More at St Mary's

Apart from the Sanderling, Turnstone, and Ringed Plover, there were a handful of Dunlin and the regular Curlew.

St Mary's Turnstone

A Turnstone was having a good feed on the remnants of a shore crab.
This particular bird seemed well ringed on both legs with a white ring above a yellow ring. I've spent some time trying to find some website references with regard to bird rings and how to read them without too much success. Would appreciate any advice on where I should be looking. I have identified one website but it is a bit of a maze to me at the moment .

St Mary's waders

It's a rare visit to St Marys when there is nothing of interest. Arrived there at the bottom of the tide and walked over to the sandy beach which luckily had not had any humans on it for a while since there were quite a few waders doing their thing.
I was particularly pleased to see amongst them these Sanderling even though there were only 4 of them about at the time. Hopefully there will be greater numbers as we get into autumn

Sulphur Tuft

A wander around Gosforth Park NR woodland, produced a pair of Roe Deer, Fox, Sparrow Hawk and an interesting large cluster of Sulpher Tuft - Hypholoma fasciculare
These fungi have greenish yellow gills and tend to cluster on dead wood which is where these were located.
There were few fungi specimen to be found which is probably as a result of extremely dry ground conditions.

St Nic's fungi finds

A wander through the grounds of St Nicholas Hospital, Gosforth provided some nice fungi.
This impressive specimen was growing on a dead cut off tree stump and each cap was about 7-8cm diameter. I'm going for a Trumpet Oyster - Pleurotos cornocopiae
Generally these will appear on hardwoods preferably Elm.



This one looks like a Giant Polypore - Meripilus giganteus which generally prefers Beech trees

Willow or Wood

Would appreciate any advice on whether this garden visitor is a Willow Warbler or Wood Warbler or something else. There were two of them in the tree at the bottom of the back garden.

Finding Fungi

I've accepted that I will have to be a bit more diligent in gathering information to move my fungi ident capability forward, so that should take effect from my next foray.
In the meantime I've had a stab at identification of the following which I spotted in Gosforth Park NR on Monday evening, but all comments would be welcome.

Honey Fungus



Amanita rubescens - Blusher.
There was just the single specimen approx 10cm dia.cap.


Hypholoma capnoides - Conifer Tuft.
The caps were no more than 1.5cm dia at this stage, and growing on a rotting tree stump in very wet conditions.


Coprinus but are they xanthotrix or cinerus?
These were growing on a patch of old wood chippings, with the open cap approx 3cm dia.

Druridge Butterfly

Saturday morning, sun is shining, where better to spot some butterfly than the track to Druridge ponds. The bankside was absolutely alive with butterfly. There were loads of Painted Lady on the teazel flowerheads. The other highlights were
Comma-

Small Skipper-

Small Copper-

A worn Red Admiral-

Peacock-

Painted Lady-


Green Veined White-

Meadow Brown

and almost forgot the Wall Brown-

Garden Visitors

While having a cuppa in the garden I was surprised at the number of Hoverfly. I had not previously realised that a few seconds after landing they snap back their wings so that they are parallel with their body-


Bees were extremely busy with this one trying to get first go at the Sedum which had not quite started to flower-

The white Hebe was host to many of these-

Gosforth Park NR

Had our first fleeting visit to Gosforth Park NR which is run by the Natural History Society of Northumbria. Upon opening the viewing hatch of the hide, there in front of us was a kingfisher, which unfortunately must have caught sight of the movement and within a few seconds was off, but not a bad start for a first visit. A little Grebe fished successfully in front of us
with quite a few Mallard on the water. Apparently the tern platform had initially been successful but the juveniles were all lost to predators , thought to be Heron, although I understand not proved. A Kestrel flew over before we left.
Spotted this Bracket Fungi next to the boardwalk.

Tyne / Derwent confluence

Walked under the railway bridge to the meeting of the Derwent and Tyne.

All of the regulars were there, Redshank, Blackheaded Gull, Oystercatcher, Mute Swan, Cormorant, Curlew together with four Common Sandpiper. Three of them flew down the Derwent and straight across the Tyne to the opposite bank. One lingered on the mud bank then turned tail and back up the Derwent. Cannot blame it really.



We are making a right mess of this world!