Mixed bag of stuff

The Safari was on Patch 1 just as the dawn broke this morning and a beautiful sight with low dark clouds giving way to higher ones suffused pink from the rising sun – gorgeous.
The Peregrine had again roosted overnight on its favourite ledge. Yesterday’s Zebra had been polished off by the scavengers as there was no sign of it, those pesky Lammergeiers must have had all the bones away! But we definitely had an increase in the number of Blackbirds with 13 counted and there were probably a few we missed with the large number of dog walkers about.
At Patch 2 we met up with MJ who hadn’t been there long and was trying to find a suitable place to stand out of the wind which had veered round to a less productive north-westerly.
Within a few minutes a Guillemot shot past low over the beach, where there were three Common Gulls, one of which was a bird of the year. The sea was quite with only a few Common Scoters and the odd Cormorant being seen.
Best of the short session were two Grey Wagtails going over!
Too busy for a lunchtime visit unfortunately.

Hope you like our new header – many thanks to our Extreme Photographer, Raf, for his pic of the Wood Mouse (aka Long Tailed Field Mouse) – in a bath!

Today is International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer. So how big is the hole today, find out here. It looks pretty big so we’d better keep away from those persistent CFCs.

This coming weekend is the Marine Conservation Society’s Big Beach Watch Weekend so get out and get some sand between your toes and some plastic in a litter bag.
It was disheartening to see the amount of plastic in the strandline at the beach to the south of Patch 2 after the wild weather – if you don’t live by the sea please be very careful what you do with your plastic rubbish – you may be 50 miles or more away but inland plastic litter can easily make it to the coast.

Next Wednesday is International Car Free Day – last year we had a nightmare on the bus, this year we have an out of office meeting at a difficult to reach by public transport venue and we discovered last week that we can longer ride a bike more than about 100 yards (m) without suffering severe discomfort so the car, sadly, looks like it’ll be in use that day.

We also learnt today that the Arctic ice melted faster to its minimum summer extent than in any other year so far, but that minimum was larger than 2007and 2008, making it only the third smallest recorded. It transpires that the guestimate of an ice free summer Arctic Ocean now look to have been rather premature but the earlier guestimate of 2030-2040 still stands.

Where to next? Just Patch 1 again tomorrow by the looks of it - errands to run...busy...busy...busy.

In the meantime let us know if it's been busy busy busy in your outback.