Lunchtime look

No updates from the patch over the weekend - I actually headed inland, which is a rare thing. Janet and I visited Kimmer Lough on Saturday - no photos from that day as I forgot to put a card in the camera and had to lug it all the way round our walk and take no photos. That'll teach me!

I din't make the same mistake on Sunday when we headed to Kielder via Harbottle Woods,  upper Coquetdale, the Otterburn Ranges and the forest Drive. We spent an hour or so at Harbottle, along the forest track, looking for hovers and other insects.

I popped down to the patch in my lunch-break yesterday for an hour, to have a look at 'The Post' and for hovers. I bumped into a local bee expert and we saw the flower bees coming and going and a very brief glimpse of one of the Megachille leafcutters carrying a large piece of leaf into the post. I got one chance of a photo just when the wind blew a stem of grass into the way.

Megachille sp obsured by grass

There were a few interesting hovers along the track

Eristalis tenax (f)

Eupeodes corrolae (m)

Syritta pipiens

I also found this Colletes bee - likely to be Davie's Collete (Colletes daviesanus) but not sure... and some other bits and bobs

Colletes bee - Colletes daviesanus?

Blue-tailed Damsels in 'mating wheel'

Arty shot of 7-spot ladybird

Potato Mirid again - Closterotomus norwegicus

Noon Fly - Mesembrina meridiana - my first of the year

A look offshore for an hour last night produced nine manx shearwaters north and a single arctic skua, on the beach roost there was single Mediterranean Gull, but it was early and the roost was only starting to build.  Tonight, a bit later, I counted at least 12 Med gulls! But nothing else of note.