Viz Mig - it's just a hobby!

Firstly, apologies for the lack of blog updates. There just aren't enough hours in the day and when it is still light in the evenings I would rather be out birding than sorting photos or writing blog posts, especially as most of my time these days is spent in front of the computer in my office.

Since my last post we had a holiday to Wales - a week in the Llyn AONB with an excursion to Anglesey for the Elegant Tern at Cemlyn Bay and two new damselflies. All in all, a great trip!

Back to Druridge, I've managed a few visits before and after work and the patch year-list is now on 146, a couple of decent seawatches and a few early migrants, like Cuckoo and Green Sandpiper, have pushed it up in July.

Common Tern feeding offshore in 'Golden Hour' light in July

Barn Owl - un-ringed second year female

Back to the here and now, on Friday I took a day off work and spent the morning on the patch. I did a bit of viz-migging from the high dune, it was reasonably quiet but I did scope the Little Owl at the preceptory. I had a wander down to the hides with the macro camera to look for bugs and beasts, where, bizarrely,  I bumped into a chap from Oxford whom I'd met at Icklesham back in 2011, where I'd spent a week ringing with him as a trainee. As we were chatting a small falcon flew fast, over the bund, spooked by seeing us, it banked around over the Budge fields and headed off in the direction from which it had come - Hobby! An adult. My first on the patch since 2015.

I scrambled up the bank to look out over the big pool but I had gone. Shortly after I was sat in the little hide with a chap called Harry and we saw the same bird come back over the Budge fields before again heading our over the big pool. I think it must've been hunting hunting dragonflies. Both views were brief but the grey upperparts, lighter plain tail, paler underparts and heavily streaked under-carriage with reddish buff 'trousers' all visible, but it was it's jizz that made us all call hobby before detail as noted. 

Common Field Grasshopper - pink form

New for the patch - Denticulate Leatherbug (Coriomeris denticulatus)

Comma Butterfly - not common on the patch

Roe Buck headed south across the Budge Fields

Yesterday, on arriving at the patch, just before 8am, I saw a few Swifts overhead, Janet sent me a message to say she had seen Swifts moving over the marina in Amble. Another viz-mig session I thought... The wind was stronger from west, which is good for viz-mig at Druridge as birds are 'pinched-in' to the middle of the bay, but also tough-going so I chose a lower spot, rather than the big dune.

Swift passage continued and by 9am I'd counted 109 going south with strong passage of hirrundines, mostly House Martins. This continued until after 10 am when it seemed to ease, in total I counted 245 Swifts south in two and a half hours.

One of over 245 Swifts that went south

A Hobby, presumably yesterday's bird, soared high on two occasions, between Druridge and East Chev and over towards Low Chibburn before drifting south. Scope-views was I all I had, but they were prolonged as it soared on the thermals. Two Merlins and two Sparrowhawks came through as did a juvenile Marsh Harrier  - it was almost like being in Tarifa (maybe not). Green Sandpiper (with a Snipe), Little Egret, four Black-tailed Godwits and 17 Meadow Pipits went south.

One of two Sparrowhawks

And it was gone... one of two Merlins

I went looking for Harebell Bee in the dunes afterwards with no joy but did see some other interesting critters. 

Dune Robberfly (Philonicus albiceps)

Small Copper Butterfly in the Dunes

Hoverfly Scaeva pyrastri

Head down

It's that time of year again...

Rather than looking up into the sky or even into the canopy of the bushes, my head is down, looking at flower heads and grasses in search of invertebrates. I do enjoy the challenge of identifying these tiny insects and spiders but it takes time and patience,  I have precious little of either.

On Saturday evening Janet and I had wander around the patch. There were at least 40 Black-tailed Godwits on the Budge fields, most of them look like icelandica race birds and five Ruff including a juvenile, there was also Little Ringed Plover and a handful of Dunlin.  At least one of the cuckoos was still present and there were plenty of 'toggers' lined up along the road all taking the same photo - we left them to it and went looking for bees and hovers but it was a bit late in the day. We did find some more of the funky caterpillars of Depressaria daucella which are starting to build their cocoons. We summoned Tom Tams away from the Cuckoo as we knew he was keen to see them as they aren't a commonly recorded moth in the county.

Depressaria daucella Caterpillar building its cocoon in cow parsley

We had some adult moths and butterflies and other stuff. I'll put Sunday's sightings on here tomorrow hopefully.

Male Syrphus sp hoverfly

Beautiful China Mark moth (Nymphula nitidulata)

Common Blue butterfly (female)

Potato Mirid Closterotomus norwegicus

Yellow Shell moth (Camptogramma bilineata)

Small skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris)

Field grasshopper 

A lunchtime wander through the dunes

I took a longer lunch break today to have a wander through the dunes whilst the sun shone between the days of rain. The dunes really are at their best right now, carpeted in bloody cranesbill, common restharrow, lady's bedstraw and cats ears.

Dune flora

Bloody cranesbill Geranium sanguineum

Common restharrow Ononis repens

My target was to photograph dark green fritillaries - they were on the wing now but rarely rest and when they do they're easily spooked. I think that the 400mm lens is better for this species. I managed a single distant shot.

Dark green fritillary Argynnis aglaja

My other plan was to look for hoverflies, hoping that there would be something different to the species that I find along the track and in the bushes. There wasn't much variety but some nice hovers and better photos of some species I've seen before.

Cheilosia illustrata

I saw Cheilosia illustrata for the first time last week so it was nice to get a better pic.

Sphaerophoria sp (female)

Sphaerophoria scripta (male)

Eupeodes corollea (male)

Eupeodes corollea (female)

I also found this groovy blue beetle. It's one of the Altica species of metallic flea beetle, probably Altica lythri.

Altica - probably A. lythri

As well as the dark green fritillaries, there were ringlets, common blue, meadow brown, small tortoiseshell and small heath on the wing in the dunes.

A worn-looking ringlet

Common blue (female)

I only found one cinnabar moth but plenty of their caterpillars on ragwort. Narrow-bordered five-spot burnet moths were everywhere and I found more Pammene aurana on cow parsley - the species I found last week.

Cinnabar moth Tyria jacobaeae and caterpillar

Narrow-bordered Five-spot burnet moth Zygaena lonicerae

Pammene aurana

I only walked about 150m in an hour and a half but there was plenty to see - all very enjoyable.

Field grasshopper Chorthippus brunneus

Blue-tailed damselfly Ischnura elegans

Wet weather

It's rained, almost constantly, since Friday and I'm bored of being stuck at home.

It's a good excuse to catch up with sorting through some photos though. Here are a few macro shots from last Sunday afternoon when the weather was somewhat nicer.

Eristalis tenax - a male looking a bit tatty. If you zoom in you can see his 'hairy eyes'  - one of the ID clinchers for this species

One of the Sphaerophoria species of hoverfly - can't get the to species level with photos alone.

A male Common Field Grasshopper - Chorthippus brunneus

A female Common Field Grasshopper Chorthippus brunneus

Meadow Brown Maniola jurtina

Speckled Wood butterfly - Pararge aegeria

Common Green Capsid - Lygocoris pabulinus