there was a pair of eiders and a heron, but nothing in the Vicar's garden apart from one cockerel lying on a flower bed.

Male Eider Duck

We paused at a pub for liquid refreshment and shared a picnic bench with a number of crumb-stealing sparrows, the one species we did see a lot of, more in fact than I see anywhere nearer home. It was nice to see them close up.

Sparrows

Walking further around the island produced even more sparse results - mainly a stonechat posing nicely and this oversized owl.

Stonechat

Owl

We stopped at the bird hide where there were a large number of ducks on the shallow lake. However identification was difficult against the light and because they all had their heads tucked firmly down. In fact some of them looked like they were completely stuck in the mud. Definitely present were mallard, mute swan, coot, little grebe and probably teal.

It was pleasing not to see any dead birds but we did see this partly exposed human skeleton on the archaeological dig at the sight of a possible mediaeval monastery.

Skull

Presumably it belonged to a mediaeval monk rather than a twitcher who waited around too long for the rustic bunting.