Where did the lovely sunsine go?

The Safari didn't do much safari-ing today. The plan to get up and out early was kiboshed by a horrible strong cold wind so we stayed snug and warm in bed!

After a hearty breakfast of a chunkily thick organic BLT - is it true organic tastes better than 'normal' or is it just psychosomatic? Certainly seems too! - we set off somewhat late to the nature reserve in persistent drizzle.

Nothing much was about, a few Blackcaps singing and Willow/Chiffs moving through the shrubs silently.

We had a look round and noted a huge amount of Himalayan Balsam germinating, nightnmare, that'll need blitzing and there's no Rangers on site anymore to do it - damned cuts! Stupid shame that all our money was given o the banks to bail them out.

We had a bit of a tidy up in our old cabin and got all nostalgic for a while in there...when is a promotion (more like a side-swipe actually) not a promotion.

A look through the drizzle over the mere gave us a plethora of hirundines with a good proportion of House Martins today and just one Swift. 

On of the Cetti's Warblers sang to our left and we watched two male Blackcaps desperately searching for insects in the dreadful conditions. The best sighting was a of a pair of Little Grebes, we'd heard the rippling trill a couple of times but seeing them rooting around in a little open pool deep in the reedbed was very interesting indeed - not sure when they last breed on site.

A pair of Mallards arrived in front of the hide and we filled our boots with portraits.

 

This female looks more like a juvenile male with the green showing through which may be why the  male abandoned 'her' sharpish when another female floated past.

On another bum note vegetation wise we were informed about the possible theft of some of our Bee Orchids.

We found three more rosettes after some searching but it begs the question who did this and if they know what to look for at this time of year then they really ought to know better - thieving rat bags!

Where to next? There's still some wind about so Patch2 could produce in the morning.
In the meantime let us know who's stealing what from your outback