Sunday morning - Coquet Estuary.

Nine Whooper Swans, only 1 juvenile.

The weather was quite inclement this morning with a strong westerly wind and a few squally showers coming through. We had a trip to the Coquet Estuary, checking out Amble Harbour to Warkworth Beach car park. As could be expected in this weather, it was generally quiet, but a few things of interest were seen.

A party of 9 Whooper Swans arrived from the east to settle on the river below Warkworth weir for  a spell before heading off further south.  Nearby along at the Marina, a nice drake Scaup, a female Common Scoter and a winter plumaged Great crested Grebe swan around beside the boats.

There were plenty of Wigeon, Teal and common waders in wintering areas too.

Up in the scrub, only a few Blackbirds, Song Thrushes and Robins, with a male Stonechat gave cause to lift the bins...

As the days grow ever shorter, its easy to pine for spring or summer or easterlies or northerlies or whatever, but it pays to appreciate just what we have, every time we get out there, its all fantastic!  

Scaup at distance with a Wigeon.

Herring Gull fly by...

Twitchers.

Moth twitchers that is.

Today was much busier than yesterday with visitors coming to see the Deaths head Hawk-moth. We had around 40 people including two lads who had come especially from Yorkshire to see it. Over the weekend we collected just over £60 in donations for our village hall which isn't bad for a moth.

This afternoon, the moth is livening up a few Facebook pages, sometimes alongside happy faced moth twitchers. For me though the highlight had to be when Richard Dunn managed to take a recording of the moth squeaking as it was handled. Now that's something that cant have happened too often. To hear it for yourself please click Here. But be careful, a Red crowned Crane kicks in immediately afterwards to shock you.

After everyone had gone we managed to get it to feed a little on honey solution. This is a tricky task, as the moth has to be man handled, then its curled proboscis teased out with a pencil and placed in the honey, where it sucks it up like a straw. I am advised by the interweb sources that after a couple of times, the moth gets the hang of it and feeds itself. Thank goodness for that!

The moth is on the logs positioned for the photographers.  This image courtesy of Alan Gilbertson.

A selection from Saturday.

Death's Head Hawk Moth. This image and the one above, courtesy of Ian Fisher.

Atropos.

I am sorry about this, but if you don't like insects look away now. This weekend is all about one insect in particular, the Death's Head Hawk-moth Acherontia atropos.

This morning a small, but quality, audience came up north to pay homage to our newly emerged DHM. It is a British specimen, the caterpillar having been found by Victoria Doleman, near her home in Northamptonshire. We can't thank her enough for being sharp eyed and having the foresight to wonder about the large yellow thing creeping across the path before her. Cheers Vic!

A month later and we have a pristine example of Atropos. It is quite a subdued fellow, spending most of its time motionless while guests filled their cameras and phones with Halloween images, an opportunity that might take a very long time to repeat.

Today was the first time we have carefully handled the moth, and were eager to hear its well known 'squeaking' behaviour. Everyone was delighted when it ran up Jane's arm squeaking like mad, waving those white tipped antennae around and flashing blue and yellow, body and hind wings.

If you would like to see it, please give us a visit tomorrow morning, where we will be at Howick Village Hall again from 10am to 12 noon. We are about 7 miles east of Alnwick, just south of Craster, on the coast.

Expect more of the same on tomorrow's blog....its well worth it.

Its here...

Atropos hatched overnight. I checked before bed and there was a black pupa, but this morning a nice fully formed Deaths Head Hawk-moth had emerged and was hanging on the tank side, fresh as a daisy.

I snatched a few blurry pics in the half light before work this morning, but hope for better tomorrow.

If you are passing and would like to see the moth, I will be having it on display at Howick Village hall tomorrow and Sunday from 10 am - 12 noon. There will be a small donation to the village hall coffers...

[I have tried to email everyone in my address book today and have frozen my emails in the process, so I'm stuck until I can get help.]

Holy Island fall?

Yellow browed Warbler 

A day off work today to visit Holy Island to look for migrants. With the wind in the east now for a few days, and rain forecast, the charts seemed good for a few birds to arrive. Bring on the bluetail!

As it happened, it was a reasonable day out but not all it was cracked up to be. Rain and over cast skies made viewing tricky and there just didnt seem to be many birds around. There had been a small arrival of Thrushes, with a couple of hundred Redwings, 50+ Blackbirds, 3 Ring Ouzels, 1 Fieldfare and some grey dark continental Song Thrushes. Half a dozen Bramblings 'wheezed' from the sycamores and there was a nice sprinkling of Goldcrests.

Three Yellow-browed Warblers were in the vicinity of the Vicars Garden with two of them chasing around over the open field next door. The one in the photo nearly flew in to me before landing and turning around to see what the hell was that standing in its way!

Also here were an 'eastern' Chiffchaff probably 'tristis' but it didnt call, alongside a usual 'collybita', a male Blackcap and a good number of Robins. Two Black tailed Godwits flew overhead.

While walking along to the Chare Ends, a Water Rail got up at my feet from a patch of Meadow Sweet, flew around then dropped back in, where I left it in peace. The Lonnens and Lough were quiet but a few Little Gulls were off shore.

A Merlin and a Little Egret rounded up the day nicely along the cause way on the way off. If you throw in hundreds of Pale bellied Brent Geese, Bar tailed Godwits, Knot and Golden Plover, I suppose it wasnt a bad day after all...

Above - Ring Ouzel and Eastern Chiffchaff in very poor light...

Inspiration.

This morning Nigel and myself took a trip to the Hancock, oh alright, the Great North, Museum, to attend the ERIC [Environmental Records Information Centre] conference. There were eight short talks, refreshments half way and a buffet lunch at the end, all for free, what's not to like !

All of the speakers were interesting with seven of them being professional ecologists and the like, however, my favourite was the only amateur in the line up, Pat Robson. She discussed her particular project, the environmental side of a village atlas production at Hetton le Hole in county Durham.  Her investigations into the biodiversity of her village has lead on to other conservation matters such as challenges to planning applications that are placing habitats at risk, and reporting pollution incidents in her local water sources. She is now quite into the River Fly project, studying the invertebrate life of her small streams and local nature reserves.

It is this type of thing that should inspire us, as amateurs, to get out and enjoy what we do and if possible, try to help the environment in some way, no matter how small.

It was nice to attend such a varied and friendly event like this. There were about a hundred attendees, and all seemed to enjoy it.

I am looking forward to next year's already!

Fungi id?

Branching Oyster.

This fungi is in our local woods. Its quite big, about 10 inches across. Is it an Oyster Mushroom?

[As Nigel recommends, I had considered this was Branching Oyster but they are so variable, these fungi...]

Rant over...

I have removed yesterday's post, as today it looked like a bit of a rant. Many thanks to those who bothered to leave comments though, they are always appreciated.

I see there has been no sign of the Red eyed Vireo today? Its a shame, it would have been a great one to get on the county list. That's two records for the county now, so who knows, there might be a third, one day...

Another couple of autumn moths...

The Brick. Not too common in our garden.

Large Wainscot, a migrant moth up here.

A death's head update amongst others...

Tonight we excavated the Death's Head Hawk-moth pupa from the soil after going to ground two weeks ago. Its about 65 mm long and if all goes well should emerge into the much sought after adult in a couple of weeks time. Watch this space...

Last night in the moth trap were a couple of year ticks -

A bevvy of beauties - Merveille du Jour x 2

Pandemis cinnamomeana a male note the white face and antennae.

An Autumnal Forage...

Out on Sunday for a fungi foray inland was largely unsuccessful, however we did manage a surprise or two.

The area we covered was between Debdon and Rothbury, an area of woodland and moorland edge.

Birch Shieldbug, in our moth trap, a new species for me.

Unidentified fungi. Can you help? It was quite large.

What a creature! Sabre Wasp Rhyssa persuasoria a large ichneumon that parisitises wood wasps.

 While standing drinking tea pondering a route to take a huge Ichneumon fly flew past and searched some chopped pine logs. A real stunner about 4 inches long, it didnt linger...

Sand Spurrey in the middle of the track. 

Another one where we have no idea. Help please. I believe that this may be Grisette Amanita vaginata?

Shallon, a plant growing under pines, one I have not seen before.

I believe this is Yellow Russula but stand to be corrected...

Down to earth...

...with some commoner species of autumn moth found in last nights garden moth trap...

Angle Shades, a lovely fresh one.

Chestnut. First one of the autumn, again nice and fresh.

Red line Quaker

Green brindled Crescent

Buff Ermine caterpillar.

Feeling Blue?

Clifden Nonpareil or Blue Underwing. 

Lightning sometimes strikes twice...

Remember the tale of the Death's head Hawk-moth? 

Well, last night at 10pm my niece texted me with a photo of a moth her friend had found in her garden...it opened to reveal non other than a Clifden Nonpareil! This was a genuine migrant all the way from Scandinavia and it looked like it too, with a missing hindwing and a torn forewing something had clearly been giving it a hard time. These vikings like it rough...

Further investigation found that last night it had flown over the finder like an 'injured bat' and crashed landed on her garden wall in Eastgate, Choppington, South East Northumberland where she had taken it into care. 

I collected it this morning and delivered it to Tom Tams, County Recorder. Tonight it has been twitched by several interested parties from as far as Teesside. This is the 6th for Northumberland, but the first to be twitchable, the last being in 1995 on the Farne Islands where Stef McElwee rescued it from the clutches of an evil Rock Pipit.

The first published reference to the Clifden Nonpareil's occurrence in Britain was by Benjamin Wilkes in his book The English Moths and Butterflies (1749), in which he recorded a specimen lately collected by a Mr Davenport on an ash tree near Clifden (now known as Cliveden) in Buckinghamshire hence its common name. The Nonpareil part, roughly translated, means 'without equal' and you can see why.

This is one of the most sought after moths by anyone on the north east coast, narrowly coming second to the aforementioned Death's Head, mainly because of its rarity and its exquisite blue flash on the underwing. There are no other moths in the UK that exhibit so much blue. This is a big moth with a 4 inch wing span and when it flashes blue, its a very impressive creature indeed.

Can this month get any better, what with big caterpillars, white hedgehogs, blue moths and rare warblers, I wonder who will call me next? 

It might just be Fea's-ible....

A sketch from some scribbles taken on the spot. A long thin winged bird, the white arm pits giving a spiky appearance. Some white was in the dark primary bases too but distance was too great for detail. Its my impression anyway...

How many more puns can there be on this tremendous bird?

After a quiet days birding, all the drift migrants have cleared off along with the easterly, a cool north westerly was bound to bring some seabirds. This year has been slow for seawatching and until this morning I was still waiting for my first Sooty of 2014, so we started off down at Craster where Sooty Shearwaters duly obliged, along with Arctic Skua and a few Manx Shearwaters and Red throated Divers. As is the way in the north east, morning seawatches can be ruined by glare on the sea, so when the cloud moved, so did we.

Later, I heard that a Fea's Petrel had been seen off Flamborough and Filey this morning, but never gave it much thought. Steph McElwee rang to discuss timings up to Newbiggin, but I just thought that was too fanciful to contemplate.

Fast forward a couple of hours and Gary Woodburn was on the phone recruiting extra eyes up at Beadnell on the off chance. His positivity was infectious and the twitchy-ness began.

I arrived at Beadnell at 3pm, met Gary and headed off the the point, a spot I have never been to previously. We were soon joined by Barry another local.

Lots of birds were moving, but the sun was bright and the sea blue, merging into a hazy sky. Fortunately, some birds were very close. On arrival we got a strategy in place. I always like to set the boundaries before starting off a venture like this, because it would be a disaster if one saw the bird and the rest dipped. We pin pointed visible lobster pot bouys in the mid distance, pink, green and yellow, so they could act as markers for a rapidly moving pterodroma...

The conversation changed to predicting arrival times, and Gary said, about 5.20pm should do it, but it might be 'fashionably late'.

Tension mounted at 5pm as we knuckled down. Eyes screwed into scopes grabbing at every fly by. We had 20 odd Sooties and Manxies and a few Brent Geese for good measure, when Gary said...

'Oh, wait, I think I've got it...' ' Oh it might just be a Manx'....It was 5.25pm.

Now his tone wasn't 'manx-like' to me so I said that he should let us worry about miss-identifications and keep talking. He then said 'Yes thats it...Fea's, above the green bouy!!'

Everything goes into slow motion as you dread being the dipper in this situation but no, after a few seconds without breathing, there it was! Excalibur! A Gon-gon, a Soft-plumaged Petrel, a Fea's! I thought I was the only birder in Northumberland who had never seen one of these, so the relief was amazing. The spiky, unusually shaped black and white petrel swayed and switch-backed past us at mid distance for about 4 or 5 minutes before being lost from view...Get In! What a bird...

Northumberland 333.



    

It'll be all white on the night...

Last night I was out checking the moth trap and found this little chap, a bit out of sorts, loitering about the garden. At first I wondered what was the matter with it, but then I realised it was an albino!

It has pink eyes, bare parts, the lot and, what I have not noticed on normal Hedgehogs before, some thin longer spines that stick through the normal ones like cocktail sticks. It was sporting a fully fed Castor Bean Tick near its ear and seemed a bit sluggish, so we took it into care.

It was placed in a box with hay and a hot water bottle with a dish of catfood over night. This morning the food had all gone, so things look well. We duly delivered him to Carole Catchpole's Hedgehog Rescue Centre at Longframlington to be taken care of for a while before release.

She told us he was a male and just looked to be about a year old. We spend a lot of time, both day and night in the garden looking at wildlife and have never seen this individual before. It just shows, you never know what you might come upon unexpectedly...

 

Silence of the Lambs...

Death's Head Hawk-moth caterpillar.

 Yesterday, Jane's sister, Victoria sent me a text with a photo of this caterpillar saying she had found it walking across the path, near her home in Northampton, and was it dangerous. As soon as I saw it, I got a tad excitable - its a Death's Head Hawk-moth caterpillar like the moths of Hannibal Lecter fame in Silence of the lambs!

Straight away, I gave her instructions on how to post the creature to me immediately as we must have a go at rearing it to adult hood. The moth is the Holy Grail of moth trappers in the UK and this chance might never come again. Next day, before 9am delivery cost a whopping £25 but to see this monster was well worth it. What a belter!

It was placed in a tank with some Privet and Potato tops to feed on but it just wanted to wander around the edge. This must mean that feeding time was over, it was a big lad after all, and its time to get underground to pupate.

After consulting various internet sources and with help from Alan Fairclough, I gathered some nice molehill soil, gave it a blast in the microwave to clear off any undesirables and laid it in the tank so it could bury itself away for a month or so. We didn't think it would go in so quickly! The whole vanishing act took no more than 10 minutes.

All we have to do now is keep the tank at a nice 25 degrees for a month and hopefully the adult will emerge. I'll never sleep!

A bird in the bush is worth two in the hand...

Greenish Warbler, Chare Ends, Holy Island.

I took a flexi day on Tuesday after the rain, fog and easterlies yesterday to try and catch up with or, better still find, some of the scarce migrants that have littered our coastline. St Mary's fared well yesterday, and Holy Island had some good birds, so what was in between?

I started off at 7.30 this morning at Craster. I yomped over the heughs and the Arnold Reserve. It all started well with a good scattering of Blackcaps, Whitethroats and Chiffchaffs with a single Willow Warbler, but scarceties remained just that. Scarce.  Two Redwings were very early and were probably the highlight here.

So, off up to Low Newton, where I met Gary who was ringing on site. Migrants were very thin on the ground here, so a check of the Tin Church area and the Pool Willows was largely fruitless.

Next stop Holy Island. I got on to the island at about 12 noon and have never seen so many tourists here. Robson Green has a lot to answer for... 11 coaches were in the top car park and the main car park was almost over flowing. The village was like the Metro Centre!   

Despite this, plenty of migrants were on offer, and with the sun beginning to shine the day was looking up. The very first bird I came across was a Barred Warbler in a willow at the Chare Ends watched by a small gathering of Greenish twitchers, it was typically shy, but could be followed as it thrashed the thin branches around. A lovely bird, but too distant and flighty to get a single pic.

The Vicars Garden had Pied Flycatchers, a Spotted Flycatcher, loads of Willow Warblers ( some singing) and Chiffchaffs. I missed a Yellow browed Warbler present here earlier. On route I also had Wheatear, Redstarts and Tree Pipit.

Back at the Chare Ends and the Greenish Warbler, now in its third day, was showing beautifully in the afternoon sunshine to only two or three birders.

After the long day I was on my way home when Gary rang to say he had caught the two Red breasted Flycatchers together. I had a bit of time while he cleared nets and processed birds so arrived just in time to assist him with a photo, after all you cant hold two rarities and take the photo, can you!

What an end to a great day away from work...  

Me posing two Red breasted Flycatchers for a photo. They flew off strongly non the worse for their brief interruption.

And another of a Red breatsed Flycatcher. Both pics thanks to Gary Woodburn.