Late update

The Safari has little to report from yesterday. Poor Frank had a bad limp in the morning, yours truly trod on his foot playing footy the previous night, and was very slow going up the hill but that allowed us to get a great view of a Sparrowhawk skimming the tarmac dashing across the road to the sound of a multitude of anxious Blackbirds clacking loudly.
We didn’t get any further – ole hop along couldn’t do much more...hope he’s OK.
A late start at work meant no early morning Patch 2 visit but at lunchtime a short watch gave us a selection of close fly-bys. An adult Gannet almost filled the field of view on the scope...not often they come that close. Not many minutes later a Sandwich Tern did the same. Further out but still closer than is often the case a string of four Manx Shearwaters sheared northwards, not long after two others had gone through dipping up over and under the horizon.

An all too brief evening seawatch before the nightmare that is a Beaver group decended - lovely little darlings really, is it us or a children getting louder these days? - anyway our seawatch produced a decent number of Manx Shearwaters, 92. Probably could have got the ton if we'd been able to stay out five more minutes.

This morning there was no Great Spotted Woodpecker in the park but the Sparrowhawk's tail was still hanging over the side of the nest.

Oh, and Frank's limp? It's now part of his caniving tricks. OK he can fight another large dog over a stick and drag the poor thing all round the park and when the other dog let go Frank chased him for 50 yards at breakneck speed, no sign of any injury there...but take him out when he doesn't want to go....well you'd think we'd sawn TWO of his legs off he limps that badly! An Oscar performance if ever we've seen one!!!

Where to next? Might get out later if the forecast heavy rain doesn't materialise too soon.

In the meantime let us know what's making all the noise in your outback.