At last, someone turned the heating up

Saturday was an awful day with heavy rain/sleet and feeling very cold for most of the day, it felt more like January than May.

The forecast was for the rain to clear late afternoon, which it did. Janet and I headed to the patch to see if anything had dropped in. When we arrived it was still cold and damp but within half an hour, the wind moved into the south and the temperature increased by about seven degrees, it was almost as if someone had turned the heating up.

The rain hadn't dropped nay passerines in, a few swifts moved through though. We walked along the beach and 12 Sanderling flew north in nice breeding plumage. Whimbrel called overhead but nothing like Mark Eaton's incredible count of 120 or more at dusk the day before. 

A few more breeding birds have young now. Some of the Canada and Greylag Geese have goslings, a Moorhen attended to four recently hatched young and there were five Lapwing youngsters in field northwest of the coal road.

A couple of mammal photos for a change.

European Rabbit on the Budge fields

Roe deer bouncing through the Teasels

This morning felt much more spring-like. A warmish sou'westerly bringing the temperature up nicely, enough to entice some insects out at last. There were lots of Hawthorn flies out along the path to the hide and some other bits and bobs.

Drinker Moth caterpillar

Common Carder Bee

Noon Fly

Gorse Shieldbug

Gooden's Nomad Bee

This hoverfly wasn't on the path to the hides, but along the edge of the Dunbar Burn on Common Scurvy Grass - Platycheirus clypeatus agg which is new for the patch

A Garganey pair on the Budge fields still and a few Dunlin and 11 Whimbrel lifted off the fields and headed north, leaving a single bird behind. A single Wheatear was the only migrant passerine on the Budge fields.

Wheatear

Off they go - six of the Whimbrel

A very vocal Sedge Warbler by the path to the hides as attracted the attention of the Toggers. 

In full flow - signing male Sedge Warbler

This evening I had an uneventful look on the sea. No new terns were added to the list. A few Gannets and six summer-plumaged Red-throated Divers were on the sea. 

The longest day

Today was the longest day of the year - not for me, when I woke up at 4.30 it was tipping it down so I went back to bed.

I was on the patch for an early start on Saturday though, birding the bushes first before looking for hoverflies later. Janet and I went to Druridge this afternoon but were dodging showers the whole time.

On Saturday I covered nearly 5km birding around the bushes and pools. In the bushes there were lots of recently fledged warblers with family parties of sedge warblers, whitethroats, blackcaps and willow warblers, adults feeding their still-dependent young. There were family groups of great and blue tits - their young a bit more independent.

Adult whitethorat

Whitethroat feeding two of its three chicks

Young sedge warbler

A weasel dodged traffic on the road

Weasel

Offshore, the scoter flock has swelled to over 900, they were a bit distant making it difficult to pick out velvets amongst them. Plenty of terns and auks offshore including 3 roseate terns (on Friday evening I picked up a single little tern feeding offshore).

Barn owls hunted all morning and were taking plenty of food away but the highlight of the morning was an adult long-eared owl in the bushes near to the Budge screen.

Barn owl with a short-tailed field vole

From the Budge screen, there was no sign of the wood or green sandpipers from the previous days but there was a single knot, two dunlin, two ringed plover and ten black-tailed godwits. The three avocet chicks are getting bigger by the day and look good for making adulthood (that's jinxed them!).

A Kestrel feeding was my first post-lockdown sighting,

Kestrel

The rest of the morning was spent with the macro lens looking for hoverflies and other stuff. I found a couple of new hoverflies for me for the patch and an amazing wasp beetle. I still need to ID some stuff but below are some photos.

A post-football visit this afternoon. heavy showers rolled in from the west so we didn't hang around. Janet went for a walk whilst I grilled the sea and then we both went to the Budge screen out of the rain. The same waders as yesterday apart from the knot had been replaced by a wood sandpiper.

A bee-mimic hoverfly - Leucozona lucorum (female)

Common Cardinal Beetle Pyrochroa serraticornis

Funky Caterpillar - the caterpillar of moth Depressaria daucella in final instar. There are only county 23 records according to Northumberland Moths

Diamondback Moth Plutella xylostella

Hoverfly Eristalis arbustorum (f)

Syrphus Sp

I thought that this was a wasp at first but it's a beetle - a wasp beetle Wasp Beetle Clytus arietis

Hoverfly Syrphus torvus (female)

Hoverfly Helophilus hybridus

Hoverfly Helophilus pendulus

Hoverfly Eristalis pertinax (female)

Marmalade hoverfly Episyrphus balteatus

Sawfly Tenthredo mesomela

22-Spot Ladybird  Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata

Bloody Cranesbill - the county flower of Northumberland

larvae of 7-spot ladybird Coccinella septempunctata but I'm not sure what the little mite thing is, there were three of them associating with the larvae.

One of the Chrysopa lacewings - needs to be ID'd but that might not be possible from a photo

Crabro cribarius  - Slender-bodied digger wasp (I saw one of these in June last year in the same place)

Crabro cribarius  - Same as above

Large Skipper Ochlodes sylvanus

Hoverfly Meliscaeva auricollis

Buff-tailed Bumble Bee Bombus terrestris

Hoverfly Tropidia scita -  a new one for me and for Druridge, it can be ID'd from the triangular 'tooth' on the hind femura

A morning (and a bit) of ringing

The weather forecast said light SE winds and largely overcast for this morning - perfect for ringing I thought and took the day off work. For once the forecast was right. I started putting nets up just after five a.m and finished just after two as the wind stated to pick up out of the south-east.

I only had a four nets up as I was on my own. Predictably, at this time of year, breeding warblers dominated the catch with only a couple of this years young chiffchaffs. Most of the warblers that breed at Druridge are sub-Saharan migrants and ringing them gives the BTO some good data on adult survival, particularly over-winter.  We didn't ring at Druridge last year because of family reasons, but we are catching warblers that we ringed in 2018 and 2017 - for the latter they've crossed the Sahara desert at least six times.

It appears to be a very good year for sedge warblers with plenty of adult birds around, mostly exhibiting signs that they are breeding. I didn't catch any reed warblers last week but caught seven this week - a species that has really colonised Druridge Pools in recent years and now breeds in even the smallest patches of phragmites. I caught a 'control' reed warbler - this means that I caught a bird that had been ringed by someone else in a different location. Controls provide data about migration and dispersal. I will report back when hear back from BTO about where this bird was ringed.

Other than the resident warblers, a real surprise was a female bullfinch. She had a brood patch so is/has bred locally. Bullfinch are very, very scarce in breeders at Druridge (in fact I'm struggling to recall one), they are usually only seen in autumn and winter. As I was packing up I caught an entire family party of blue tits - an adult male and female and four unruly juveniles.

Today's list (not all caught and ringed, this includes other sightings)

I hope to get few more ringing sessions in over the next few weeks to catch juvenile warblers before they disperse.

After some net-ride maintenance yesterday evening, I had a quick seawatch. Other than 55 manx shearwater heading north it was just busy with breeding birds from Coquet Island. The Easterly wind pushed a few fulmars close to the dunes and I managed a couple of photos as they glided effortlessly by.

Two barn owls hunted the dune-backs behind me.

Seawatching list here

Fulmar

Fulmar at close quarters

Ringing at both ends of the day

This blog post could've been called 'Burning the candle at both ends' as that is exactly what I did yesterday.

We've been keen to get the nets up at Druridge to do some ringing since we got back from Galloway, but the actual weather or the forecasted weather, which are rarely the same thing, has prevented us.

The forecast for yesterday morning was for the wind to drop by 7am and to be overcast. So not a really early start, but early enough, to let the wind drop, which it did a bit but the cloud cover was zero. We had the nets up by 7am and there seemed to be a lot of warbler activity, with lots of willow warblers or ciffchaffs feeding in the sunlight on the upper branches of the bushes. They must've stayed there as we didn't catch many. A fly-through collared dove was my first on the patch this year - it's common species like this that excite the patch-worker.

It was warblers that we mostly caught;

Willow Warbler -3
Blackcap - 3
Whitethroat - 1
Sedge Warbler - 1
Reed Warbler - 1
Garden Warbler -1

The garden warbler is indicative of migration as this species doesn't breed at Druridge and is a species that we have rarely caught in recent years.

We only caught 17 birds all morning, so there was some time between checking the nets to have a play with my new macro lens, which is also good a good 'portrait' lens for birds in the hand.

juvenile willow warbler

Juvenile whitethroat

Juvenile sedge warbler

Juvenile garden warbler - a scarce visitor to Druridge

I had a go at some insect photography between net-checking. I'll post some photos later inthe week when I've identified them all, but here is a taster...

Small copper butterfly

So, I mentioned burning the candle at both ends... whizz forward 12 hours and we were back at Druridge, just as it got dark to try to catch storm petrels on the beach. We were joined by Laura Shearer and Jenna Berry.

This is the fifth summer we've tried to ring storm petrels at Druridge. Touch-wood, we've never failed to catch birds and last night was no exception. We've only ever caught one bird before midnight and that was last summer, so it was a surprise when Janet checked the nets at 11.40 and found our first storm petrel of the evening.

We were even more surprised by the next bird, which we caught at 12.20... This one was bigger and it had a wing bar on the upper wing - a Leach's petrel.

We controlled a Leach's petrel in 2016 (read the story here) that had been originally ringed on the Isle of May and been caught again on the Farne Islands before we caught it. Last night's bird was un-ringed. 

Leach's Petrel - They have an incredibly 'steep' forehead.(Photo: L Shearer)

Janet processing the Leach's  - you can see the wing bar in this photo.(Photo: L Shearer)

We went on to catch another two storm petrels at 12.40 and 01.20. As we were about to pack up, just before 2am we heard singing from above our heads - was sleep deprivation kicking in, had we heard too much petrel noise - no, it was a Leach's petrel flying above us singing back to the tape. It didn't go into the net, but it begs the question - was it the same bird we'd caught earlier or a different bird, and if so, how many are out there?

All in all, a long but enjoyable day (and night...)

First ringing session

Finally there are enough leaves on the trees and bushes at Druridge to attempt a ringing session, with light winds and cloud first thing on Sunday morning the weather was ideal. The forecast said the wind would ease further throughout the day and become more cloudy - of course it did the opposite.

It was a good first session though with only three nets up. I caught a good number of warblers including grasshopper, reed and sedge along with willow, whitethroat and blackcap. I had some interesting retraps including a willow warbler first ringed in 2014, a blackcap ringed as an adult in 2013, a blackcap ringed as a juvenile in 2013 and a whitethroat, also from 2013.

A great white egret was found on the Budge fields on Friday morning by Time Dean, I saw it then and saw it again flying north over the big pond as I was ringing. A drake garganey was also on the Budge fields along with a three ruff, two of which had 'ruffs' and smart male yellow wag.

The warm weather had brought a few butterflies out - speckled wood were the most common and I saw my first orange-tip of the year.

This family of Canada geese goslings kept me amused for a while.

At least one of us can manage to stay awake

Pied wagtail

Still a few wigeon about - Mrs wigeon

Mr Wigeon