Sunrise is a beautiful time of day

The Safari was once again out before the sun rose. The first hint of pink was lighting the clouds along the eastern horizon. We hadn’t gone far when the pale pinks had intensified in hue heralding the imminent appearance of the sun from behind the distant hills. It made a dramatic entrance, for some reason the cloud formation restricted the dawn colours to a small patch of sky. Fortunately we can share this experience with you as we had the pocket camera with us for a change. Sadly it didn’t last more than a couple of minutes before the clouds and ticking time won the battle and the intense colours became the dull light of a new day.

On our drive to work we kept an eye out for Blackbirds in unusual places but none were seen in any place unusual or usual. If we never see another Blackbird there again we’ll convince ourselves more and more that what we did see was a Ring Ouzel even if it was only ever just a grounded migrant Blackbird.

The drive in also whet our appetite for Patch 2 as the sea had barely a ripple. It turned out to be somewhat disappointing. As we approached the wall we heard Meadow Pipits overhead and could also hear Sandwich Terns calling despite the tide being well out. It didn’t get much better, Sandwich Terns numbered only about four blogging up n down and occasionally diving unsuccessfully for fish. More successful was the distant Grey Seal that was enjoying a decent sized meal if the large flashes of silver were anything to go by.

A bit closer in was a diver, not the one we ‘wanted’ but a winter plumaged Red Throat. Pretty poor...when’s our first Harbour Porpoise of the year going to materialise?

No cetaceans materialised on our lunchtime safari either and the pinniped had gone too. In fact almost everything had gone apart from the handful of Sandwich Terns and a pair of Great Crested Grebes...most disappointing considering how good the viewing conditions were :-(

The drive home was against a back drop of an awesome increasingly darkening sky...would we get back to Base Camp to take in the laundry on the line before the rain started? 

The clouds were every shade of dark grey imaginable, the gulls etched sharp and white against the ominous background; the Lesser Black Backs looked particularly crisp as we tried to second guess where the flicker of lightning would come from.

No lightning but the deluge started a few minutes too soon and by the time we'd reached Base Camp the laundry was almost as wet as it was when we took it out of the machine.

There's lots of awesome stuff to see in the natural world no matter what you're doing or where you are, all that's needed to appreciate it is a little bit of a sense of wonder and a couple of seconds to stop and stare, even if you are in control of a two ton vehicle!

Where to next? Another big family day tomorrow but who knows what the dawn will bring.

In the meantime let us know what was awe inspiring in your outback today