Its trying.

 Spring that is. Spring keeps trying, but ultimately failing. The other day the news hollered on about 25 degrees somewhere or other while on the North Northumberland coast we achieved the sweltering heights of 12.5 ⁰ . Still between cooler cloudy times there have been bright pleasant sunny windows of opportunity too.  I forgot to add that I have my annual heavy cold this week, but Peggy needs walked so I have been around the village too in the sunny spells.

Some spring migrants are back now with Swallows, Sand Martins, Willow Warblers in village wood. On 10th  Blackcaps arrived in numbers. We were pleased to see 4 or 5 of them eating the few remaining Ivy berries opposite our kitchen window .

The kitchen window Ivy over the stone wall.

Various Blackcaps, with a minimum of 3 females and a male on Saturday, poss 2 males on Sunday.

On 8th April, the moth trap had a migrant influx. Unfortunately no Small Mottled Willows that have inundated the country this week but a big count ( for here) of 92 Diamond backed Moths. Pine Beauty and Muslin Moth also added to the interest that night too while a Hedgehog has been around the garden for a few nights too.

On one sunny interlude, a few butterflies were out, Peacocks, Small Tortoiseshells, Commas and a Green veined White. Still awaiting Orange Tip and wondering how Holly Blue will fare this season?

Comma.

April

 Last time, I mentioned the possibility that we were experiencing a ‘false spring’, however, it has continued until this post too. In my notebook, the last time precipitation gets a mention was on 16^th March with an odd drizzle shower. Since then, we have had dry but cold weather, often in bright sunny days. 

 Another sunny day on the 29^th March brought the first Hairy footed Flower Bees or our garden. Always an absolute pleasure to see as they bump from flower to flower in a cartoon like fashion.

 By the 29^th, up to 150+ Kittiwakes were back around the Howick / Cullernose cliffs while 31 Whooper Swans flew N in two parties of 22 and 9.

 Another Boulmer search on the 30^th found that the female Black Redstart was still present, but the male was long gone. 9 Purple Sandpipers were on the rocks. In the afternoon on a visit to Amble we found a colony of Tawny Mining Bees in a raised bed by the Memorial. Lots of small males danced around the soil interspersed by a few bright tawny orange females.

 March bowed out with more Whooper Swans heading over Howick back to the Icelandic breeding grounds. 27 came over very low, you could almost feel the down draught from the wing beats.

 The first week of April finally saw an emergence of butterflies around the patch with several Peacocks, a Comma, a Red Admiral, 2 Small Tortoiseshells and a few Large White. More Hairy footed flower Bees and a few Dark Edged Bee Flies too.

Dark edged Bee Fly

Comma

Hairy footed Flower Bee, male.

A late afternoon walk at Boulmer on 4^th  was still cold but a few migrants battled on. A smart male White Wagtail  was with half a dozen black and white Pieds, a Lesser black backed Gull flew N followed by 3 Sandwich Terns. A good number of 32 Shelducks kept company with a  Pale bellied Brent Goose.

Pale bellied Brent with the Shelducks

Male White Wag...

For a change on the 6^th April we walked from Cullernose Point to Craster, hoping for a Wheatear sighting but that plan failed. We did make it worthwhile though with a close Raven, the first Willow Warbler, 2 Blackcaps, 4 Swallows and 2 Sand Martins of the year.

Now the evenings are lighter there is more time to be spent in the field ( while neglecting jobs at home), it could just do with warming up to 15 or so degrees…

 In the fine spell, a few moths kept the trap going while a nice spider graced the bathroom...

Acleris literana

Brindled Pug

Early Tooth Striped

Harpactea hombergi only my second, both from the bathroom.

Purple Thorn

Finally, on a cool sunny day last Sunday we checked out the new scrapes at Alnmouth Buston Links. It looked well for waders and wildfowl but not today.4 Shoveler and 2 pairs of nesting Lapwing were the highlight, 3 Whooper Swans moved N while the first Grasshopper Warbler of the year reeled unseen from a thick bramble at Hipsburn.

Male Lapwings very vocal and acrobatic.

Shoveler

This Yellowhammer sang from the ground in the car park at the cricket club for 5 minutes.

Still cold...

 The week progresses but its still bloody freezing. Every morning when I get up the place is white with frost, today -2 degrees again. The sun is beautiful though, bright and crystal clear but there is little warmth. I am sick of feeling 'tight' with cold when I go out, roll on a day when its a straight 12 degrees with no reduction for wind chill.

Little has changed on the bird front around the village. There are still no Willow Warblers but with 400 arriving at Portland yesterday they are surely on their way.  There are more Blackcaps now with 4 or 5 singing locally but the Swallows have gone and who can blame them.

Out in the village wood on Peggy's walk at lunchtime, the blossomed sallow, mentioned last time, is still attracting a few hardy insects with 2 Comma, a Peacock and a Small Tortoiseshell in the vicinity. 

Yesterday was my first visit to the barbers since mid December, so maybe that is how I am feeling the cold...

Dark edged Bee Fly

Comma

Peacock

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....

Technicolour....

I'll split this post in two halves, firstly I started out here at home for an hour, then popped down to Warkworth to meet John, then back here to loiter around the garden again as yesterday. A lovely sunny day, a bit cooler, but a cracker of an autumn day all the same.

Howick.

This morning was out before sunrise down to the Bathing House area just to see if there was any viz mig and to get a sunrise photo.

70 Golden Plovers were roosting in Tommy's field, while 300 Pinkfeet flew south over head. 3 Swallows, a few Skylarks and Meadow Pipits also moving south shortly after it got light.

At 7.30am I headed off to Warkworth, see below, returning at 12.30pm.

This afternoon I spent a lot of time just watching what was going on around our garden. There were loads of butterflies again as well as many Silver Y moths. As the sun was quite bright, I kept the camera handy to get some shots of the butterflies as they appeared....

Peacock

Small Tortoiseshell

Comma

Red Admiral

In addition to these four, there were Speckled Wood, Large White and Small White.

The roving party of Long tailed Tits came back, this time bringing a Treecreeper and 8 - 12 Chiffchaffs. Two Blackcaps fed in the yew and elder bushes. Still no striped sprite...

Blackcap

Warkworth.

The time spent at Warkworth was equally lazy but this time sitting at a picnic bench drinking tea and scoffing Bakewell Tarts while watching the birds pass overhead. We had a steady stream of Skylarks ( 50+), Meadow Pipits, 9 Redpolls, 6+ Pied Wagtails, 3+ Swallows, 250 Pink-footed Geese, a few Linnets, Goldfinches and Tree Sparrows. A Snipe bucked the trend by going North.

In the scrub were 4 -5 Chiffchaffs, 2+ Blackcaps, 1 Reed Warbler, 10+ Blackbirds.

Reed Warbler

  We ended down at the estuary where things seemed a bit quieter. The juv Black tailed Godwit was there but there were only 2 Knot with the masses of Redshank, Dunlin, Curlew and Lapwing. Two Little Egrets and 18 Teal were above the weir.

Took a flexi day off today and it just happened to coincide with one of the most glorious summer mornings we have had this year.

 Met up with JWR at Amble first thing to cover the Coquet Estuary patch. Although the primary goal was to look for waders, this turned out to be a bit slow, so attention was diverted elsewhere. As we scanned the couple of hundred Dunlin out on the mud, a Peregrine flew right over our heads, putting everything to flight.While around the car park lots of young tits and warblers etc had grouped up to feed in the warm sheltered hedges.

Peregrine

juvenile Chiffchaff

A call into Amble to check the harbour found no sign of the Caspian Gull, but a moulting adult Mediterranean Gull was in its usual spot along the Little Shore and a Kingfisher made a brief appearance right in the harbour car park!. Up to 12 Goosanders were in the area. After a very short call into the CO-OP, John was just commenting on the blooms on a privet in the car park when we noticed a Comma feeding there. This was very short lived as it dived over the embankment never to be seen again.

A walk from the Warkworth beach car park down the north side was very pleasant but quiet bird wise. Best were 3 Little Egrets, a Sanderling, sev Turnstones and a few Common Sandpipers.

Field Grasshopper Chorthippus brunneus 

Wader fest...

Met up with JWR this morning at Alnmouth. As he had not yet been to see the Stilt Sandpiper at Cresswell, we headed off south. Years ago this was where we cut our birding teeth, but, since we live in the north of the county its not somewhere we visit these days, preferring to find areas that are less heavily watched. Still, it was nice to tread old stomping grounds.

The first stop at Cresswell pond was largely lifeless, with little of note, so we moved on to Druridge in the hope the Stilt Sand might be back in front of the hide. What a change since  I was last here! The vegetation has grown vastly and we nearly didn't find the track to the pools! On route down to the hides, the track flitted with young warblers and goldfinches. Out on the main pool, there were a lot of birds but mostly common wildfowl. A few Snipe showed close enough to photograph.

Moving across to the little hide facing the budge fields was better. The marsh looks excellent and will hold waders through out the season I would imagine. Today there were 2 Wood Sandpipers, 1 Green Sandpiper and 2 Common Sandpipers, Ruff and Greenshank adding to the interest.

When the sun came out, so did the butterflies with plenty of Peacock, Red Admiral and Wall, plus this nice Comma.



After some discussion, and verbal abuse from the resident local patchworker, another trip back to Cresswell was on the cards.

What a change in the last hour! Waders were everywhere. 30+ Snipe, 20+ Dunlin, 4+ Common Sandpiper, 4+ Ruff, 3+ Greenshank, 1 Spotted Redshank, 4 Avocet and the Stilt Sandpiper put on a great show, along with 3 Little Egrets and a Wheatear. Its a shame they were too distant to photograph, but great scope views were had. I think Dave Elliott was a welcome year tick.

After the excitement we reverted back to form and headed north, starting at the Coquet Estuary between Amble and Warkworth. Although the tide was very low, there were a few highlights, including 1 juvenile Mediterranean Gull, 1 Spotted Redshank, 2 Bar tailed Godwit, 2 Knot, 3 Sanderling and a summer plumaged Grey Plover, 2 more Little Egrets mad us reflect on their abundance now compared to only very recently.

A final pause up at Foxton Bends was quieter (as usual) with 4+ Common Sandpipers, 3 Goosanders, 2 Little Egrets and a Swift overhead. 2 Spotted Flycatchers in the scrub were probably locally bred birds.

So, not a bad morning. I love autumn, me!