More Pied Flys in our region collecting flies for chicks rather than caterpillars...
Not looking good for getting them up & off 🧐

Flies on the Flys menu
Shouldn’t it be green caterpillars atm ??

Every one is different.
A nest built from scratch & sitting 5 eggs within 7 days.
No progress from a pair with nest over same period.
Chicks have hatched with midday temp at 7 degrees 🥶
Most bizarrely a pair re building over the top of their intact c5 clutch 🧐
Pic by CamoSharp

Two sides of the same County on the same day.
Sunny 17 close on our favourite Whippet walk close to home ☀️
A chilly 7 degrees & rain out west up our Dales study sites 🥶

Up on the moor
Ready & waiting
at the crack of dawn South Shields Birder North East Breeding Birds Tony McGuire NestingUpNorth #ICI 🤣

Just come off the moor & some random passerby from Generation Z mistook me in the flat cap & Barbour for that Nigel Garage & kicked me in the Chameaus 😣😲🤣

HUGE retraction of range & numbers across VC66 Durham. These National figures have little bearing on regional populations.
We could find them on pretty much every pit heap 30yr ago.
Its unlikely to be picked up in our TyneTees region without targeted effort nowadays

I got my first ever views of Springtime Woodcock active in daylight on the ground & display flighting at Stanhope Common c1984 & they’re still displaying over the moors there today.
Here’s an unlucky youngster yesterday on a quieter B road 5 mile to the South 😐

I thought the Curlew I almost trod on was injured until it lifted from a nest containing 4 eggs with tapping chicks inside. The adult returned as soon as I backed away👍🏻

Apologies
I Confused Wensleydale Bolton & Wharfedale Bolton.
5000 acres of grouse moor with 13,500 acres of grouse moor.
No two estates, moors or drives are the same....
But you’re assured of hearing Curlew on all of them 😊👍🏻

Curlews estimated at 250 pairs on Yorkshire Dales Estate (30,000 acre, 13,500 is grouse moor)
darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/news/24357340.…

20 #SpotFly24 nests under observation in Weardale (& a couple Derwentside)
Fifty territories identified.
More stats to work up, but single pairs tricky to pin once she’s sitting unless you are on top of them & provoke his response. Steven Webb South Shields Birder North East Breeding Birds Spotted Flycatcher

I did a stock take of our local (lowland) Redshank & Lapwing in 2015/2016
I never saw what was coming, several double figure Lapwing colonies now just about gone.
Redshank now “bad to get” 😢

Reading this am about “Loss of Waders & GNB’s”
& the success of “Farmland Clusters”
We *already have* Landscape Scale “Moorland Clusters” that buck national trends for numerous species
Perhaps a serious stock take of moorland bird no’s is needed so the penny finally drops 🧐

Amazing to see these Spotted Flycatchers were still migrating through a dusty hot Cyprus (3rd wk in May) whilst our first birds at home were laying eggs 2,200 miles to the lush green North Pennines 😊🌳⚫️🪰 #SpotFly24 Paul Anderson South Shields Birder North East Breeding Birds The Mrs Woolie ✨ Spotted Flycatcher