Flaming June!

 Well, not so much flaming in the heat sense as flaming June in the cold, annoying, sense!

This month has been a downer after that warmer week at the end of May, so here is a catch up.

In late May a Goldfinch built a nest in the apple tree just outside my home office window. We could watch her weaving the structure together with her finely pointed bill and rounding the cup with her body pushing downwards. By 27th May she was sitting, so we looked forward to the family developing. Sadly, that was not to be because after two or three days she just left the nest never to return. At the same time a poorly looking female Goldfinch was in the garden on the other side of the house. It may have been her, who can say.  

Goldfinch on the nest. Its a shoddy image as it is taken through an old cottage window so as not to disturb her.

  At the beginning of June, small numbers of Painted Lady arrived with half a dozen in a morning passing through the garden and with them a couple of Hummingbird Hawk-moths were seen.

Painted Lady looking a bit dishevelled after its flight from Africa.

Hummer on valerian on our drive.

More unusually, unprecedented in fact, was the arrival of Small Mottled Willow. Before this year I had only seen 3 in my life, but 22 have graced the trap so far in last few weeks. Shame there were no Eastern Bordered Straw that deluged as far north as Tynemouth.

Small Mottled Willow

  Insect migration soon dried up as the wind swung back NW with a colder edge and has been there ever since. Other resident garden and village wildlife included -

 

Large Pine Weevil, a lifer for me and randomly was found in our bathroom. I put it on the valerian before identification so I could get a photo.

 

Pammene aurana on verbascum when it should be on Hogweed...

Nemaphora degeerella seems to be having a good season.

We have 5 Mullein caterpillars across three Verbascums in the garden. This was the biggest of them and its enjoying the plant.

The first of the garden Tree Sparrows are out and about now, with adults taking nest material into boxes to refurbish for a second brood. We also have House Sparrow, Pied Wagtail and Blackbirds all with young. 

Pied Wagtail with fledgling .

Tree Sparrow juvs.

Wacky Wagtails 2

  

Cast your mind back all of three weeks to the 1st of November, Here, and that odd looking Wagtail on the beach at Boulmer. Today the sighting has really taken off.

Mark Eaton posted some images from yesterday that Ross Ahmed picked up on and contacted Per Alstrom ( stay with me, I'm almost there) who replied back to say the bird looked very like a Masked Wagtail x White Wagtail Hybrid. Masked is from Iran and Kazakhstan and such places. 

Needing no further encouragement, I went back on the internet trawling all over for information and images that might confirm our bird. The more I looked the more I sank in a mire of confusion and unknown info.

Some images on a Kazakh website looked promising and one from Dubai posted by Ross looked even better, but none were exactly like our bird. Just similar.

Then I came across a lengthy but readable Dutch paper on the seperation and identification of Pied Wagtail and White Wagtail. It contained some encouraging comments - 

 Wow. If we cant separate European birds that arrive here in good numbers what chance a Middle Eastern vagrant unless it was a field guide example.

And on it goes... these birds are really difficult.

Looking at this image above our bird is score 2. 60% chance it is a Pied Wagtail.Even giving it the benefit and scoring 1, It doesn't look like its come from very far really.

Then we get to upper tail colour. In my previous blog post at the time the dark upper tail made it a Pied Wagtail to me, then I was advised that Masked Wagtail also have dark uppertail coverts. Returning to the paper, there are so many shades of grey rump a kodak grey colour gradation is required to log them all.  

The Dutch paper goes on - 

For some intermediate birds, we do not really know what such birds are; they were collected far outside the normal range of yarrellii. They might be the result of interbreeding between alba and another taxon; in Asia, interbreeding has been recorded with personata, ocularis and baicalensis (Alström et al 2003) (Per Alstrom again) However, these three taxa show grey upperparts and rump (without black) in all plumages. In addition, these skins showed white neck sides like alba, while the combination alba x personata (the most likely type to occur in Iran, and sometimes referred to as ‘persica’) could perhaps be expected to show traces of the dark neck-sides of the latter taxon. Cramp (1988) also reports occasional black suffusion on mantle, scapulars and sides of breast in male ‘alba-like birds’, not only from western but also central Europe far from the breeding range of yarrellii.

So, here we are back to Masked x White Hybrids again, but no one knows what they really are.

When things get this complicated I wonder about making it simpler. If these birds readily hybridise, what would a Pied x White look like? Its infinitely more likely a proposition.

Until I found a page from our now gone great birder, Martin Garner - 

Wacky Wagtails   

Have a look. He and many others watched a bird on Helgoland in 2007 that looks like ours. Like me he considered subpersonata. After some thinking and discussion with top birders like Martin Cade and Gary Woodburn  et al they also provided images like the Boulmer bird, all taken in the UK.

What do these observers think?

They think its a PIED WAGTAIL! Back to my original result.

Oh dear, I think there are some individual creatures out there that will always have us flummoxed and you know, not all oddities are rare birds. Probably best to leave it as 'alba' wagtail sp... or even sub sp...

Pied Wagtails n'that...

The weather at Boulmer this morning was mild and windy from the south, with some rain bearing cloud and odd bright sunny spells.  

We headed north along the shore where it was getting less of the annoying wind. In front of the pub, there was no sign of the Black Redstart but two 'pied' Wagtails drew my attention. One in particular looked to have an unusual head pattern with shadows of the subpersonata race of Morocco. I know very well that Pied and White Wagtails are so variable in the autumn that to claim one of the rare races would mean the bird should be a classic 'nailed on' example and be well documented with photographs, so this bird, was likely just a nicely marked Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba yarrellii .

First impressions of the alba wagtail showing a nice white supercillium and unusually blackish ear coverts with a paler patch below the eye.

A closer look at it, shows it to be a female Pied Wagtail, but even with photos I am unsure of its age?

The blackish rear half of the ear coverts are quite unusual and I can't find any images online to exactly match this bird, but, variability makes things interesting.

Showing the birds right hand side, the ear coverts are not quite as dark as on the left.

The paler mantle has a White Wagtail look about it, but the blackish rump up to the first tertial is a Pied feature. White should have paler grey much lower down towards the tail.

The grey flanks are also a Pied feature. It looks nice and fresh so I suspect its an adult female, a male would show more black above than this. But what about that chequered face pattern? Very nice.

Above - the real article...

These alba Wagtails are very tricky. Is it any wonder they usually get put down as Pied Wag, so without further ado...

This one is an adult male winter Pied Wagtail, showing nice crisp fresh plumage with a primrose yellow tint to the face. The greater coverts all look very white and uniform and the tertials nicely edged white.. 

We continued along 'the front' towards Longhoughton Steel where an errant Halloween balloon flushed a male Snow Bunting from the beach that landed distantly out on the rocks. A Woodcock, fresh in from last nights full moon, lifted from the beach edge around the corner.  Apart from that it was generally quiet though the ever present Stonechats always brighten a sunny spell even further.

Stonechat along the beach edge.

Back at the cars we set up the scopes and checked the beach. As usual the waders were getting a right kicking from dog walkers, but hopefully this might be curtailed soon as there is a new beach scheme coming into operation to protect the habitat and its inhabitants.

This morning there were 31 Sanderling, 100+ Dunlin, 40+ Turnstone, 9+ Ringed Plover, 5+ Grey Plover, 10 Bar tailed Godwit, 1 Knot and loads of Redshank and Oystercatchers. Around the headland were 200+ Lapwings and 400+ Golden Plover.

The only viz mig were a few finches, with 13 Siskin and 21 Redpolls S. 

Offshore there were plenty of Gannets and a few Auks but no passage of note.

So, with another COVID Lockdown looming this week who knows what birding will be available. I am off work from Wednesday for a few days mainly to sort the garden out for winter but with a better looking weather forecast, I might just add another species to my Howick year list to break that record for a second year running...  

Early migration.

On Thursday quite a few people were on the coast looking for the Sooty Tern that unfortunately for those from as far away as Swansea and Barnsley, failed to show. The Barnsley birder came here and back twice! I had a look down on a dog walk and caught up with a few friends for a while before heading back to work. On my way home I was pleased to find the Boulmer Hooded Crow in the field beside our village. It flew off NW and I hoped I could scope it for my garden list but I couldn't find it in the 200+ strong flock of crows on the hill.  Visitors were pleased to see some very close in Bottle nosed Dolphin action as three of them came in hunting, slashing at the water at great speed before continuing north.

Facing north from Seaton Point to Boulmer village.

 

Sunday morning  was spent along at Boulmer. We started early to avoid the tourists. While I waited for John, a Tree Pipit flew low south over Foxton Golf Course, followed by a Yellow Wagtail. Around Seaton Point were reasonable numbers of common warblers. These are local breeders starting to disperse and move south on their long journey. There were 15+ Whitethroats, 8+ Willow Warblers, 1 Chiffchaff, 2 Sedge Warblers with another family still feeding young fledglings. 2 juv Whinchats were with Stonechats in an oilseed rape field. On the beach there were loads of Pied Wagtails, at least 33 with another 10 in the paddock behind the point . As the tide was well out there were no waders on show but 18 Arctic Terns circled around and 8 Goosanders were in the haven.

Loads of juv Pied Wagtails on the beach

Whinchat

Whinchat and Whitethroat

Whitethroat

Willow Warbler

   

After a tea break we headed up to the north end of the village towards Longhoughton Steel. 45+ Dunlin and 7+ Ringed Plover were close in behind the pub. Further along in the flattened corn field, 8+ Yellow Wagtails included the male Blue headed / Channel Wagtail just too far off for a photo. It looked more Blue headed than Channel to me with a darker blue head with white supercillium and a yellow throat rather than white but it is the nature of these hybrids to be very variable.

It was soon lunchtime and the place was filling up with visitors. Time to seek cover...

Different juvenile Dunlins.

One of a Wren family along the wall.

 

Foxton Beach south of Seaton Point

Inland...

Back in the day, when we used to frequent Druridge on a weekly basis, at this time of year the spring would encourage us to go 'inland'. This is not just anywhere away from the coast, it generally means one of about three or four spots - Kielder, Harthope Valley or even Harwood Forest. This week  'inland' meant a drive up to the Harthope, my favourite of the Cheviot valleys stretching from the steep hill called Skirl Naked, up to and beyond Langleeford.

So, no further ado, we took plenty of photos so here is a selection from Sunday morning...

The end of the road. No cars beyond here.

Oystercatcher

Pied Wagtail

Red legged Partridges were all over.

The burn.

Common Sandpiper

Dipper feeding young at nest under tree root overhang.

Grey Wagtail

The Hawsen Burn

Red Grouse

One of three Ring Ouzels

   

Wren on a post.