Nonferrous Duck.

A lovely drake Ferruginous Duck has been touring around North Tyneside for the last few weeks, having come to its senses and flown across the river from Washington WWT.

At first it was quite elusive on Gosforth Park Nature Reserve where the large reed beds gave a good hiding place from prying birders, but last week, it flew to Killingworth Lake, a better viewing spot. The stay here was all too brief and then the trail went cold. The duck had vanished.

Until yesterday that is, when it was relocated on a tennis court sized pond in Silverlink Park, in the heart of urban Tyneside. I hadn't really bothered about it before, due to its reluctance to show, and the fact that no one dares mention...cough...that it came out of a pen full of Ferruginous Ducks at Washington WWT....

But, in post-Brexit England we are still innocent until proven guilty, so this bird is un-ringed, full winged and in fine fettle. It's quite able to hide and fly off at short notice so it does  'look the part' and that's all we can accept really. Wildfowl are very prone to fence hopping and even taking on a pseudo-migration after doing so, but it could have come here all the way from Eastern Europe so it will do for me.

This is only my second UK Ferruginous, after one on Hadston Lake ( now DBCP) in October 1990. After 27 years, it was time for another...and what a little cracker he is too....

[No 'Fudge' Ducks on these pages folks!]

Beautiful...

...is the only way to describe the weather this weekend. I even managed to see my first butterflies of the year too. On Saturday, a Peacock narrowly escaped the foot of a sniffing terrier in the garden, but a Comma, looking tired after hibernation was more approachable. A Small Tortoiseshell on Sunday was the last of a very welcome trio.

Two Dark edged Bee-Flies added to the insect interest, including only my second in the garden.

Dark edged Bee Fly

Comma

On the bird front, a drake Ring necked Duck caused some excitement for the young or newer birders in the county, being the first here since 2010. We used to see them quite regularly in the 80's / 90's with long staying birds touring a lot of sites. This bird is favouring Hauxley Nature Reserve ( closed until special weekend opening times) with an odd excursion down to East Chevington.

As the Ring necked Duck was distant in my photo, I did this small drawing back at home.

We dipped it at the latter site, where the wintering Shorelarks and Twite, 16+ Scaup and 60+ Goldeneye were the main attraction, luckily we caught up with the dapper yank later on at Hauxley NWT.

Above - Shorelark

Above - Twite

Reed Bunting

Chevington Burn mouth, the haunt of shorelark, twite and snow bunting....

Over the weekend...

Part of a pile of 5 Adders

Neonate. All of 6 inches long and thick as a pencil.

Slow Worm.

On Sunday we had a trip across to Branton Pits, with the intention of checking some forest areas for Goshawks, but in the end, we just drank tea, chatted with other friends and paid our annual respects to the local reptiles. Along the usual spots were 13 Adders including a tiny juvenile or neonate and 3 Slow Worms. I was particularly please with these as they are my first in the county.

 Last night was a decent moth night with 63 moths of 10 species caught. March Moth, Diurnea fagella and this Pine Beauty were all new for the year.

Pine Beauty

Today I was on a holiday ( using them up before April) when news came through that ADMc had found a fleeting male Black throated Thrush near the wintering Great Grey Shrike at Prestwick Carr. He had watched it fly off strongly south but it was luckily relocated by local birder Peter Fletcher where the lads on site, or local enough to be there in 20 minutes, managed to connect. Unfortunately, I had driven 27 of the 30 miles from home only to be greeted with the news that it had flown again, this time off the edge of the map and on to the 'no mans land' that is the local golf course, never to be seen again.

Never mind, these flighty thrushes are sent to try our patience. After last Autumn's Whites Thrush on Holy Island and the Wacky Races style twitch from work, I try not to be greedy!

Some moths...

This last week has been quite mild up here resulting in a nice kick start to the proper mothing season.

Here is a list of all the moths caught in my garden so far this year...

Code	Taxon	Vernacular	Qty
	Agonopterix heracliana agg.	Ag heracliana/ciliella	22
17.011	Ypsolopha ustella	a moth	1
18.001	Plutella xylostella	Diamond-back Moth	1
28.009	Endrosis sarcitrella	White-shouldered House-moth	1
49.076	Acleris cristana	a moth	1
70.101	Colostygia multistrigaria	Mottled Grey	1
70.247	Phigalia pilosaria	Pale Brindled Beauty	29
70.251	Biston strataria	Oak Beauty	4
70.255	Agriopis marginaria	Dotted Border	5
73.069	Xylocampa areola	Early Grey	1
73.194	Conistra vaccinii	Chestnut	8
73.21	Eupsilia transversa	Satellite	4
73.242	Orthosia incerta	Clouded Drab	3
73.244	Orthosia cerasi	Common Quaker	8
73.249	Orthosia gothica	Hebrew Character	42
73.336	Cerastis rubricosa	Red Chestnut	4

135 moths of 16 species, is a little slow for the time of year, but its a nice selection to be going on with.

Pipits on the beach.

Boulmer Beach, just along from Seaton Point.

A day off work using up annual leave, so as it was a nice day, I popped down to Seaton Point to scan the pipits on the bank of rotting seaweed. There were at least 30 birds present, but were mostly flighty so impossible to get an accurate number. I plonked myself down and started snapping away. This is what I found...

Littoralis 1

Littoralis 1 as above.

Littoralis 2.

The majority of birds present were Scandinavian Rock Pipits, Anthus spinoletta littoralis. They were in varying states of moult though none were advanced enough to show the very pinky breast and clean grey head.

The ones above, look more like British Rock Pipit, Anthus spinoletta petrosus but could possibly be littoralis too.

The four images above are all of the same bird, Water Pipit, Anthus spinoletta spinoletta. This might be the bird we had here before Christmas? It shows a lot of yellow on the bill, pinkish legs and a very clean white under parts. There is the large dark malar patch ( side of neck) and pale brownish grey upper parts.

  Then we have these -

The two above are of the same individual. It has that sandy brown, meadow pipit look to it with a lot of yellow in the bill. Could it be a second Water Pipit? Its scruffy appearance probably means its another moulting littoralis... 

And this thing, I have no idea...Its a Rock Pipit.

Maybe the whole lot are just Rock Pipits? This is just my interpretation of them. The sooner these are all lumped back to one species the better!

To the Northumberland Moors....

A reasonable forecast and it being March drew us to head westwards for all of  6 miles from Alnwick. Its always a chancy visit, birding inland during March, but it makes a change.

Today we made a few stops and did some leg knackering walks up muddy slopes onto boggy, tussocky moorland, to be honest, seeing very little. One thing did stand out however, and that was the view...

On the bird front, a few new species of the year made an appearance with 3+ Red Grouse, 20+ Crossbills and a ringtail Hen Harrier. Other than that, 2 pairs of Stonechat, a few Redpolls including a couple of Mealy candidates that were a little too distant or brief to confirm and 8+ Buzzards.

A Roe Deer and a sniper lying prostrate with his rifle ( he was visible to the naked eye at quarter of a mile due to the lack of camouflage on face and hands, take note)  were the only other things of note...

These lichens look like a forest scene from Avatar.

The only bird shot of the day, a Siskin. The forests were full of them. 

Warm sun drying the dew from last night.

Well, you have to, after a long uphill struggle.

Click on this to see the snow capped Cheviots in the distance.

Black Lough