Saturday 7 June 2014

Back to wet n windy

The Safari was stuck indoors almost the whole day long today - it barely stopped raining all day and then only for a few minutes at a time. Really we wasted the day doing begger-all. A look at the Springwatch web-cams from time to time, a bit o scoping down the garden at the feeders but nothing really constructive or instructive but at least we won't have to water the garden and the water butts will have been topped up.
With reports of thunderstorms around, can't beat a good bit of lightning, we found this website which shows where all the strikes are - clever stuff - and followed the progression and eventual petering out of the storms across the fens of west Norfolk.

Here's some clips of our bees having a feast of golden syrup, a little too much middle leg waving argy-bargy don't you think!


We don't seem to have many young birds yet. In the morning while out with Frank we see Blackbirds collecting beakfuls of worms but we've seen no youngsters yet. Only the Greenfinches seem to have fledged any young so far cos we've seen a juvenile on the feeders, the Goldfinches visit regularly but only adults. There must be a pair of Robins close by as one is in and out of the garden very frequently often taking sunny seeds but again no speckly young seen yet and it's about this time of year when we see our only House Sparrows at Base Camp when a local family appears briefly at the feeders.

male Goldfinch - phonescoped through double glazed window in the rain
Scruffy Blue Tit - swingin in the rain
It's World Oceans Day tomorrow - even if you're not near the sea you can help keep it clean pee poo and paper only down the loo and watch those fats going down the sink, they harden into fatbergs in the drains and can contribute towards flooding and cross contamination. 
Eat fish? Make sure you choose sustainably caught species. Go fishing? Take your litter home too many don't on Patch 2.
Enjoy your beach, have a paddle or a swim just be careful and watch those tides! Join us for one of our rockpooling or cetacean watching events to learn what's in the 'ocean' here. Follow us on Twitter @DaveyManMcG for news of events.
Where to next? Hmm could be weather related but a sea watch for more Bottle Nosed Dolphins could well be on the cards if it dries up by lunchtime.
In the meantime let us know who's looking a bit rough round the gills in your outback.

2 comments:

The Hairy Birder said...

Evening Dave,

I had at least six Bottlenosed Dolphins of Rossall this morning. One or two looked smaller and assumed they were calves.

Cheers,

Seumus

cliff said...

That bee feeder of yours is fantastic, I think I'm going to have to cobble something together & get me some syrup. I see you've got some Red-taileds, we've not had any of those yet, we're getting lots of Early Bumblebees, the next most numerous are Tree Bees - the 1st Tree Bee to visit our garden was in August 2012 - less than 2 years later they're all over the flipping place - I've even had to turf 2 out of the house in the last few days.

Re. the young birds, we're having a great year for them, with fledged House Sparrows, Starlings, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Collared Doves, Blackbirds & Dunnocks all in our little garden. One of the young Dunnocks, a few weeks ago, was way too small to have left the nest, it couldn't fly & its parent followed it around the garden calling to it until it fell in the pond & couldn't get out, I rescued it but no sooner had I picked it up it died in my hand - thought it was going to get eaten by ogre probably.