Tuesday, 6 December 2011

Verrryyy innterressstinng



The Safari hit the wall as the sun was just peeking through the clouds and over the rooftops again this morning. Until then it had been a dull grey and dreary dawn but with the sunshine the light over the sea was excellent. Pity there wasn’t much to see except that there was less snow on Black Combe but much more on the hills further inland.
We began our safari by concentrating on the gulls...just in case...Although the wind had dropped a bit since yesterday there were still massive waves and troughs making following even large birds like the Lesser Black Backed Gulls a bit on the tricky side. Common Gulls went past well above the waves in a steady southwards procession and we counted about 30 after we’d sussed what was happening. Unfortunately today there were no ‘iffy’ gulls.
The Common Scoters are still there, as defiant as ever in the face of the foaming white water, we counted around the hundred mark although this is likely to be only a small proportion of the actual numbers offshore.
What a relief...at last there was something else to look at...a Red Throated Diver heading northwards which made a very welcome refreshing change....there is something else out there after all!!!
A sighting from yesterday up near where we were at the weekend got us thinking about our mystery corvid last weekend, now was it or wasn’t it??? Hmmmmm???
Our lunchtime safari was scuppered. Before picking up the scope we looked out of the window to check on the weather only to see the tram guys closing off the crossing...probably just as well he did it then cos in another five minutes he would have been closing it behind us and we’d have had a very long walk to get back to our starting point only 25 yards away! A very lucky escape judging by the torrential horizontal hail showers that occurred within a few minutes. They might only have been short but they weren’t ‘alf heavy!
Where to next? More Patch 2 if we can get over there; and if we can get over there will we be able to stand up as the wind is forecast to be gusting to nearly 70mph/110kph at first light tomorrow...now that’s starting to get scarily windy.
In the meantime let us know what relieved the monotony in your outback.
No pics today as dark as the darkest dungeon out there!

4 comments:

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

Anyone else see a grey blank video square at the top of yesterday's post? It shows on my works PC but not my home laptop and no sign of it on the edit page at home either - mystified???

Cheers
D

Warren Baker said...

70mph winds ! that should shake things up a bit, might blow that Chough back to you ;-)

cliff said...

Re "Anyone else see a grey blank video square at the top of yesterday's post?"

I saw it yesterday Dave, but it's gone now. I was clicking on it yesterday trying to play it, but nothing doing, so I accessed your blog via Google Chrome rather than IE & there was no sign of it, but when back using IE there it was again - until I've just looked in now that is - all very confusing!

This weather & lack of daylight even during the day is bloody depressing BTW, the camera's gathering dust at the moment :-(, bring on some cold/frosty weather & a frozen mere to bring the bittern(s) out in the open.

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

No idea what the video is supposed to be, I certainly didn't put it on there. IE could be something to do with it as I use Firefox at home but work is on IE.
Bittern showed really well for 1/2 hour the other day at FBC hide.

Cheers

D