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 The same waders as yesterday apart from the knot had been replaced by a wood sandpiper.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