Common Terns, Brown Hawker and Cuckoo

Common Terns were taking no prisoners this morning, seeing off anything that came within shooing distance - including me 😂

I walked on the beach, minding my own business, when a tern came down at me at gave me a scream. Suspecting a protection display I continued to the groyne, looked over and there were 4 young terns sat on the beach, then I understood the greeting.

Common Tern saying hello and bugger off

Common Tern with food

Adult Common Tern with food for juvs

Fish gratefully received

Adult and juvenile Common Terns

On KP I was looking for dragonflies and found several Migrant Hawkers, a Black-tailed Skimmer and the one I was really after - Brown Hawker. It was eating what looked like a common blue damselfly.

Brown Hawker munching a damselfly

Back to yesterday morning and I was on my way home through first field along the south side of the Mere when I spotted a Cuckoo coming over the Mere. Luckily it landed on a fence post so I managed to get in position for a photo or two without scaring it off.

Cuckoo in first field

It took off and flew south but came back 10 seconds or so later.

Cuckoo in first field

Spellbinding Plants

 I've found several new plants recently which makes life more interesting in identifying them first of all and then researching a bit more about them. All have been common plants, just new to me that's all.

First of all Hemlock (and the inspiration for the post title of course). I really don't know why I haven't noticed Hemlock (Conium maculatum) before, or even looked for it. I've walked past where I found it hundreds of times, but given it was behind a sort of curtain of Cow Parsley, perhaps it just merged into the mass of umbels. This was found locally at Wassand.

How did I spot it? The blasted tidy crew have been out and about with their mowers/tractors and have hacked down a wide swathe each side of a track, unveiling the Hemlock - but that's about the only good thing I can say about such activity. Whoever thinks the countryside should be tidy needs their head looking at.

Purple blotchy stems of Hemlock

Fruit seeds developing after the flowers have died

Feathery leaves and the blotchy stems again

Hemlock is a favourite ingredient of witchy spells and features in Shakespeare's Macbeth, whose 3 witches included "root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark" in their brew. All parts of the plant are poisonous but the seeds contain high concentrations of coniine, which takes its Latin name from this plant's name.

 Another 'new' plant found locally is Centaury. I remember seeing this plant in my collection of Brooke Bond tea cards - Wild Flowers. Brooke Bond tea and their nature-based cards, given away free with each packet of tea in the 1950's and 60's, formed the basis for my love of nature.

Each card was the size of the old cigarette cards and albums were provided at a princely cost of sixpence in which to collect each set of 50 cards.

Anyway, back to Centaury (Centaurium erythraea). Pliny The Elder said this plant was named after the centaur Chiron, and who am I to disagree? Common centaury was good for treating wounds of all types according to herbalists.

Common Centaury in Freeport car park

Centaury, small but perfectly formed

While on a walk round Flamborough I found a single stem of Sun Spurge (Euphorbia helioscopia) - again I seem to remember this from the old tea card collection but I've never come across one growing before. It was at the edge of a barley field.

Sun Spurge

This plant is poisonous so it's interesting to find it growing in arable land, where it is most common according to my plant book! One of its alternative old folk names is mad woman's milk, probably derived from its poisonous qualities.

Also on the same Flamborough walk I found Field Scabious (Knautia arvensis). This is a member of the honeysuckle family. This plant and other members of the family were used in the old days to treat scabies and other skin complaints, including the sores from bubonic plague. The word scabies has its root in the Latin word scabere for scratch.

Field Scabious

Finally, again from my jaunt around Flamborough there is Common Restharrow (Ononis repens). A smashing little flower that is pretty common in our area.

Common Restharrow

This is a creeping plant that covers the ground quite thickly. Its common name comes from the fact that in the days of horse-drawn ploughs (or harrows), this plant was hated by farmers of arable land because its matted stems and deep roots used to slow the progress of the plough - hence restharrow. 

Out for my soggy walk this morning I came across the usual brown hare on the road and further along was a young rabbit. Rabbits are growing in numbers again locally after being hit by myxomatosis.

Wascally Wabbit

Brown Hare keeping a sensible distance

Finally in this non-bird related post I came across a Yellow Fieldcap this morning. Can't remember seeing one before round here.

Yellow Fieldcap (Bolbitius titubans)

Hornsea beach this morning

8 Sandwich Tern

3 Common Tern

Dunlin

3 Sanderling

Common Sandpiper

2 Red-throated Diver

Gannets, Razorbills and Guillemots further out.

A good morning!!

Sandwich Terns, Common Terns and Black-headed Gulls

Sandwich Tern with leg ring

Sandwich Tern flying in, Common Tern watching

Common Tern with fish

Common Terns - must be a caption for this??

Dunlin and 3 Sanderlings

Dunlin and 3 Sanderlings

Dunlin and 3 Sanderlings

Dunlin and 3 Sanderlings

Sanderlings still in summer plumage - an early passage for my list of birds at Hornsea.

Red-throated Divers - very distant and heavily cropped

A couple of Common Terns were flying around with fish in their beaks, calling and calling, eventually one landed on a "basket" and fed a juvenile - although it looked to be a full adult bird.

Common Terns with fish

Adult and juvenile birds? Both look adult to me

The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things....

The time has come,' the Walrus said,

      To talk of many things:

Of birds - and moths - and common flax -

     Of cabbage whites - and wings -

 As I walked along the woodland walk to the hide I saw something fly from the grass onto a tree. I followed of course, wanting to know what it was as I didn't recognise the shape, colour or flight. Turned out to be a moth - a Mottled Beauty no less and another new one for me. Quite common but usually not seen in daylight unless flushed.

Mottled Beauty keeping a low profile

South of Hornsea the Avocet chicks are still hanging in there but the scrape is quickly drying out and I fear for their survival. Fingers crossed things work out OK.

Avocet in a fast disappearing puddle

Banded Demoiselle

Also found south of Hornsea was this Banded Demoiselle at one of the many fishing lakes. Hopefully they will eventually find their way to the Mere.

Along with the demoiselle there were lots of skippers, so many in fact they had to queue to get on the thistle heads.

Large Skipper

Stacked Skippers - go around again!

At the Mere, Common Terns are seen almost every day fishing. This one took a rest on a buoy.

Common Tern (phonescoped)

On the south side of the Mere we don't seem to get many burnet moths so I was pleased to see a 6 spot version making a colourful visit to a ragwort flower head.

Six-spot Burnet (Zygaena filipendulae)

Continuing the courful theme, another non-numerous denizen of the Mere is the Comma butterfly. I only see singles of these lovely butterflies now, but they used to be plentiful.

Comma (Polygonia c-album)

 The newly planted set aside field is coming along nicely and there a few Common Flax flowers springing up in the greenery.

Common flax (Linum usitatissimum)

Flax is a usful plant as it is used to make linen, and the oil from the plant is linseed oil. I well remember using linseed oil to keep my cricket bat in good nick, though it didn't help me to score many more runs 😂😂

Out on the Mere itself we are seeing a very gradual build up of ducks that start to arrive after their breeding season. Small numbers of Wigeon, Shoveler and Pochard are here now with the first Goldeneye still to put in an appearance.

10 Pochard on the Mere

Back to butterflies for the next pic and mingled in with the very large numbers of Meadow Browns in the grassy fields are Ringlets. Smaller and darker than the MB's they are beautiful to see.

Ringlet in second field

My latest new creature is a bee - a Vestal (or Southern) Cuckoo bee to be precise. It looked different to a standard White-tailed bumblebee so I had a closer look. It cuckoos White-tailed bumblebee nests so it looks similar to one of those, but it has darkened wings, a yellow collar on the thorax, a white tail of course but with a yellow patch on each side of the abdomen at the front of the tail. You can't see the yellow patches on this pic unfortunately.

Vestal/Southern Cuckoo Bee (Bombus vestalis)

 The local Marsh Harriers have at least 2 young ones flying about and I watched as an adult male came in and dropped some food into the reed bed. One of the juveniles flew down and didn't appear again for a while so a good guess is that it was eating whatever had been delivered.

Juvenile Marsh Harrier

Adult male and juvenile

Adult male and juvenile Marsh Harriers

Finally, although most of the warblers have shut up singing after their breeding attempts, some are still singing - this Blackcap for one. A few Chiff Chaffs, Sedge Warblers and Reed Warblers are heard each morning, but Whitethroats, Lesser Whitethroats and Willow Warblers are taking a time out.

Singing Blackcap

 

The original verse from the Walrus And The Carpenter by Lewis Carroll:

The time has come,' the Walrus said,

      To talk of many things:

Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —

      Of cabbages — and kings —

And why the sea is boiling hot —

      And whether pigs have wings.'