So Sad

The Safari is about to rant about Blogger and span – not the delicious tinned pork/ham combo! The recent default for comments with the two words to recognise is doing our crust!!! We don’t stand a chance if we’re not wearing our specs...so we felt that if it’s like that for us it must be similarly annoying for others. So we set about finding a cure and happened across a lovely man in a camper van in Utah who had found the simple way of disabling said word ID. Without further ado we followed his instructions but now are inundated with flippin spam for the first time in our 3 ½ year blogging career (has it really been that long? Musta riten some awful rubbish in that time!), often on posts from way back when so at least someone must be still reading them. So for the time being comment moderation has been activated until we can reactivate the two word thingy and then you’ll have to make sure you’ve got your specs handy; if you leave a comment it may be a few hours before it pops up.

Frank behaved enough for us to do the residential part of Patch 1 this morning and we had a three thrush morning with the Mistle Thrush being heard ‘off patch’ in the distance across the school playing field. The Song Thrush at the Golden Triangle was silent but we did have our first Wren singing on this part of the patch this year from there...just woken up from vocal hibernation or new in from elsewhere with the recent mild weather? The warm damp overnight conditions (a full 6 1/2°C above the February long-term night-time average for Blackpool – last night was actually warmer than the long-term daytime temperature for February) brought out a couple of Leopard Slugs which were spotted making their way back to their hidey-holes in the garden walls after a night-time’s feasting on the grass verge. Further round, as we approached Magpie Wood we saw three Magpies fly over our heads so they were likely to flighty and difficult to count as they were already awake. Coming round the corner we could hear a lot of chatter coming from the tree tops. Counting was indeed difficult, they were hard to see in the gloomy light and as predicted very mobile and easily disturbed – we got about 60 which we thought was a pretty good effort.

At Patch 2 we counted a mobile 200 or so Oystercatchers trying to feed on the rapidly being covered by the rising tide strandline from yesterday’s rough weather. Also there were two Knot and 62 Sanderlings...we’re hoping for a Ringed Plover but they seem to be avoiding our stretch of beach at the moment. Deffo need some new year birds soon as Monika is compiling a serious lead on her hols in California.

At sea the same flocks of Common Scoters sat close in and it was too murky to be able to tell in all those involved with yesterday’s exodus had returned to their stations.

Today was the day that the dead Otter was to be collected by the Environment Agency to be taken to Cardiff for its post mortem. The Ranger had collected it from the cold store and kindly brought it down to show us.

What a beast! It was 50 inches (127cm) from nose to tail and weighed in at somewhere between 17.5 and 20lbs (c8kg+). About as long as Frank (55" including his snout which an Otter doesn't have) with a tail a little longer but just as thick at the base and a little over 1/6 of his weight (or 1/5 of his ideal weight!!!) – all in all a big animal, apparently about two years old.

The fur wasn’t as soft and smooth as we had imagined an Otters would be it felt fairly coarse. The most noticeable thing was the tiny size of its ears for an animal of that bulk and what big whiskers it has...stands to reason that whiskery touch sense will be more important to a submarine hunter than hearing though.

High tide at lunchtime didn’t give us any photo opportunities with he long lens – was hoping that some of the Common Scoters might heave been sat within range.

 After work we needed fuel so headeed a little past Base Camp with a master plan in mind. The flooded field opposite the Supermarket/filling station had a fair few Shovelers on it, uncountable as we were approaching a very busy  junction. After emptying the contents of the wallet in to the land Rover - HOW MUCH a gallon!!!) we headed another couple of miles north to Fleetwood Dog Toilet (aka the Nature Park) where the lovely and long staying Ring Necked Duck has been re-sighted in the last few days. Pulling up at the pool and grabbing the bins it was the first bird seen and the nearest one to us. RND (116) in the bag! We fumbled together the mighty lens kit but it was with a few shy Pochards and all set off at a pace to the furthest side of the pool leaving us with only this poor record shot.

A proper pic can be seen here.

Where to next? Day off tomorrow with a bit of a Frank-free plan.

In the meantime let us know who's regurgitating all the spam in your outback.