more local bees

around Pishiobury Park. Birds have been decent, with yesterday a Peregrine, a Sparrowhawk, and a Red Kite before I even entered the park. Today it was bees.

This is, straightforwardly, I think, a female Tawny Mining Bee.

This is, less straightforwardly, a male Tawny Mining bee.

Quite a lot of these on the ivy in the garden. Small - I think these are Chocolate Mining Bee .

Now. With considerably less conviction, I think this might be female Gwynne's Mining Bee. Except it lacks the furry legs that Steven Falk's photos have.

Finally I have started looking for local Elms, making a note so I can go along later and look for you-know-whats. There are a few clusters locally, one in a place I've been told previously where 'they' occur, and a couple of clusters in the park. Quite easy to see now with these slightly incongruous clumps of red-centred green lollipops on bare branches.

Very finally, because they are everywhere at the moment, some Wild cherry.

?? Hill Cuckoo Bee??

doing the daily dog walk in Pishiobury Park I noticed a bee with a red tail crawling slowly through the grass. Lazy bee behaviour can indicate cuckoo bee and on closer inspection it had a shiny thorax and dark wings indicating a Hill Cuckoo Bee Bombus Rupestris, which parasitises the more common Red-Tailed Bee.

I clicked away with the phone camera and had a good look when I got back; on one photo it has a shiny first segment on the rear leg which I think indicates a pollen basket which is not compatible with it being a cuckoo bee. So I'll just leave some pictures here for comment.

nice shiny black and dark wings

shiny abdomen ... and a shiny pollen basket on the rear leg?

Local early August

the extra time has paid dividends. Not just in more time in the field, but a more relaxed approach, more time to stop and observe, not just tick and move on.

In reverse order ... I returned to the house after a walk in Pishiobury Park to find this on the buddleia

Its a Jersey Tiger, which I believe is spreading out of its South London stronghold, and with a 2011 record for Herts being the first for a while this is still a good find, but should be less scarce in a few years.

I had just returned from a leisurely stroll round Pishiobury Park. It was hot, mid afternoon, and windy, so anything with wings was staying put. It was a day of missed opportunities; a large orange butterfly shot past, too big for a comma. Silver Washed Fritillary? I hung round to try for another glimpse, but it had gone. And then a falcon between the trees. Small, direct, surely a Hobby? But it moved on out of site without a clinching view.

The definate items were predictable. Butterflies - a large number (18) of large whites, a small number (1) of small coppers, 4 "blues", Ringlet, many Gatekeepers, some Speckled Woods and a Red Admiral. There were some bees, a surprising number of queens - what are they doing out now?

 

Magpie was the commonest bird, but there was a Willow Chiff, two Kestrels, and three Common Buzzards talon grappling.There was also these, doing what they do best.

Born to munch ...

Earlier in the morning I had popped into Pincey Brook on my way top Stortford. Back in the spring there was some decent mud, and I had birds such as Wood Sandpiper, 200 Golden Plover, Shelduck, and Little Egret, quite an impressive list for a flooded inland brook. My heart sank when I saw the field was heavily flooded and the mud gone, but I my worries disappeared when a Creamcrown (prob juv) Marsh Harrier rose from the flood and quartered the area, even diving toward the ground at one stage. A Red Kite appeared and the Harrier flew off toward a neighbouring field, but in its brief time airborne it had put up c50 Lapwing, 2 Teal, and caused some consternation amongst the c40 Greylag Geese.

Yesterday was Rye Meads, an RSPB that has benefited from some recent effort to atrract intersting birds. There were 2 Green Sandpipers at thge Draper Hide, and at the Gadwall Hide a local had identified a juvenile Meditrerranean Gull amongst the 50-100 Black Headed Gulls. He offered to direct me but I took the challenge and ended up finding 2. Here is a very poor shot of one of them. It's the one on the right. Clearly.

Best day of the year?

What day is the best day of the year? Well it would have to be spring time when the flowers are out, the trees are in bloom, and the leaves are at their brightest green, so that pretty much has to be May. This year as we all know it has been cold and wet, but that does mean that as soon as the sun comes out all the flowers have burst into bloom at the same time.

Today the sun was shining, and the trees and plants were all in bloom. Soon the blossom will disappear and the buttercups will fade, so in all probability the best day this year is today.

Here's Pishiobury Park at its absolute finest.

Not Seething

Its been quiet on the patch recently. Chiffchaffs have come through in strength over the last week, and some Gadwall have turned up on the scrape, together with 3 Snipe up to 50 Teal which most of the time hide in the waterlogged vegetation. There's been nice regular sightings of Common Buzzard, Sparrowhawk, both big peckers etc, but not much of note apart from Saturday when there was a Willow Warbler, 2 Kingfisher, a Red Kite, and 9 Snipe. You'd think I'd be delighted, but I didn't see them. Instead local birder Mike popped down and ticked them all.

Lesser men than myself would be quietly seething, kicking the dogs, snapping at children, and generally going quietly or even loudly mad. I've been down there practically every day in March and at least every week for over a year, and Mike pops down and sees two birds I haven't seen there at all. But fortunately I remain serene, and have resisted the temptation to go all Barry Spence. Congratulations Mike. I'm happy for you. Please feel free to come down again and see birds I haven't seen here before. Dogs, you can come out now.

Some element of birding karma was restored on Sunday when driving D#3 to swimming in Stortford I drove under a Red Kite, just coming from the direction of another birder's house in Thorley.

Out again today. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and it was a day for sitting on top of a tree and singing (that's birds, obviously, not me). Chiffs everywhere, a few Linnets, and a Peacock (butterfly)

First day of the new Birding Year

Pishiobury Park 1st March

So, a new birding year! I walked round the periphery of Pishiobury Park trying to note every bird I saw. The results are below. On the Eastern edge of the Park at the bottom of the hill is a boggy wood with many Willows and Alders called, I believe, the Osier bed.

Great-Spotted Woodpecker 1
Wood Pigeon uncounted – a few tens
Stock Dove – 4
Magpie – 7 (of which 2 were seen in the Osier bed - 2 ob)
Jackdaw – 1 ob
Carrion Crow – 4 (2 ob)
Nuthatch – 1 heard at the N end
Blackbird - 3
Redwing – c20 ob
Robin – 11 (2 ob)
Wren - 2
Great Tit – 6 (2 ob)
Long-tailed tit - 4
Blue Tit – 10 (1 ob)
Chaffinch – 7 (3 ob)
Goldfinch – 5 (1 ob)
Siskin – 7ob
Greenfinch - 7
House Sparrow - 8
Goldcrest - 1

The most notable sighting to my eyes is the 11 Robins. Mostly these were singing birds, so it may be say 10 pairs in the park.

Other birds seen were 29 Teal and a male Shoveler on the Scrape, and 3 Common Buzzard soaring over a distant wood near Churchgate Street. And a Small Tortoiseshell butterfly was out.

It was warm and bright. Blossom was emerging and spring seems to be poised to arrive. I feel the lists compiled today, at the point when bird populations are at their lowest and local birds are starting to contemplate breeding, serves as a baseline. I’m more than happy to have started my new year today.

Can we have our birds back please?

The snow and continental freeze has brought all sorts of unusual birds to nearby areas, including a few Short-Eared Owls just east of the area . Sadly nothing here today. I took a trudge round the Stort valley south of Sawbo with camera to record what few birds there are. Can we have our missing birds back please?

The scrape is full (good!) but frozen (bad!). A couple of Snipe burst out of ditches. Lots of Wood Pigeons, Rooks and Jackdaws. But some noticeable absences; no Yellowhammers or Reed Buntings, the Kestrels have absconded, temporarily I hope. There were a couple of Meadow Pipits. The Fieldfares that have invaded the area were flying manically around. There were a few Song Thrushes around - I'm not sure if they are immigrants or just our normal birds being a bit more obvious.

On Sunday there was a flock of 70 Lapwing over the park. I thought I heard one today, but in the turned out to be just a bronchitic Fieldfare.

The river has half frozen. There were a couple of strange holes. Like giant spiders have crashed through the ice. Perhaps they will emerge in the spring to savage the area.

Still, its just about the end of this birding year, and the new one will start soon, so perhaps its appropriate that the patch is fairly barren at the moment.

End of the year? What? Well it is according to my calendar. I'll post on that soon.

"Walking From House" List additions

A few additions to the "Walking from the house list" to report ...

1. Mediterranean Gull and Herring Gull 80 & 81. I was out on 27 August with just my bins, and noticed lots of gulls on a field being ploughed just east of Lower-Sheering Road. A quick scan revealed a smaller gull which was pale white/brown without any of the distinctive head markings of a BH Gull. It flew, showing heavily black forewing and secondary panel, and a black terminal tail band. I ummed and ahhed about this for a couple of days afterwards, I think because when I saw 15 of these at Lodmoor a couple of weeks previous I'd had my scope and could check the bill, and eye-lids to confirm and couldn't do that on this occasion. But after I'd seen some of the photos of juveniles going into first winter on Birdguides it was stupid not to tick it as they were the spitting image. And belated Herring Gull too.

2. Hobby 82. 17 Sep. An overdue event this. Out with the dogs, and one shot over my head. Nice. That makes for 4 raptors on the list. Could I get another one? Well obviously yes. Red Kite is present in this area, and eventually one will be flying around when I'm out, but after that it's looking fairly impossible.

3. Marsh Harrier 83. 18 Sep. Well, so much for how hard the next raptor was going to be. Out with the dogs in the park again, with a patchy blue and white sky and a dark grey cloud getting closer and closer ... I noticed a few hirundines high up, and after scanning noticed that wherever I looked were swallows and martins. I guessed about a hundred moving in advance of the rain. And then a larger bird. Just as soon as I thought another gull it was obvious that it wasn't. It was flying hard SE, but then turned E and it was clearly a Marsh Harrier. All dark, longish tail, bulky but long wings, and if I looked really hard possibly a cream crown? Then, incredibly, it joined a second bird and they soared round for a while, taking their time, before they slowly drifted East and out of sight into Essex. Well, knock me down with a feather. I remember seeing three of the five UK birds at Minsmere in 1975, and now they are so common that pairs of them are flying over my house. The rain duly came down, but I couldn't have cared less.

So in just over 10 months of moving into the house I'm on 83. The scrape hasn't been playing ball having been dry through the autumn, so if that gets muddy at the right time there's another few species to pick up, and with no chats, starts, or owls on the list then 100 is possible. I'm slightly stunned, to be honest, at what I've seen over the year. I can't wait to see what turns up next.

This year's crop

Took the zoom lens on the daily dog walk, and by a careful process of stalking (ie being deafened by the loud persistant calling) came across some young long-tailed tits. Elsewhere it was just the usual, the usual being a Cetti's Warbler singing from the overgrown field - warbler number 9 on the list for the field this year, and Lesser Whitethroat singing in Pishiobury Park.

No sign today of yesterday's calling Cuckoo.

Pishiobury Park Monday morning

Took the dogs for their daily constitutional round Pishiobury Park. The park has had a lot of work on it recently - am I a cynic to suspect budgets being spent up just prior to the financial year end?



The Park is wide open green space dotted with mature trees. There is a hedgerow through the middle, and some overgrown wooded areas round the fringes. Birds are much as you'd expect - ie not very many. But there are open views so occasional birds do fly over, including a couple of Wigeon during the December freeze up and a Ring-Necked Parakeet earlier this year.

The Horse Chestnut trees are coming into leaf. These trees nationally seem to be under a rage attacks from a variety of sources, There are a number of excellent specimens, so fingers crossed they survive the current onslaught of "all Horse Chestnuts must die" disease.



Today there was a distant Common Buzzard, singing ChiffChaffs and Blackcaps, and the usual Great Tit and Blue Tit. Some day soon I'll do a proper survey and count to provide a baseline population.

Mrs D and I spent a few moments sat on another new installation - a seat specially designed for those members of the local population who are over seven foot tall. We clambered up and sat there swinging our legs. Money well spent.