Afternoon sortie

The Safari had our Extreme Joiner round this arvo building the second pergola for the Wisteria and Clematis plants to climb all over. Hopefully there'll be a plethora of flowers later in the summer.

After he'd finished set off for the North Blackpool Pond Trail to look for a Pool/Marsh Frog that had been reported to us by GUF yesterday.

The 'Black Pond' close to where the mystery amphibian was spotted...no 'chair in a tree' here anymore thanks to the stalwart efforts of  the volunteers. 

A Burying Beetle - somewhat dead was found.

A very pleasant hour was spent rummaging around the various ponds. No luck at all - didn't even find any Common Frogs, although we did find clumps of spawn although not in every pond yet. But we did find several Toads, our first of the year. No newts either despite flipping over some choice pieces of wood/carpet/plastic etc.

Also seen in one pond were two Goldfish and a rather chunky Carp along with one of the biggest, if not THE biggest Greater Pond Snail we've ever seen, a full 6 1/2cm long.

A Song Thrush sang loudly - not unexpected but deffo unexpected were the 11 Snipe that we flushed from a shallow puddle near Wifey's work.

A pair of Mallards were lurking furtively there too.

We'd spent so long faffing around the ponds we ran out of time to look for Bee Orchid rosettes.

Where to next? Back on the birds tomorrow probably.

In the meantime let us know what's covering your outback in spawn.