The safari missed out on the Peregrine this morning, might have been somewhere ‘round the back’.
Usual Patch 1 stuff singing in the pre dawn darkness but the numbers of birds and their intensity is increasing daily now. Frank was on a speed mission today following his nose at high speed hither and thither, indicating overnight Fox activity perhaps. At the end of the park before we get on to the road he is always made to sit before he goes back on his lead but today was different. He sat but before we could get the lead on he got a wiff of summat interesting and shot off at breakneck speed (for a Labrador at least)…naughty boy! He dashed along the hedge and around the end of it, charged through the bushes and on to the rough field. When we caught up with him he was giving a small area behind the bushes a good going over with his nose, something had been sat there not so long ago. We couldn’t be cross with him because we heard at least two Snipe (WT 55) fly over; this commotion must have flushed them off the field. Not a bad Patch 1 year tick.
Over on Patch 2 our ‘commercial’ all night bait diggers were still filling their buckets – between them they’ve taken over 60 gallons of Lugworms off the beach so far this week. Not too many birds to work through. Barely a gull to be seen and certainly no sign of yesterday’s Mediterranean Gull – probably because there’s no food for them. BTW what does eat Lugworms? I’ve heard Curlews allegedly do but we don’t get those on this section of the beach and the length these guys push their siphons down there’s nowt else on the beach that can reach them so I suppose it must be OK to take em AND what do that many Lugworms eat? – there’s nowt there but sand – organic particles, never seen one apart from big lumps of drift wood surely they can’t all be munching into that!.
A Grey Plover was picking its way along the tide line and ‘towered’ over the few Sanderlings. Very few Oystercatchers today.
Sadly out on the sea the mist closed down the horizon again, the flat calm conditions otherwise ideal for viewing. A flock 45 Common Scoters was all we could muster...
At lunchtime we were hoping to get out and twitch some green things a few miles down the road but rain, rain, rain, rain and more rain had us bottling out and we didn’t venture far from the desk.
Where to next? A family visit might allow a south side short safari tomorrow – weather permitting!
In the meantime let us know how weather affected your outback has been.
No pics today not sure you want to see photos of millions of raindops.
Usual Patch 1 stuff singing in the pre dawn darkness but the numbers of birds and their intensity is increasing daily now. Frank was on a speed mission today following his nose at high speed hither and thither, indicating overnight Fox activity perhaps. At the end of the park before we get on to the road he is always made to sit before he goes back on his lead but today was different. He sat but before we could get the lead on he got a wiff of summat interesting and shot off at breakneck speed (for a Labrador at least)…naughty boy! He dashed along the hedge and around the end of it, charged through the bushes and on to the rough field. When we caught up with him he was giving a small area behind the bushes a good going over with his nose, something had been sat there not so long ago. We couldn’t be cross with him because we heard at least two Snipe (WT 55) fly over; this commotion must have flushed them off the field. Not a bad Patch 1 year tick.
Over on Patch 2 our ‘commercial’ all night bait diggers were still filling their buckets – between them they’ve taken over 60 gallons of Lugworms off the beach so far this week. Not too many birds to work through. Barely a gull to be seen and certainly no sign of yesterday’s Mediterranean Gull – probably because there’s no food for them. BTW what does eat Lugworms? I’ve heard Curlews allegedly do but we don’t get those on this section of the beach and the length these guys push their siphons down there’s nowt else on the beach that can reach them so I suppose it must be OK to take em AND what do that many Lugworms eat? – there’s nowt there but sand – organic particles, never seen one apart from big lumps of drift wood surely they can’t all be munching into that!.
A Grey Plover was picking its way along the tide line and ‘towered’ over the few Sanderlings. Very few Oystercatchers today.
Sadly out on the sea the mist closed down the horizon again, the flat calm conditions otherwise ideal for viewing. A flock 45 Common Scoters was all we could muster...
At lunchtime we were hoping to get out and twitch some green things a few miles down the road but rain, rain, rain, rain and more rain had us bottling out and we didn’t venture far from the desk.
Where to next? A family visit might allow a south side short safari tomorrow – weather permitting!
In the meantime let us know how weather affected your outback has been.
No pics today not sure you want to see photos of millions of raindops.
2 comments:
It still cant be good for the enviroment to take all those lugworms dave. Greedy bastards!
We're still optimistically holding on to the sunshine over here, but the millions of rain drops will be back by early next week. I hope you get some nicer, photo-worthy weather soon!
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