Industrial Oyks and the (Not so) Secret Wood.

 This post is another all-over-the-shop cornucopia of wildlife sightings locally.

Lesser Redpolls.

In April I like to keep an even closer eye on my bird feeders than usual because there is always the chance of a Brambling or Mealy Redpoll on its return migration. Who knows, even a Hawfinch is a possibility. 

To keep up the Mealy hopes I make sure the niger is filled each morning. This has attracted up to 20 Goldfinches at a time and a couple of Siskins on some days. The other day two Redpolls appeared, both Lessers and one was injured with a broken leg. That didn't seem to hamper it as it fed well for a couple of days before departure.

While it was sunny in the garden on Saturday a Holly Blue kept me company. A second was along the road by the Village Hall. The slow moth trapping continues with a nice Chamomile Shark being the highlight. This is only my 3rd here in 15 yrs.

Chamomile Shark

The ever present ( in spring anyway) Hairy Footed Flower Bee males.

Above - Holly Blue butterfly. Still earlier that usual...

This Pale Mottled Willow is the county earliest by 3 weeks. Maybe a migrant?

Industrial Oystercatchers.

On Sunday we visited a new spot, a little bit further than usual but not much. You might have seen me mention our severe lack of decent woodland up here, well this spot had a quite a large area and some of it quite mature too. Mature enough to hold a single singing male Redstart that was typically camera shy as they often are.. The whole area looks good for plants and insects too when the weather warms up a bit.

Today we found a couple of pairs of Marsh Tit, including one at a nest site. This is the best year I've had for these for a decade. Long may it be so. 

Marsh Tits prospecting a likely nest site.

Also around the area were good numbers of Blackcaps, Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers with 3 Buzzards, Brambling heard and Siskins singing. A carpet of Bluebells were on the cusp of opening.

It just shows, no matter how long you live in a place, there are always discoveries to be made if you only look...

Its an ill wind...

 Still the North wind doth blow. Our most regular April feature.

Although migrants continue to trickle in, there are no big numbers. It just feels like its all to happen.

Since last week, on the patch, breeding has been confirmed in a few more common species with fledged Song Thrush, Blackbird and Mallard, while Long tailed Tit, Chaffinch, Linnet, Coot and Mute Swan are all still with nests. I'm not seeing much nestbox activity from the Tree Sparrows yet though, none in fact despite several males doing their banana posture display around the garden.

Over the weekend, around the village the first male Orange Tip put in an appearance, showing that once out of the cold wind, the sunny areas are warm enough for insect activity.

A couple of walks out with Peggy yesterday were very pleasant.  At last a few more Wheatears had arrived and even better, were viewable from our house when 3 males and 2 females adorned the back field. One looked bigger and brighter, despite the distance, looking good for a Greenland.

Overhead at the pond field, a kettle of 5 Buzzards squabbled and drifted high south while back at home another 3 were around the Heugh area.

All Buzzards.

    

One looks bigger and brighter than the other? Wheatears.

On Sunday morning it was back inland where places are much less busy.

Redstarts were back in, with one singing nicely at eye level from a tree top down a bank from the road. Unfortunately by the time the camera was sought, it had gone. Others were heard singing in various spots around the place.

The moors are a riot of bird song now with Willow Warblers, Redpolls, Linnets, Curlews and Lapwings all displaying while Snipe 'tick-tocked' away in the background.

Lesser Redpoll on territory.

In the bottom of a, south facing, sheltered slope insects were active. Bumblebees were very evident on bilberry flowers , with White tailed, Buff tailed, Common Carder as you would expect but also Mountain Bumbler Bombus monticola and Red tailed Cuckoo Bee Bombus rupestris. Pity they are nigh impossible to photograph! The 3 monticola all made a buzz for it as soon as I raised a lens. I'll try again when the weather is more pleasant.

White tailed Bumblebee. 

There were several Green Tiger Beetles on the tracks and burnt heather areas. Speaking of which, we were looking for Green Hairstreaks in this area. Some previously good spots are now lifeless and  charcoal blackened. In the image above you can see an area just left of the copse where the self set Birches are. Luckily some habitat remains and we found 4 of the little green jewels. a little way further down. A short spell luring Emperor Moths attracted 3 males. 

The bilberry around the tumbled down wall was buzzing with bumblebees. 

Formerly the home of Green Hairstreak and Emperor Moth... 

Green Hairstreak butterflies . 4 seen. 

A fast moving Emperor Moth.

Back home in the afternoon, reports of loads (!) of white winged gulls at or passing Boulmer where up to 5 Glaucs and 2 Iceland had passed, enticed me out to Cullernose. I can see Boulmer from here, but could I see any arctic gulls? Not a sniff. Not many gulls at all, certainly no passage. Maybe the Boulmer birds were following feeding frenzies rather than moving north? My highlight from 6pm - 7pm was 1 Bonxie and 1 Red throated Diver both N. 

The Glorious 10th...

10th April 2016.

In Northumberland, our spring passage starts in earnest today. 'Whats he on about', you ask, there have been spring migrants for the last fortnight or more, with hirundines, wheatears, chiffchaffs and others all along the coast. But all is not as it seems. Those early birds, are just that. Early. The product of southerly airflow well before its time, depositing hungry swallows in an insectless Northumberland, only for them to need to move back south a couple of hundred miles when we get some late frosts.

No, the 10th has some significance, as this is the date when in most years there is a very noticeable arrival of spring migrants. You don't need to scour the local ponds for a one off sand martin or walk five miles of headland for a wheatear, birds like this are much more widespread, and the 10th April 2016 was no exception to the rule.

I was on my way to meet John at Warkworth at 7 o'clock this morning when I noticed a raptor putting up the gulls near Hipsburn. Buzzard I thought, then as I drove the next mile, keeping it in sight, it looked a bit different so I pulled over for a quick look. Marsh Harrier! A male too, slowly moving south. I put my foot down and arrived just before it in the top car park to get it on Johns patch list before it continued on its way. How many birds do we miss like this I wonder....

A quick check of the car park scrub revealed a male Blackcap in song, our first of the year, then down past the Old Water near the estuary we had 4 Black tailed Godwits in summer plumage, 2 Sandwich Terns and half a dozen Sand Martins near the pier. We're on a roll.... Others of note were 60 Knot, a Little Egret and a few Stonechat.

A flat coated retriever rolling on a long dead grey seal provided some value too, much to the concern of the owners...

Unfortunately, none of the summer birds lingered long enough for a photo, but two Twite were more obliging...

Sandwich Tern and mates...

One of the Twite on the washed up flotsam.

A later tea stop, found us up at the Birling Redpoll field. There were no surprises today but still lots of Linnets, a few Redpolls and 25+ Meadow Pipits. Three small groups of Pinkfeet flew N overhead. Back at the car, we heard the unmistakeable 'tew tew tew' of a Greenshank but try as we may we couldnt get on to it. Still, calls count as a tick in the year list.

Back at home, I glanced out of the kitchen window and first bird I see is a year tick. A male Blackcap skulking through the roses. Nearby a Siskin pair were showing well and even singing, but my camera was still in the car. By the time I snipered out and got it, the Blackcap had continued its migration, I did manage a Siskin though.

Later as I cut the grass, 2 Lesser Redpolls joined the Goldfinches and Siskins at the niger seed. I waited in the outhouse and got a nice shot of one of the redpolls, I'm quite happy with this one. Good light and good range make all the difference.

Lesser Redpoll

Male Siskin in song. Looks a bit soft as its taken through the kitchen window...

On the Tip...

Widdrington Tip that is.

I used to live only half a mile from here when it attracted Glaucous Gulls and Hooded Crows every winter. The land fill has been closed now for many years and has been planted over with alder, birch and willow forming a wet 'carr' type habitat. Its excellent for wildlife in general but is only a small size, maybe  half a km sq, but it has rushy shallow pools, reedmace, some phragmites and rough grass. It holds some nice birds that you would associate with this habitat and today we had a good selection - Woodcock, 4 Snipe ( no Jacks today), 2 Willow Tits, Jays, Sparrowhawk, 9 Crossbills and - Redpolls. No we aren't sick of them. How could you be really, they're fantastic, never still, never boring .

One or two birds down the right hand side are Mealies...

After a tip off from Nigel through the week, we made a very rare visit south of Amble to check them out. We soon found a flock of 40 - 50 birds but they were constantly roving around, giving odd glimpses here and there. After some perseverance, we had a decent look at them, finding a few Mealies in with Lessers, but no candidates from further north. That's not to say there aren't any, later we saw another flock of 25 birds plus small groups flying in from all over. You would need luck to be with you in this habitat.

Lesser Redpolls

 A view across the big lake at Widdrington had a lovely Peregrine sitting on a soil outcrop, maybe digesting a meal. At Stobswood, a single drake Pochard was good, I don't see many up in my neck of the woods these days and we paid a visit to DBCP to take some snaps of the confiding drake Goosander. Its a pity the light was poor.

And that was about it really, a pleasant morning out, now where is the spring...

A heavily edited image to get some colour on a dark day....

Twite...

Time flies at this time of year. Its been nearly two weeks since I posted about the Chiffchaff, so here is a little update of what I have been seeing since then.

On the 19th it was a very mild 15 degrees so the moth trap was put out. I was pleased to catch my earliest ever Hebrew Character as well as a Chestnut. A Red Squirrel dashed across the road at our lane end, the first I've seen here for a little while.

The 23rd brought an early Christmas present when a nice Merlin dashed past me while I walked Bunty. It perched up on a fence a couple of hundred yards away giving good binocular views. This brings the patch year list to a round 150 species.

On 24th a hint of de ja vu came when a Peregrine over flew the exact same flight line as yesterdays Merlin. A Barn Owl hunted for half an hour outside our kitchen window and 2 Bramblings were with 100+ Chaffinches in the rectory stubble field.

No white Christmas this year though and on the big day only a lone Siskin and 8 Pink feet flying south made it into the notebook.

Last night while returning home from visiting the 24 hour long rain deluge had finally stopped leaving us with seriously flooded roads. No sooner had the rain abated the owls came out, with a nice Long eared Owl sitting on a hedge lit by the car headlights, then a Barn Owl near home sitting the same way.

Thats us up to date. Today I popped out to see John at Warkworth for a wander around the estuary area. Apart from the usual crack, it was uneventful bird-wise until a group of 19+ Twite flew in to the salt marsh. This was a regular traditional site for them some years ago but now they seem to prefer the Druridge Bay links.

Back home, 20 Siskins and a Lesser Redpoll fed in alders, while 7 Stock Doves were with other birds in the rectory stubble, but there was no trace of the Bramblings...

Twite creeping through the grass like mice...

Lesser Redpoll

150. Merlin

Lesser Redpolls

A day off to catch up with some bits and pieces so no proper birding done at all today. Still, while walking Bunty at lunchtime we came across a nice little flock of 12 Lesser Redpolls feeding on seed heads of Rosebay Willowherb along the ditch next to the lane. Although it was a very dull day, I still thought it would be worth recording them on camera. The images are very 'noisy' as you would expect, but it shows the birds doing what they do....

  

Lesser Redpolls every last one...