August

Great White Egret

My first visit to Rainton Meadows. Nice reserve. DWT are planning an upgrade to the hide and hopefully a couple more will be built in future.

House Sparrows

Good sized flock feeding on the cereal crop at Whitburn. This flock seems to have moved elsewhere and a flock of 600+ Woodpigeons have taken over. Think it is time the farmer did a quick harvest.

 

Selandria serva

Sawfly

It seems that the North East is increasingly being colonised by insect species from further South, or maybe some species have been overlooked. I've seen a few postings about Red-eyed Damselfy recently and wasn't aware they were found in Northumberland (First ever Record  this month per JD) and Durham. I am hoping to see some today, fingers crossed.

An unusual sight for me. The adult fed the youngster on Roker Park Boating lake. It (the young chick) then swam to the nest platform and joined what I assume are two birds from a much earlier brood. One of the joys of wildlife watching is that there is always something new to see.

Ruff

Whitburn Steel

The coastal wardens have done a fair job at providing fencing for Ringed Plovers at Jackies Beach. One chick from a late second brood is still hanging on despite the crows and dogs on this popular beach. I've never met a warden nearby but I guess they work office hours when the dog owners don't.

The dog exclusion zone at Seaburn again is not checked often enough and to make matters worse a lot of dog owners who do follow the signs are now concentrating on the best feeding and roosting area for passage waders.

 

A nice surprise in early August but sadly it got rather a lot of attention from the local crows before having a huge area of the grassy habitat mown for hay.

Southern Hawker