Abbey Meadows

Abbey Meadows

Friday 10 September 2010

Change of plan

Yesterday I was going to go up to Holy island and the North Northumberland coast following the flood of migrants on Wednesday. I was also going to the bird club meeting but I forgot I had something else on. The migrants had largely moved out by yesteday morning so I decided o go to my favourite local haunts. I popped into Widdrington tip and was surprised by the amount of insect activity. There were good numbers of common butterflies and loads of Bees and Hoverflies but my id skills are very poor on these species. There were 13 Snipe in the boggy clearings.



Common blue, Common and Black darter...Widdrington tip


Lesser Spearwort in the dune slacks


Some kind of spider on Branched bur-reed


Autumn Gentian...Hadston dunes

I then had a good look along Hadston dunes. Several Small coppers and Wall Browns and a few Silver Y's in the dunes. Very few birds but the highlights were 5 Snipe in the dune slacks, 23 Redpolls and 4 Buzzards overhead.

4 comments:

Alan Tilmouth said...

That's an interesting looking dragonfly, Stewart will know better than me but it bears a strong resemblance to Black Darter?

Stewart said...

Yep Black Darter it is, a good record near the coast there Nigel. They are typically moorland species...

abbey meadows said...

I already had the id under the butterfly pic. I haven't seen these before but there were about six of them flying around the damp area in the clearing in the middle of the tip.

Northumbrian Birding said...

I have had Black Darters near the coast but only singles , 6 or so is something else.
Brian