An Unexpected Meeting

After my visit to Falstone Moss, I travelled home by Sidwood and Black Middens. I had seen a male Emerald Damselfly at Sidwood on an earlier visit and hoped to find it again and take a better picture. There was no sign of the male but a female put in an appearance and made a very fine study on the grass she settled on ...

Emerald Damselfly (Lestes Sponsa)
Black Middens, as you will know if you have been following my recent pieces, is just across the Tarset Burn from Sidwood. I travelled up the valley towards Comb, at the end of the metalled lane where the forestry tracks begin. Someone had told me I might expect to find dragonflies in one of the lane-side fields. As I approached the field, my attention was distracted by animal activity at the side of the lane ahead of me. And then, after a moment and walking down the lane towards me, was a young badger. It was about five in the afternoon.

I stopped, hardly able to believe what I was seeing. Perhaps I should have just taken its picture through the car windscreen and hoped for the best. I reached for my camera, however, and gently opened the car door. By this time the badger was sitting at the side of the lane, its head raised as if sniffing me out. On putting a first foot outside of the car, it disappeared into the undergrowth and down the bank towards the burn.

There were no dragonflies in the field but the sighting of the badger more than made up for their absence. Later, I stopped to photograph a Small Tortoiseshell, basking in the sun ...

Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae)
And this Pied Wagtail, standing on a fence post, finished off a good afternoon.

Pied Wagtail (Motacilla alba)

Garden Birds

It's five and a half years since I moved to the Rede valley and, coming here from a small house with an almost birdless back-yard garden in the suburbs of Newcastle upon Tyne, it has always been a pleasure, and sometimes a great surprise, to watch the various birds that visit or fly over my garden. I am lucky here to have a small mixed wooded area immediately in front of the house which includes white poplars and Scots pine and provides cover for the birds when visiting the feeders.

Very occasionally, a new bird is added to the list; the stars this year have been the Redpolls that appeared out of the blue on the first day I put up my new nyjer seed feeder in late February. Long-tailed tits also found, but seem subsequently to have forgotten their way to the garden this year. It's not a very large list, some 40 species at most, but when the weather or something else stops me from going out, they all help brighten the day.

The list includes the males, females and young of most but not all of the following: Greenfinch, Goldfinch and Chaffinch; Brambling, Siskin and Redpoll; Coal, Blue, Great and Long-tailed tits; Blackbird, Song Thrush and Fieldfare; Reed Bunting and House Sparrow; Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff; Pied Wagtail, Wren, Robin, Dunnock and Nuthatch; Great Spotted Woodpecker and Tree Creeper; Tawny Owl and Sparrow Hawk; Rook, Carrion Crow and Jackdaw; Starling and Pheasant with Heron, Swallow, House Martin, Swift and Buzzard flying overhead.

Greenfinch (Carduelis chloris)

Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)

Blue Tit (Parus caeruleus)

Pied Wagtail (Motacilla alba)

Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major)