WWT Washington

Great day out with close-ups of the ducks, geese, moorhens, etc.

Warkworth beach

Paula and I escaped the house mid-afternoon to take a walk along the beach - and I was hoping to catch a few birds and plants as well, it being a bit breezy and overcast to hope for too many insects. Monty rolled in some muck on the beech, and we had to get him to go in and out of the waves to make him compatible with civilisation again, but all was eventually well.

Black-headed Gulls, Herring Gulls, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Sandwich Tern, Shelduck, Mallard, Greylag Geese, Little Egret, Grey Heron, Curlew, Oystercatcher, Meadow Pipits, Linnets, Reed Bunting, Whitethroat, Willow Warbler.

Harebell, Hop Trefoil, Common Vetch, Bush Vetch, Red Clover, White Clover, Black Medick, Common Restharrow, Burnet Rose, unknown Speedwell, Smooth Hawksbeard, Autumn Hawkbit, Common Daisy, Thrift, Yarrow, Mouse-ear Hawkbit, Rough Chervul, Marram Grass, Cocksfoot, Gorse, Goat Willow, Ash, Sycamore, dried out orchid flowering spikes, 

East Chevington

Barn Owl, Sandwich Tern, Black-headed Gull, Little Gull, Cormorant, Mallard, Gadwall, Willow Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Goldfinch, Reed Buntings, Meadow Pipit.

I was very bad I think with one of the Sedge Warblers, which chitted away very close to me. Afterwards I realised that I had probably disturbed it very close to its nest, and the photos showed it with a cranefly in its beak.

Lindisfarne

This SHOULD be a Meadow Pipit, Anthus pratensis, not too dark a bird, with fairly clear streaks, some yellowish tinge to the lower bill and lightish legs:

Druridge and Cresswell

Sand Martins, Swallows, House Martins, Grey Heron, Spoonbill, Little Egret, Redshank, Icelandic race of Black-tailed Godwits, Ringed Plover, Curlew, Sandwich Tern, Comic Tern, Little Gull, Black-headed Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull, Mallard, Gadwall, Greylag Geese, Canada Geese, Reed Buntings, Sedge Warbler, Willow Warbler.

Smooth Sowthistle on the A26

The Smooth Sowthistle, Sonchus oleraceus, is a plant that I commonly see, but am often unsure of! It is an erect annual, rarely biennial, that may often reach one and a half metres high. It is very common throughout the British Isles, on wasteland, arable, and wood edges. It may be commoner than spiny in coastal districts, less so at higher altitude.

It may be eaten as a rather tough salad leaf, rather bland, or possibly cooked like spinach.

A fairly good character is the hairless nature of the mature leaves, which are a dull (not very shiny) grey-green, and lightly toothed - but clearly lacking the crisped double-toothed spininess of Sonchus asper.

The stem is smooth, and there are no masses of glandular black (spiny) or yellow (perennial) hairs on the capitula, although a few scattered hairs might be present. However, there may be some woolly hairy patches just below the capitula - referred to in Stace as the phyllaries perhaps?  Like all the sowthistles, the stems are hollow and release latex when bruised or cut.

The leaves may be slightly hairy, but only when young. The leaf tips are shaped generally like triangular arrow heads. The leaf bases are pressed around the stem on each side, and the basal tips reflexed so that the pointed tips then point outwards, as seen in this helpful photo from the University of Texas.

The leaves are very variable in shape but often the basal lobes of the leaf (ending in the auricles?) are relatively large, as in this photo from the University of Graz.

The uppermost younger leaves may well be rather simple toothed rounded-triangular in shape, as in this photo from Visoflora.

The very lowest leaves may have a long petiolate base.

The flowers are generally pale yellow a little like the marsh sowthistle, (perennial = deep yellow, spiny = deep golden yellow), and produced from June until October. In the West of Scotland however they may be a darker yellow in colour, like the other species.

The capitula should be about 20-25 mm across, 10 - 15 mm high, often "sowthistle" urn-shaped when closed. The achenes should be yellow and transversely wrinkled (rugose), although I cannot actually see this in the photos on the web.

Down to East Lock

There were a lot of Wheat Stem Borer, Cephus pygmaeus, sheltering, and in one case mating, on the buttercups in the field margin of the wheat field. Not a major pest perhaps, but still likely to have an impact on the harvest.

I was very glad to see a female Platycheirus, perhaps P. scutatus, from the shape of the abdominal markings in the same field margin, along with a tiny Nomada, perhaps Nomada flavoguttata.

Geranium dissectum, Ranunculus acris, repens and bulbosa together with Ficaria were all seen. Filipendula, Hypericum maculatum (?), Green Field Speedwell, Veronica agrestis, Cocksfoot, Yorkshire Fog, Holcus lanata,  there were a lot of Chaffinches, some Skylarks, and one Cuckoo.