Still around at the beginning of November, two male common darter dragonflies, Sympetrum striolatum, were resting on a fence by the play area at RSPB Saltholme.
Common Darter
Category: Wetlands
Hauxley Nature Reserve
The Lookout Cafe at the Northumberland Wildlife Trust Hauxley Nature Reserve is an ideal place to sketch.
At the opposite corner of the reserve, on the lagoon near the outlet to Druridge Bay, a female gadwall is dabbling amongst a raft of washed-up kelp.
The spindle has fuchsia-red fruits which remind me of miniature pumpkins. It looks as if most of the orange berries of sea buckthorn have already been eaten, perhaps by redwings and fieldfares, but there are a few clumps left close to the path. We had a glimpse of what I thought was a flock of redwings going over, if so, these are the first that we’ve seen this year.
Shovellers at Saltholme
Redshank, black-tailed godwit and a flock of several hundred golden plovers at RSPB Saltholme.
We took a break at the reserve on our return journey from Northumberland too, when we also saw dunlin and marsh harrier.
Penguin Dance
I’ve often seen great-crested grebes go through their head-shaking, ritualised preening display, but at last this morning at RSPB St Aidan’s, we got to see the presentation of beakfuls of water-weed and the penguin dance where the male and female rise from the water, breast to breast, paddling furiously and swaying heads. They appeared to drop the weed as they started this routine. They then returned to head-bobbing display.
We’ve yet to see the ‘ghostly penguin’ and the ‘cat display’ which apparently start off the whole routine.
Sutton-cum-Lound Gravel Pits, 1973
From my sketchbook (and diary) from 50 years ago today, Thursday, 23 August, 1973:
Mother and I visited Grandma (in excellent form). Such a fine afternoon that I took a walk out to the Gravel Pits that I haven’t visited since I was so high (well a little higher than that perhaps).
A rich hedgerow was suffering from the dust of gravel lorries.
81 coots (mainly & a few tufted)
15 lapwing
Common Persicaria, Pollygonum persicaria, is typical of disturbed and damp ground such as there was about the gravel workings. The leaves often have a dark blotch. Also known as Redshank.
One explanation of the dark patch is that the Devil once pinched the leaves and made them useless as they lack the fiery flavour of water-pepper.
Shetlanders used to extract a yellow dye from it.
Yes, this was a potato – the gravel pit seems to have been partly filled by rubbish.
In Search of a Lost Museum
Mother and I stopped off in Barnsley on our way to Grandma’s. According to The Naturalist’s Handbook there is a museum there.
“This building was the Harvey Institute, many years ago, and there was a museum here, which was in what is now the Junior Library.”
Fairburn Ings, 1964
From my 1964-65 negatives, this was probably my first visit the what was then a West Riding County Council nature reserve at Fairburn Ings (now an RSPB reserve).
I’ve colourised the shot of the information board but this black and white of the mute swans probably gives a better impression of the way the lagoon was surrounded by colliery spoil in its early days.
Secondary Feather
Feather that I picked up by the track at St Aidan’s yesterday and I think that it’s a secondary from the right wing of a goose. A large flock of pink-footed geese went over, touching down at the Astley Lake end of the reserve.
Curlews and Tree Sparrows
Curlews and tree sparrows at the Northumberland Wildlife Trust’s Hauxley nature reserve last week.
And some grazing teal from our return journey via RSPB Saltholme reserve.
Saltholme Pools
On Wednesday morning the farmer was moving the cattle that graze the marshes at RSPB Saltholme from Paddy’s Pool over to the Saltholme Pools.
Hauxley
Another sketchbook page from our short break in Northumberland and it’s another view from a table in a cafe overlooking a lagoon in a restored landscape, this time at the Lookout Café at the Hauxley Wildlife Discovery Centre at the northern end of Druridge Bay.
Red admiral and speckled wood butterflies rested on willow and bramble in the afternoon sun in a sheltered corner at the foot of the wooded slope below the Wildlife Discovery Centre.