Today Part 2....

This afternoon reached a mad 17 degrees. A summers day in February.

In the Village Wood, a sallow was covered in Honey Bees and a single Buff tailed Bumble Bee. A Red Admiral was my first butterfly of 2012.

Into the Pond Field, the track was peppered with Toads, 70+ with more in the pond. 90% seemed to be squeaking males. 

 The one above tried to death grip me into submission but failed...

The newly cleared channel into the pond seemed to be the favourite spot for the amorous amphibians. On the way back, 4 Frogs were in a ditch, only the second time I have seen Frogs here in three years....

Raptor Fest...

Peregrine, top, mobbing Buzzard ( looks like a sea eagle in this pic!)

Peregrine, top, over 4 Buzzards.

Walked over the back field towards the heugh first thing.

I was pleased to see 4 Buzzards in the air together, just hanging in the wind, when suddenly, a Peregrine came in from the south and was having none of it. Determined to stop their fun, she dived at them a few times before boredom set in and she moved off north, leaving the sluggish Buzzards to get on with it.

No sooner had the Peregrine gone, 3 Kestrels came out of the wood nearby and began displaying and calling. It was nice to see 8 raptors sharing airspace in the space of a few minutes.

A pair of Grey Partridges and a pair of Reed Buntings were in the marshy field corner, and a Grey Wagtail was on the burn in the village....

Somewhere else...

Yesterday we took a trip west to an upland area, other than that frequented by many other birders in the region, to look for Goshawks.  

We arrived far too early as the birds don't get up and about usually until after 11am, but it was a lovely morning and the Skylarks were singing. Three Roe Deer, a doe and two year old youngsters, gave a great show, with the young leaping up and butting each other like lambs, in the morning sunshine.

Pairs of Crossbills flew here and there, calling, with odd ones in song, but difficult to hear above the Siskins and odd Redpolls. A pair of Buzzards lazily soared over head. 

Cranberry

The blanket bog habitat here looks great for plants and I'l be back in the summer to check for Large Heath butterfly and dragonflies. It looks ideal. A new plant for me was this tiny Cranberry. The creeping plants were all over the sphagnum moss, but very few still had berries. I wonder why they are red? Tiny and on the deck, I cant see them being plundered by Fieldfares thats for sure....

On the moor we heard a Gos callng briefly then moving silently into the wood. No luck here then.

So returning to the car, we drove behind the same wood just in case, when bang on cue, a male Goshawk 'butterflied' out and just over the tree tops then over the road.

After stopping the car roadside, it was a scrabble for optics. If I had gone for the camera I might have taken a reasonable shot, it was that close, but I decided to be greedy and grabbed the scope instead. I'm pleased I did, as the bird was banking over into the sunshine where a good amount of detail could be seen instead of the usual distant silhouettes.

The male's flight technique must have worked because a massive female came up to join him in circling for five minutes before she sank back to the forest and he drifted off west. The display scattered hundreds of crows, pigeons and Lapwings to the horizon.

A brilliant show.

Its springing up...

Its very mild tonight, 11 degrees. Shortly after dusk I rescued 4 Toads from the Howick lane end as the headed across to the pond field. Two didnt make it. A Pipistrelle was flying about the village, and Ive caught my first of several hundred Hebrew Characters in the garden...

Brilliant!

A cold morning, with a -1 degrees start at 8am. The day was crystal clear with bright sunshine.

John came to collect and we took a short jaunt up the coast as far as Beadnell.

At High Newton, a nice pair of Kestrels were sunning themselves outside a quite obvious nest hole in an old ash. This species has been much in evidence this last few weeks with hovering birds seen all over and today was no exception. I think I saw 7+ individuals this morning.

At  a quiet Newton Pool the rarest sight was Jimmy Steele and Colin Bradshaw in the hide briefly before heading off to have kippers for breakfast....10 Goldeneye and 10+ Teal were the only things of interest on the pond. The beach was slightly better with 3 Grey Plover, 14 Bar tailed Godwit and 3 Purple Sandpipers with commoner waders. My first Gannets of the year flew north offshore.

We then moved to the north end of Beadnell Bay and walked south as far as the Long Nanny burn mouth.
A nice flock of duck were sheltering in the lee of the harbour wall - 47+ Goldeneye, 3 Red breasted Mergansers and a good few Eiders. Another wader roost on the rocks gave us the finishing flurry with 11 Dunlin, 8 Purple Sandpipers, 3 Turnstone, 1 Ringed Plover, 24 Oystercatcher, 10 Curlew, 10 Bar tailed Godwit, 1 Redshank and 1 Grey Plover.

It looks like the weather will be turning very mild later this week, so if the wind drops there may be some moth trapping...

Spidering

A week ago I took this spider from our kitchen ceiling. It had been there since before Christmas with its small web in the corner. I thought it might need better 'habitat' and placed it in the shed.

Anyway, after a quick scan on the internet, it is, I think, a species called Zygiella x-notata or the Missing sector Orb Web Spider.

The gobful of a name intrigued me so another five minutes on't'internet gave away the secret of its unusual name. It is an orb web builder like the garden spiders we all know, but this species is one of a group that leaves a segment out of the 'orb web'. I have seen this before but thought the web had just been damaged.You live and learn....

See the missing sectors....

Moles...

I forgot to mention this earlier. How common are Moles near you?

Up here in North Northumberland its unbelievable how abundant they are. Around Alnwick and everywhere else for that matter the landscape is pock marked with small mounds of excavated earth. Some of the best fields seen today had tens of thousands of hills in them. The land literally ploughed by the short sighted velveteen gentleman in black.

Some main road verges are demolished, and I cringe when I see the damage and imagine what people with manicured lawns must say.

In our garden we have one and about 10 of his hills. I dont hurt the Mole but I try and 'deter' him by sticking a garden fork or metal spike in the ground and hitting it with a trowel or something when I walk by to disturb his efforts...It usually works and moves him into the wood out of harms way.

Next time I'm out I'll try and get a pic of the most damaged areas....

Chip carton...

Another week passes with scarcely a salute to Blogger...but, at least, as the evenings retreat things can only get better.

Today was quite pleasant out with JWR to do the WeBs at Branton Pits. Mostly the ponds were frozen but a good few wildfowl were keeping the margins liquid - 110 Wigeon, 31 Tufted Duck, 39 Teal 16 Goldeneye, 29 Coot, 22 Mallard and a few Mutes Swans. Two Dippers were singing and displaying along the river, a different pair and site to the ones recorded last time here.

As it was a dull still day, photos were a non starter.

After lunch back home, as we headed to Alnwick in the car, our favourite appeared on the roadside again - Ermine! In the same spot as last time, on this occasion it stood up in the grass and leaves looking for all the world like a chip carton discarded into the dyke. Fortunately on seeing the car it jumped around the hedge base and hid from view. I hope it doesnt end up as stoat pizza....

Female Blackcap.

After a bit of a blogging break, I thought it high time I got back 'into the saddle'. Last week, despite having a good Sunday out with Hooded Crow, Great Northern Diver, Slavonian Grebes, Long tailed Ducks, Barnacle Geese and Greenshank, I just couldn't get motivated to write about it. It was a dull cold day, and I didnt get any photos or any sketches so I just left it at that.

Today turned out much nicer. An icing sugar coat of snow, plus a clear blue sky and some warmth in the sun raising the temperature to 7 degrees placed springtime at the end of the tunnel.

A walk from home down to the burn moth and back via the coast turned up a good few patch year ticks.Mostly just day to day stuff that remained elusive but my first Meadow Pipits and Pied Wagtail of the year ( another portent of spring days), a female Blackcap on the feeders all weekend, a ridiculously tame Pale bellied Brent Goose grazing on the Rumbling Kern cliff top were all well appreciated.

7 Lesser Redpolls, 3 Grey Plovers, 1 Bar tailed Godwit and 9 Purple Sandpipers also made a worthwhile day on the district. 

PB Brent.

A Grey Seal pup lying on some barely accessible rocks looked at first as if it might have some net tangled on it, but closer investigation showed it just to be sleeping in the sun. Down to four feet it looked in a shabby way, only breathing shallowly, and I thought it was to become Great black back fodder. As I kneeled to take the pic below, one eye opened, then the other and the startled youngster barked his disdain at being woken up at the ungodly hour of 11am on a Sunday morning. Not wanting to face the teenage wrath further I left him to go back to kip until the tide rose...

Now, if that is the end of the snow, my first crocuses and narcissus have just opened in the garden so can we just let spring get on with it...please.

Late for work...

Its sometimes good to be late for work. This morning I was running a half hour or so behind schedule, and with a fallen tree reported to be blocking the route south via the coast I headed west towards the A1.

and this is what I saw for my trouble -

An absolutely pristine fully white Ermine scuffling through the base of the roadside hedge at Littlehoughton.

I spent the two very cold spells in 2010 looking for these in drifts of snow. When the snow melted I felt sure there would be Ermine to see against the dark brown leaf litter, but all I managed were two semi-ermine, almost white but with a hint of stoat about them. Now, in a mild winter with scarcely a flake of snow this turns up. I see a few  Stoats around here and have seen three or four in recent weeks but all nice russet ones. I never considered the appearance of a ghost-stoat!

It just goes to show, you never know what you will find next.

My highlight of the year so far.

Sunday morning...

I would like to say that I regretted not bringing the camera today because I missed the shot of a lifetime, but no, as it happens, it wasn't really needed.

The wind was blowing a strong WNW but at least it stayed fine.

I picked John up at 8am to go over to Branton Pits to do the WeBs count.

On arrival, a flock of geese were resting in the field south of the caravan site. There were 6 Russian Whitefronts, 12 Pinkfeet, 4 Canada's and 193 Greylags. Two Stoats were seen, one very well as it ran through the car park near us, pausing briefly. A good start then.

A suprising number of wildfowl were well scattered, taking shelter in inlets and bays out of the gale.8+ Goldeneye included displaying males, 7+ Goosander plus assorted Teal, Mallard, Tufted and Coot. A Kingfisher found a warmer spot in the sun in the lee of some rushes to its liking.

Along at Hedgely, more wildfowl were on with another hundred Greylags and 74 Canada Geese plus 72 Mallard. A pair of Dippers were displaying on the river.

Nearer home, at Alnwick, we stopped to check out the reported site of Butcher's Broom but failed to locate the site let alone the plant. Not to be beaten, some ferny type things on the wall proved interesting . Harts Tongue Fern and Maidenhair Spleenwort were familiar being found on walls around Howick, but a few Black Spleenwort were identified later on at home, a new species for me (but its not hard really, I've never heard of the thing before!)

Cool...

Our village from the south east.

A bit nippy on Sunday morning, -5 degrees, up to about 3 degrees by lunchtime. The bonus though, was the crystal clear sky and bright sun with no wind.

A walk down the Long Walk and back by the coast was mainly uneventful again, but a few new species were added to the year list - 1 male Sparrowhawk was hunting near the frozen pond, observed by the swans, bored of standing on the ice, 3 Golden Plover flew S at the burn mouth, 10 Skylarks flew north in a tight flock over the Village Wood and a nice male Reed Bunting was coming into summer dress just outside the village hall. 

Also of note were 3 male and 6 female Goldeneye on the sea and a flock of 70 grey geese flew south too far out to id. On any other year they looked like pinks, but this year they may just have been whitefronts so I'll await a better view.

A golden sunrise lights the hoar frost.

Village Wood 'on ice'.

Although the weather has been 'easier' this winter, the birding has been slow. In the hard conditions of the previous winters, species including Water Rail, Mealy Redpoll, Raven, Woodcock, Peregrine and Merlin had all been recorded by now. The first three may be a struggle this year.

Reed Bunting.

Hey, gringo....

Waterside House, Cumbria, 15th July 1996....How long ago!

What a fine bird he was too, singing and trying some stinging lines with the House Sparrow ladies...

Now that the New Year is upon us, I have three months to use up my annual leave entitlement. Breaking it down, this means I can, if I wish, work a four day week until April. Which is nice...

Today was day one. I like taking a Monday off.

It was clear and sunny and quite pleasant with that hint of spring about it. The wildlife wasn't to be fooled by this though as there were no birds singing, and while clearing a wild corner of the garden to make way for a compost heap, I unearthed an hibernating Hedgehog. He was well wrapped in a ball of leaves, so I took him and his whole nest and created a makeshift box in another weedy corner ( I have plenty of wild areas). This was then covered in leaf litter and loose dead vegetation to keep him sheltered. We look forward to seeing him in spring.

On the bird table, the Tree Sparrow flock now numbers 30 birds, equally the commonest garden bird alongside Chaffinch and House Sparrow! This is a great increase on the 4 - 6 birds I usually get here in winter. A few walks out with Bunty in between doing the garden had very little really - a flock of 5 Mistle Thrushes, 1 Guillemot, 16 Eider, 12 and 7 Grey Partridges and a flock of geese flew N over the sea too far away to i.d with bins.

As soon as it was dark, a Barn Owl hissed loudly as it flew overhead. I just managed to get the torch on to it before it made off over the fields to hunt.

I caught my first moths of 2012 last night - 1 Winter Moth and 1 Dark Chestnut.

Dark Chestnut

Larophiles look away now.

This morning I had a walk from home, down the Long Walk and back via the coast path. About a dozen of so birds were added to the 2012 list with the best being a few parties of Crossbills including one male in song, a pair of Red breasted Mergansers, a few Bullfinches and 5 Nuthatch. I'll total it up tomorrow.

After a cooler, breezy, start the wind dropped and it turned into a mild pleasant day so we took a drive up the coast with Bunty and had a walk on Stringer's beach at Beadnell. No other people were around  so a few waders were pushed up by the high tide - 5 Bar tailed Godwit, 2 Grey Plover   and a bunch of Oystercatchers while another 3 Red breasted Mergansers fed close in on a calm sea.

Lunch was at Seahouses Harbour where there were no white winged gulls, but this pair gave us a laugh next to the car.

I can just hear Mssrs Tilmouth and Garner and  Dave the Earl Grey cursing my very amateurish attitude with these birds...not once did I check the P10 tip pattern let alone the gonys shape...but their dance after some chips was as good as being at Seghill Tip thats for sure! 

Seconds out...

New Years Day and a Happy Birthday to me.

A nice sunny day, a bit breezy and cooler than recently but still nice for January.

Jane, Bunts and myself took a midday walk north along the coast to Craster where we intended to have a drink in the 'Jolly Fisherman'. Unfortunately it was choc full to the rafters so we didnt want to squeeze in when we had the terriator. Not to worry, a pleasant return journey followed and we had hot chocolate, cake and champagne at home ( see my so called resolutions from the other day about not eating and drinking as much ).

Craster Harbour, from the south.

Of the 40 or so bird species seen, all were to be expected, but at least it gets things underway. A Purple Sandpiper and Ringed Plover in the harbour were the best on show.

Today, no new additions, but the most noteworthy thing was about 15 Snowdrops in flower in the copse next to our garden. A very early date indeed!

Purple Sandpiper in Craster Harbour.

The final curtain...

2011 Highlights...


Mmm. Now then.


On the patch 154 species. Down on last year but still not too bad with nearly the lot self found ( or maybe even the whole lot). The list included -  Great Northern Diver, Water Rail, Mealy Redpoll, Waxwing, Lapland Bunting, Roseate Tern, Quail, Storm Petrel, Balearic Shearwater, Mediterranean Gull, Tree Pipit, Black Tern, Pintail, Shoveler, Scaup, Velvet Scoter, Snow Bunting, Black Redstart, Short eared Owl, Twite and White fronted Goose.


Those in red are firsts for the site.


55 new moths for the garden too, the best being Mullein, Great Brocade and Fen Wainscot..


Plus several new birds for me - Black Scoter, White throated Robin, Sandhill Crane, Greater Yellowlegs and not forgetting the Eastern Black Redstart ( though not a 'tick' cos its just a race). This is the most I've added to the list for several years, quite surprising considering the lack of easterly winds and twitches.


Marsh Fritillary and Northern Brown Argus. Great butterflies and great crack with my companions.


Two Minke Whales in Scotland...


2011 Lowlights...


The weather. A cold wet summer and a westerly autumn resulted in very little migration or seawatching on the patch.


2012 Targets...


1. I must update this blog more. I am almost a hundred posts down on other recent years. I would like to say that its quality over quantity but not so I'm afraid. Must do better.


2. I will keep up with the whole genaralist naturalist thing. Its much better than just constant birding, you should try it. You do? Oh ok... 


3. Look for High Brown Fritillary, Mountain Ringlet, Small Blue and maybe Scotch Argus. I've seen the latter two but not for years. Natterjack Toad may be combined with the Cumbrian butterflies.


4. Finally do some mothing off-piste...


5. Do some garden alteration. Remove some knackered old shrubs and replace with something better. Increase the flowering season and quantity to help the insects.


5. Stay healthy. I have not taken a day on the sick since 2003 and have only had two days off in the 4 years before that. Long may it reign.


6. Try to be less miserable, drink more water, get more sleep, eat less of everything particularly chocolate. I'm getting the blame now for increasing the weight of other birders in the county...

 Here's wishing you all health, wealth and prosperity in 2012.  A Happy New Year to you all...now, where's that bottle....

Out early...

This morning our terrier had me up and out at the first crack of dawn. It was calm and mild, Tawny Owls were hooting, and Robins ticking with a cacophony of Pheasants in the gloaming. The local Barn Owl was quartering the back field before heading off to roost. Three Meadow Pipits and 5 Redwings flew around flushed by the owl.

Later on a couple of walks around the village and coast path turned up 3 Reed Buntings in the back hedge, 3 Nuthatches together near the gatehouse, 12 Eiders close in on the sea, 35 Curlews in the coast field, one or two Jays making a racket, a female Sparrowhawk and a Buzzard were in the pond field.

 This afternoon I have finally got around to putting up another few Tree Sparrow nest boxes that John made, plus a couple of smaller ones donated by kids in the village ( thanks Evan and Ailsa!). Hopefully there will be an improvement on my one pair from this year...and speaking of which, 20 Tree Spugs were at our feeders today, so it all bodes well.

And thats about it. Christmas over and work beckons...

Mild...

Merry Christmas all.

What a difference it is today compared to Christmas past. Its about 14 degrees warmer today, and much easier to get around.

I notice that Warren ( Pitswood Birds) has commented on the lack of birds down there if the weather stays mild. Last year and the year before, we had Waxwings and Woodcocks aplenty, Water rails in Village wood and showy Ravens and Raptors, but there were zero passerines away from the bird table, all either dead or moved out ahead of the cold front. This year I think it will be very quiet for those first species, but we still have pipits, wagtails, buntings and waders, and maybe our Barn Owls will survive?. Keep it above freezing I say...

Well, after a rib-lifting dinner and watching more pixar animation any sane person can take, its time for more champagne in front of Downton Abbey!

Merry Christmas!

Only a couple of things around about today, 1 male Siskin on our feeders was the first since the spring, 15 Redwings were in the village copse and a good flock of 5 Purple Sandpipers were on the Rumbling Kern.

I had no sign of Ian Douglas's Hooded Crow at the Haven, but it might still be around so I'll keep checking. Wednesday's elusive caller remained in hiding, so we'll just let that one drop, and assume it was a Coal Tit...

So, here's wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas 2011.

Cheers!