First patch Osprey in 25 years

After heavy rain and cold northeasterly winds on Friday/Saturday morning Janet and I went out to look for migrant passerines at Druridge on Saturday morning. We stopped at the Budge Screen first and finally caught up with some Little Gulls and the thunbergii (grey-headed) Yellow Wagtail. With two Wood Sandpipers, a pair of Garganey, a Knot, two bar-tailed and three Black-tailed Godwits among the supporting cast we would have been happy to leave it at that. 

We wandered north along the bushes and onto the haul road. It was there, where we were alerted to a large bird flying north pursued by five or six Lapwings. The Lapwings wouldn't have bothered going that high for a gull, so bins onto it and it showed it to be an Osprey! It was heading steadily north and soon lost to sight over East Chevington. 

Osprey heading north pursued by Lapwings (heavy crop)

This is my first patch Osprey since at least 1996 - it was so long ago, the record is in a long-gone paper notebook. 

We didn't find any noteworthy migrants passerines, not even a Wheatear. There were hundreds of hirrundines and the Swifts were flying very low.  The sun came out briefly later and brought out some insects.

Common Cardinal Beetle 

Male Andrena sp of bee

Large Red Damselfy (female)

22-Spot Laydybird

Cheilosia sp of Hoverfly  -STOP PRESS - Roger Morris thinks this is C. bergenstammi

Green NettleWeavil

Sphaerophoria sp of hoverfly - the females can't be identified to species by photographs

Red and Black Froghopper

Today was WeBS count day. Highlights were five Little Gulls, one Med Gull and a single Drake Garganey. Wood Sandpiper and Ruff had been reported but we didn't see them. The Grey-headed Wagtail was gone but there were two flavissima.

Drake Tufted Duck - without the orange eye, this could be monochrome photo

 We walked to Chibburn mouth to check on my fence and walked back along the beach seeing very little along the way - only a handful of Sandwich Terns.

One of the Sandwich Terns

Spoonbill looking miserable on the Budge fields earlier in the week

Meadow Pipit has been fishin'

Meadow Pipits don't eat fish - right? yes this is right

Wrong.

I was out for a walk at Druridge this morning and by the bridge over the Dunbar Burn I snapped away at Meadow Pipit on a post. I noticed two things - the bird looked wet, I presumed from being in the wet grass and it was carrying a big bit of food. It wasn't until I got home and looked at the photos on the camera and zoomed in that I realised the food item was a small fish and the bird was very wet because it had been fishing, presumably in the shallow bit of the Dunbar Burn.

Meadow Pipit with a fish!

A look through BWP and HBW showed no mention of Meadow Pipits taking fish - their are a few records of them wading though water to take larvae and other aquatic invertebrates but not fish. I am only presuming that the bird went on to eat the fish of course. The fish looks like a Stickleback.

Here is a heavily cropped shot

This shot shows how wet the bird was

I feel a note to BB coming on...

Or maybe not - an update.

Stewart Sexton has re-identified the fish as a moth. A moth masquerading as a fish. It is now my life's mission to find a meadow pipit catching fish. 

Other than fish moth-eating Meadow Pipits other highlights from this morning included a good number of Swifts still,  decent southerly Sand Martin passage, a juvenile Whinchat (first for two years on the patch) and a lot of warblers. I presumed the warblers were mostly locally reared birds as some, like these Whitethroats and Willow Warblers were still being fed by adults but the number and reports from other birders suggest this might have been more of a broad-front movement.

One of about 20 swifts feeding over the bushes

Juvenile Whitethroat waiting for its next feed

Willow Warbler

male Linnet

The Budge fields are drying out quickly and the Avocet family have relocated to the northern side of the fields to find water and the mud held only a flock of Dunlin.

Visits at the weekend were confined to early morning or late evening to avoid the crowds. On Sunday morning, Swallow passage was evident with about 60 birds south in 40 minutes. A Wood Sandpiper and juvenile Ruff were noteworthy on the Budge fields. A bird club trip led by Tim Dean were loitering in the dunes.

Eye-spy

On Saturday evening, I had been trying to pin down the tails of a colour-ringed Common Gull in the roost without success, the light was going when I made my way back over the dunes to see a flock of least 20 Little Egrets coming into roost in the Willows at the western end of the big pool. It was like being in La Janda in southern Spain apart from I wearing a thick coat and was still cold!

A nice selection of waders

There was nice selection of waders on the Budge Fields this evening. At this time of year I can never work out whether these birds are late migrants, failed breeders returning or non breeders just making the journey.

Wood sandpipers and green sandpipers, two of each, were the highlights and nine black-tailed godwit, 15 redshank, 7 avocet (including chicks), two dunlin and two ringed plover made up the supporting cast.

No photos of anything from tonight as it was very foggy...again.

I had a quick look offshore last night for an hour at dusk. The scoter flock on the sea had swelled to something around 700! I was working my way through them, having picked up two drake velvet scoters when I came across two smaller ducks at the edge of the flock. They were about half to two-thirds of the size of the scoters with pale underparts, they were on their sides, both having a good preen. When they finally stopped preening, I got a better look at them, but only briefly as two very loud scrambler motorbikes arrived on the beach and sped towards the tideline, flushing the entire flock. They were small-billed with pale cheek patches and darker crown. From my limited view of them I can only think that they were two non-breeding 2nd year long-tailed ducks.

If you aren't interested in hoverflies, you can stop reading this now.

Here are some hoverfly photos from Sunday as promised:

Scaeva pyrastri (male)

Eupeodes Sp.(male)

Rhingia campestris

Eupeodes Sp 

Marmalade Hover Fly - Episyrphus balteatus

Marmalade Hover Fly - Episyrphus balteatus

Platycheirus albimanus (female)

Platycheirus sp (female)

Eristalis tenax (m) - head-on. Zoom for detail!

Eristalis tenax (m)

An influx of migrants

On the day that our new leader and his Home Secretary announce that they are are going to strengthen our immigration laws a tidal-wave of migrants from Africa arrived, via Europe, onto our shores overnight.

Even Boris can't stop these migrants however - painted lady butterflies - millions of them.

Painted Lady Butterfly

A typical scene this morning

In a short walk at Druridge this morning we counted over 250 of them. Other observers counted similar numbers up and down the coast. This is the third and most impressive arrival of painted lady butterflies this summer. What's also amazing is that we witnessed a mass movement of the same species over Athens in April - thousands passing through the city centre.

Today was a good day for butterflies at Druridge with at least eleven species noted.

small skipper

Comma

a beautiful 'blue' female Common Blue

Migrant moths were also noticeable with diamond back moths, silver Y's and a yet-to-be-identified moth all over the dunes and grasslands.

Diamond back moth

There were hundreds of these in the dunes this evening...

Whilst we were photographing some of the hoverflies a couple of visitors showed us a photo of a hummingbird hawkmoth they had just photographed and we soon relocated it - a patch first for me and only my third in Northumberland.

Hummingbird hawkmoth - new for the patch

Some hoverflies from today

Rhingia campestris - sometimes known as the 'Heineken hoverfly'

Pellucid hoverfly - Volucella pellucens

 Female Syrphus sp. possibly ribesii

tbc

female Platycheirus sp

male Eristalis sp. possibly E. tenax

Most of this stuff still needs identifying...

One of the 'picture-winged flies'

Crabro cribarius  - female

Tenthrado sp

Orthops campestris

Spider - underside

Same spider from above

Grasshopper Sp

Back to Birds...
Wader numbers were much-reduced from what they were on Friday. Today there were two wood sandpipers, one common sand, five black-tailed godwits, two ruff and greenshank of note. On Friday there were 10 common sand, one wood sand, one green sand, one little ringed plover, 27 black-tailed godwit, four knot, ten snipe, two ruff, whimbrel and a the first returning golden plover of the autumn.

We had hoped to try to ring some storm petrels tonight but the sea was still boiling after recent northerlies, loud enough to drown-out or speaker for sure. We did go and check the volume out though and had ten Med gulls in the beach roost including a juvenile.