Who is wagging the tail?

Yesterday morning was spent in a small field in Netherwitton trying to find bugs and beasties for year 1 & 2 children.  The morning was a great success and the highlight was a resplendent cockchafer (May bug) - the first I have seen in Northumberland. 

During the morning there was a small selction of birds.  These include a grey heron, great spotted woodpecker, blackcap and good numbers of tree sparrow.  A number of pied wagtails graced the roof of the neighbouring buildings and a grey wagtail flew up the Ewesley Burn.  A further highlight was at least 2 yellow wagtails - this is in an area where they are not supposed to occur.  It is amazing what you can find in a confined space!

Newton Point 17th june

A quick visit to Newton Point after work to do a spot of sea watching was well worth it . Hundreds of auks flew past, mainly Common Guillemot but also a few Razorbills and Puffins, the real stars were the Manx Shearwaters which were gliding past at quite close range,in total we counted 27 flying north. The other spectacle was the masses of flowers in the hay meadow, including Red Clover, Buttercups, Birds foot Trefoil, Thrift and Pignut, the air was filled with an intense spice like aroma.

All quiet on the Kimmer front

This was a rare treat a trip to Kimmer Lough as part of the moorland survey work for AWG.  The combination of woodland, scrub, open water, moorland and bog provided an enticing backdrop.  There were good numbers of willow warblers, reed buntings, meadow pipits and skylarks.  4 grey herons put in a brief appearance as well as the small numbers of both lesser black-backed and herring gulls.  Other birds of interest included two displaying male snipe, a male curlew, a male cuckoo (being presued by meadow pipits) and a single sedge warbler.

Other things of interest included a common lizard, flowering chickweed wintergreen and at least two lattice heath moths.  You could not stand around too long as midges were everywhere!

Holy Island 16th june 2013

The day dawned warm and sunny, so inspired by our botanical outing with Richard on Saturday we decided to see what we could find on Holy Island. The most obvious thing was the whole Island was covered with Northern Marsh Orchids.

                                                    Northern Marsh Orchid
There was also quite extensive patches of Common Cotton Grass, in the dunes themselves yet more Nortthern Marsh Orchids along with Common Spotted Orchid and Scarlet Pimpernel.
The next area to check was around the old quarry at Snipe Point, here we found more Orchids along with Birds Foot Trefoil and Purple Milk Vetch.

                                           Purple Milk Vetch
Birds and Insects were in short supply but we did find a small group of 7 breeding plumaged Sanderling in Sandon Bay and  couple of Wall Brown Butterflies plus a number of Cinnabar Moths

  

Last Sunday (9th) I went botanising with Chris & Hazel Metherell and Ian Filtness from AWG in the dunes at Bamburgh.  My Plant Corner article in the June newsletter shows some of the unusual naturalised garden escapes that we found, but better were the two truly wild species.

Scots Lovage (Ligusticum scoticum) is not dissimilar to Ground Elder in its leaves and flowers, but the only two places it is found in Northumberland are at Cocklawburn south of Spittal and here at Banburgh.  There's been some suggestion that it had disappeared from Bamburgh, but Chris found a single plant among the Marram Grass in the dunes.  The one in the photo is not the specimen we found, but it is at a similar stage before flowering.

Then I found myself standing right by a decent sized patch of Purple Milk Vetch (Astragalus danicus).  This is a well-botanised area and Purple Milk Vetch is uncommon but not rare in Northumbrian dunes, yet the last record for it in this tetrad was in - wait for it -1805!  So I was very pleased to have spotted it.

Birds and Bees

Perhaps following a timeline bees and birds might be more appropriate. It started with an early dog walk around Branton Ponds, as we strode around the east pond we noticed what at first looked like a mouse nest on the path, but it's contents were more interesting, not a family of baby mice but a nest of bumble bees complete with a few grub and a couple of dead adults. The next clue was a site of intense digging a few yards along the path, obviously the original resting place of the nest, a sure sign of foraging badgers which had dug the bees out and feasted.
At the other end of the day yet another dog walk, this time we were at the west end of the west pond when a small group of Redshank flew in, it was obvious straight away that one of them was very dark and on zooming in on the bird with our bins we found we were looking at a lovely breeding plumaged Spotted Redshank, taller than the Common Redshanks, longer legged with from a distance what looked like a pure black plumage but was subtle shades of black and brown, it also had a much longer, thinner bill and when chased off by a Moorhen the white rump really contrasted with the dark plumage. The question is was it a failed breeder heading back or is it on it's way further north to find a mate?.    

A walk along the River Aln

An afternoon stroll along the River Aln, from Lesbury towards Alnwick, threw up  a couple of pleasant  surprises.

I had assumed, having not seen any for a couple of weeks, that the Sawbills had all decamped further north to breed.

 But to my surprise, I  soon found myself in the company of a female Goosander shepherding 3 young  up river.

A little further on, 2 Common Sandpipers, each one
on its own stone, seemed to be in a fairly serious vocal relationship with  each other.

 I look forward to monitoring any further progress in that direction!