Wednesday 5 February 2014

No chance of emulating yesterday

The Safari had a great start to the day when a Fox walked past us only about 50 yards away, it even stopped to have a look at Frank who was oblivious to it while he had his morning frutch around upside-down on the grass verge. As we opened the front door to go to work we heard the unmistakable tune of a Song Thrush on the wind somewhere in the distance across the school playing field.
It was almost light enough to do the morning drive without headlamps and we couldn't wait to get out on to Patch 2. We had to wait a little while but legged it over the road as soon as we could. Not much doing, a cold south easterly nipped at the back of our legs and chopped up the sea pretty badly. First up was a gull count but numbers were well down today and none of them were picking around the shellfish. we made a mental note to get the wellies on and get down on the beach later. 
The sea was almost devoid of birds apart from the Common Scoters and a couple of Red Throated Divers.
At last we did get a chance to get down on the beach and have a good look around. It was as we saw from above that the shellfish wreck had been more or less washed away, hence the lower gull numbers. The strandlines were pretty sparse and we struggled to find anything of exceptional interest. Plenty of the regular Pod Razors, Edible Whelks, and Sand Mason Worm cases but not much else.
We did find a couple of tame Turnstones which provided some photo opportunities. We tried to get down to their eye level by crouching but they were much more wary with us doing that than walking closely by them.
We always have a shuffy for any washed up coal after a storm to cjeck for 'fossilised' leaf imprints and the like, this morning's pickings were meagre but we did find one piece that that had been rolling around in the sea for a while.
The white lines are Tube Worms probably Pomatoceros triqueter 

Also on there is a small Bryozoan Sea Mat colony
Where to next? Lots to do tomorrow but maybe no chance for ssafari-ing, we'll sea.
In the meantime let us know who's washing around in your outback.

1 comment:

Heather Wilde said...

A shed flying round our back yard today :( Glad to here that Frank is enjoying the safaris again. Love the Turnstone pictures. H