Cliffe in December

This picture is of a flock of dunlin wheeling very fast over the far side of the reserve, about a thousand present altogether on the roost I would think. This flock were put up from roosting with several hundred grey plover on the edge of the pools at high tide. 

Other waders present included well over a thousand black-tailed godwits, a couple of dozen lapwing, several ringed plover, at least one avocet, one greenshank, and several redshank.

Duck included hundreds of tufted duck, smaller numbers of Shoveller, Shelduck, Teal, Pintail, Goldeneye, Clangula bucephala, Scaup*, Common Scoter* - and a Velvet Scoter* that I didn't see! Also great crested grebe, little grebe and coot, all in large numbers. 

There may have been many more birds on the pools further over, but I didn't have time to cover the whole of the reserve.

The Scaup and Common Scoter are *new birds for me, very exciting!

The next two pictures are of the drake Scaup seen on Flamingo Pool, distinguished from the Tufted Duck by its grey back (rather than black), greenish rather than blueish shine to the head, lack of a tuft, and  

North Wales coast

There is just so much I have to learn, its endlessly fascinating, but quite scary.

I think these are maybe first winter oystercatchers, Haemotopus ostralagus, a bit more foolhardy, dark tips to the beaks, dark eyes, slightly browner (less black) backs (?), less well coloured legs (apparently quite obvious I would have said). Both have the white chin-strap of the winter plumage, one more clearly than the other. They seem to have quite short strong bills, so may be males if the sexual dimorphism is clearly seen in the young birds as well as the mature ones. The bills are quite orange as opposed to yellow to my surprise as young birds, so they are a bit confusing.

Corylus at Dene Park

Had to shift up to Dene Park today to walk Monty, and so had a look at the hazel leaves alongside the widened rides. I thought there were hazel big bud mites, Phytoptus avellanae and Phyllonorycter coryli on the upper surface of several leaves and a Stigmella type mine too long vacant to identify. 

Bewl Safety Boat and bonfire fireworks

Spent the day on Bewl Water in a very cold safety boat - but what a beautiful day! Great company from Jonathan - what a splendid chap - and a photographer as well. Pity I wasn't able to take the camera out with me, so missed out on recording all the beautiful views. Due to forgetting where I had last left my sailing boots, tried using trainers instead - worked very well indeed!

Black headed gulls in winter plumage, Herring Gulls, a couple of pair of mallard, and several cormorants.

We think because of fireworks bangs and whistles, Monty has decided it is safer upstairs than downstairs.

Autumn activity at Tudeley

I parked up  by the RSPB car park, where there was a female Eristalis tenax (pictured below) and another Eristalis, possibly Eristalis arbustorum, working some of the last of the Common Fleabane, Pulicaria dysenterica. There was also a female Sphaerophoria sp.

I left quite quickly and walked down to the sandy ride towards the heathland walk. The heather was not being as actively worked as my last visit and for example I would say that I saw a few Helophilus pendulus today, rather than many.

The Eupeodes male wandered around the patch of Tormentil, Potentilla erecta, and seemed to be taking nectar from the convex receptacle of the flowers, between the many stamens. The Rose family is often characterised by producing huge numbers of stamens with prodigious quantities of pollen in their anthers, but the more "advanced" genera also produce nectar on the gynophore, and that is what I assume I am seeing here.

Birch bashing at Tudeley

Spent most of the morning moving the birch cut earlier in the year and piled in patches around the site to a roaring fire. we probably left enough to make a habitat pile or two.

After lunch, very pleasant, we had a bit of a go at clearing the birch seedlings and bracken to try to give the heather a bit of a chance to flower and thrive. That was slow and very hard work!

Highlight of the day was the appearance on several occasions of some very tame young wild boar that came up to us repeatedly, first as a group of about half a dozen, and then as individuals, presumably expecting food!

Reservoir path at Tudeley

Its very late in the year now, and hoverflies seem few and far between. The weather was poor, with a cool breeze blowing clouds across the sky intermittently threatening rain. However I wanted to try an area that had water near by, with a chance of a few remaining flowers, as dry flowerless areas seem to make very poor hunting grounds. The reservoir path at Tudeley looked good, although ideally I would be out reasonably early in the morning, not towards the end of the afternoon.

I was looking for anything and everything: spiders, bugs, leaf-miners and fungi. I moved slowly, hoping that shyer stuff would show itself. Suddenly I saw a small hoverfly moving slowly low down in the foliage by the side of the path, and on first sight it looked as though it had a waisted abdomen, and I thought could this be my first Baccha elongata, long overdue for such a common species. So it turned out, although the photos were tricky, and it could be argued that I should stick to Baccha sp. as an ID, allowing for a split to be re-established between the two original species suspected to exist in the UK, Baccha elongata and Baccha obscuripennis. This is a female, the males may be even  more elongate!

The eyes on this fly look almost absurdly large and wide on the head, especially in comparison to the very narrow abdominal segment 2! I am so glad to see this species at last, this individual presumably being part of the known second peak in the year, which is said to be in September by S & F.

The yellow banding on the rear edges of tergites 2 and 3 are more visible in this blurry photo of the insect in flight:

The abdomen didn't seem swollen with eggs in the next photo, and I couldn't see any of the reddening of the female abdomen that often seems to be associated with such swelling.

In some of the photos on the web (although I don't get much of this from my photos except maybe this last one) it looks as though the wings are slightly spotted, with the stigma and a couple of slightly discoloured cross veins all about half way along the wings, and maybe at the tip. On the website "LifeDesks Flower Flies Syrphidae (entry by Ximo Mengual)" it quotes the following "cross-veins and extreme apex of the wing faintly clouded in some specimens", so that seems to fit.

The yellow rear edges in this photo look a bit more like spots than bands here, although this isn't supported by the photo of the fly in flight - again however there is some support from this on the LifeDesks website entry. Tergite 4 looks to have the start of some yellow at the rear of the tergite, small hints of triangles on  the lower sides. I also think I believe some yellow dusting (pruinose?) on the lower thoracic pleura.

This fly is said to be rather a shade-lover, and rather more difficult to spot than some! Having seen one I'll have to keep my eye out for some more! The habitat here certainly fitted part of the S & F habitat profile, a shady woodland ride, quite humid with nettle beds close to hand.