Drab doldrums.

Looking back through my recent blog posts and they all seem a little drab? I'll try and spruce them up in coming weeks.

I have also read two of the other blogs I follow and find they are struggling to get motivated too. Its not good chaps! Come on, a few slow days and crap summer weather is what we are used to, I'm sure it will pass soon.

Locally around here over the last week or two I've managed a few noteworthy things.

Plants. I would like to do more here, but can only id the common species and even then just because I think I'm right doesn't mean I am.  I checked along the road for our sporadic Birds Nest Orchids and managed to find one.  These are drab even when fresh so forgive me here...

Bird's Nest Orchid, a stunner. 

In the same area as the orchid I found a massive mushroom that I did not recognise, but as is the way now, Facebook came to the rescue. Although it is called Lurid Bolete, it looks a tad drab to me.

Lurid Bolete. Yes really.

 We then passed some meadow in the estate gardens and found only one Common Twayblade. We had to don sunglasses for this colourful gem...

Common Twayblade

We then had a disaster with our shed Swallow nest. We found two large young dead on the floor then luckily Jane is quite thorough with these things, she found a third chick still alive on the ground. It was hastily replaced in the nest and we stood aside. The adults soon behan feeding it so hopefully all is well, but how it happened I dont know.

On 24th June I was at the moth trap at midnight when an unusual bird called overhead once then again as it moved north, a trilling, wader type call that I had not heard before. The Nocmig lads pointed me towards Water Rail so i did a trawl on Xeno-canto where sure enoughthe nocturnal flight call is my bird! Fancy that Water Rail added to the garden list in June.. amazing.

I have already mentioned the two Cuckoos, one remained the next morning but was too flighty for me to get a photo.

After an absence of a few years there are 8 Broad leaved Helleborine plants about to flower in the Village Wood, so I'll post them when they look better.

A few more Crossbills have gone south with a 3 and a single.

To bring this right up to date, a seawatch on Wednesday 1st July had 45 Manx Shearwaters N and 117 Puffins. It was generally quiet other than the local breeding seabirds in the area.

If the Bempton Albatross decides to have a jaunt northwards, I would be very grateful..

This isn't just drab, it the Uncertain.

In danger of this blog becoming gaudy, Mompha ochraceella.

Physitodes binaevella

A new hoverfly for me Cheilosia illustrata from today.

June Update...

I didnt post here last week probably due to the stress of Sundays debacle! We were out orchid hunting and happened to lock the keys in the car boot and the spare was in my coat pocket on the back seat! To cut a long story short, the RAC bloke pick pocketed my coat with two bits of wire through a three mm gap in a prised open door to get the key.

We had a decent morning until then too, with 3 Birds Nest Orchids at Callaly and 35+ Coral Root Orchids on Holy Island...

Birds Nest Orchid

Coral Root Orchid

Over the week the garden moth trap and village patch has been quite good for some unusual species -

Small Elephant Hawk-moth

Pale Tussock not only a first for me, but a first for VC68 North Northumberland of this common moth south of the Tyne.

Wall Brown

This huge Birch Sawfly landed in our small birch. I have seen its caterpillar like larvae before but this was big surprise.

Plenty of Red headed Cardinal Beetles around at the minute.

This Cucumber Spider in our lilac was a new one for me too...

Wall Browns in the garden daily.

Red and Black Froghopper has had a boost this year. I have only ever seen them once about 20 miles away, now they seem to be everywhere.

Grey Dagger on our shed door, I missed this one earlier.

This Nemophora degeerella was anice surprise on our Hemp Agrimony last night, a first for me.

Heartbeat Country..

I can't remember how I originally heard, that only about 120 miles away into the North Yorkshire wolds lurked some highly sought after species. It will probably have been on Twitter or some other internet spot. I then put social media to its best use and contacted some acquaintances for further advice. Soon a couple of people in the know, kindly gave me directions to their favourite spots and asked me not to widely broadcast, so forgive me for being a bit vague with the info on here. I'm sure a bit of dilligent internet searching will point you in the right direction.

Armed with our newly acquired info, on Sunday, we took a day trip out of the county to check out the sites . First stop was near Pickering for a couple of nice orchids that I did not know occurred this far north - Burnt Tip Orchid and Fly Orchid. In a very green and uninviting arable setting the small area below was a stunning oasis for flowers and butterflies.

We soon found several Dingy Skippers, Small Copper, Brown Argus and Small Heath butterflies, then 3 nice spikes of target No 1 Burnt Tip Orchid. Target No 2 lurked only a few feet away, Fly Orchids. There were more of these with about 8 spikes noted. We would normally have put the morning in at a site like this, but other delicacies were waiting...

The small limestone diggings shows the substrate favoured by the plants.

Dingy Skipper

Burnt tip Orchid

Early Purple Orchids in good numbers.

Above - Fly Orchids.

Brown Argus

Site No 2 was about 5 miles away, for a butterfly I have only seen once - Pearl bordered Fritillary.

We soon located up to 20 of these normally woodland insects, either dashing past a a rate of knots (males) or (females) being elusive, flutterhopping into dead bracken clumps looking for violets to lay egs on or near to. They are another declining species in the UK with scattered small colonies mainly with a westerly distribution.

Fritillaries dashed past or scurried around under the bracken laying eggs.

Pearl bordered Fritillaries above.

 As time was wearing on, we made a move, 16 miles further west towards Thirsk, for the star of the show, the headline act, so to speak, all arise please for - The Duke of  Burgundy.

The last time I met with the Duke, was on a Lancs limestone pavement a few years back, 

now here we are, in the other rose county, where we were very pleased to count 19+ in a small sunny area. Up to 7 at a time, 'kettled' in circles, squabbling together then dividing back to low perches on bramble leaves and grass stems. Anything flying by would be chased by these tiny terrors, not much bigger than a Small Blue.  I could have watched them all day.

Above - the haunt of the Duke...

Duke of Burgundy

 The time was getting on now and we headed off for the two hour drive home, very pleased that we had not only seen all of our target species, we had great views and decent numbers of them too!
While working out our next sortie away, its back to the patch for the rest of the Bank Holiday...