Struggled to get out on safari today

The Safari was up early with Frank, who thankfully seems a lot more chipper-dandy today, yesterday thought he wasn't  going to last the weekend poor old fella, the cheery strains of the local Chiffchaff, must be on territory chiffing and chaffing across the gardens - hope it's found/will find a mate. 

No chance of getting out other than that today but to be honest the overnight weather looked more like a migrant clear out night rather than a migrant dump night. Cloud appeared later in the day which may have brought some more birds within reach.

After Frank had had his breakfast, ancient or not there's no stopping his lust for food, we had a look in the moth trap and were very pleased to find more in there than yesterday morning's pitiful haul. Still no new species but five Hebrew Characters was a definite improvement.

Wifey left to take eh-up muvver to the shops and we pottered around in the garden for a while, sawing some wood and having a little shuffy round to see what was coming up. The path up the garden is a mass of Cowslips - best they've been.

Maybe we should have swept the bits ups before getting the camera out

Lovely to see it spring forth with lush verdantness to think it just a massive sterile concrete slab covered in geotextile this time 12 years ago.

We started a bit of weeding and were soon alerted to a raptor going over by a sudden explosion of noise from the local gulls, they'd been just about silent upto now. Looking up there were two Buzzards (Garden #26) soaring only 100 feet above Base Camp and then they did a talon locking tumble although they didn't quite lock talons. Brilliant - thanks gulls! The bins and camera were grabbed as quick as maybe from indoors but we were too late to get pictoral evidence.

Commotion and cacophony

A few minutes later there was another lesser and shorted burst of squawking when a Sparrowhawk drifted northwards.

Continuing to keep an eye and an ear open we saw our Great Tits going in and out of the House Sparrow nesting terrace - no House Sparrow has ever been near it, less likely to now as the pair that nested in the eaves of the house on the corner of the main road is nowhere to be seen this year, which begs the question will we get them on the garden list this year...maybe not which isn't good.

Over the road the Blue Tit's nest in a crack in the brickwork by the neighbours upstairs window is in use for at least the third year running which was good to see.

The garden was quiet for invertebrates despite the warm sunshine there was a cool breeze whistling through, just a few flyovers from bumble bees, n butterflies and a chunky Drone Fly, Eristalis sp, trying to maintain position in the sunniest spot.

A check of the south facing garage wall for Jumping Spiders and Solitary Bees/Wasps was a big fat negatory.

Here's a short clip of a steepish rocky decent from last Sunday's green laning adventure - best viewed full screen - not sure what YouTube is doing to us. Press escape to return here.

Where to next? Back to Patch 2 and offshore-ish winds could produce seas calm enough to spot cetaceans.

In the meantime let us know who's causing all the commotion in your outback

A day on the upland trails

The Safari and BD set off early in the morning to meet up with a group of fellow green-lane enthusiasts led by CB of UK Land Rover Events at perhaps the bleakest coastal car park we’ve ever been to. So bleak no-one got out to take a pic of the group altogether before setting off, it's usually this time the introductions are made and everyone gets to know each other.

 After a few lovely days summer was over and it was back to the end of February, heavy rain with sleet mixed in blown horizontal by a fierce wind. Some low mist was involved too, just to ruin the views of the scenery.

The first part of our trek was along farm tracks sodden with the rain across empty moorland, being the last vehicle in the group meant lots of hopping in and out and getting rained on for B as he was on gate closing duty so those pesky sheep don't get into the wrong fields.

The sat-nav showed where we were – the middle of nowhere!

Hang on, shouldn't there be some roads on there?

The spring scenery was probably stunning with views up to the higher mountains and out across the sea and Morecambe Bay but the mist and rain prevented us from seeing it.

Nothing too challenging to start with but all that was to change on our next lane when we were told to engage our diff lock…it doesn’t work too well on the Land Rover and it’s a bit of a risk putting it in in case it doesn’t come out so it was with a little trepidation we watched the more capable Defenders bouncing up the rocky steps. There was no turning back so it was onward and upward with fingers crossed. The Disco did us proud and easily waltzed up without much trouble and just enough right boot to keep the momentum going without trying to hurry or race. We got to the top and then discovered not only had we not needed the diff lock we’d forgotten to engage the low ratio gears when we came off the road – the Disco climbed a 40 degree slippery rocky staircase in normal road gears – that auto box is a beaut…but we’ll remember to put them in next time we come off the tarmac otherwise there could be some serious gearbox explosions and/or the risk of getting unextricatably stuck!
All the while we were on the look out for any wildlife we could spot. The mosses were easy, there's a whole garden of them up there in England's 'rain forests'.

For lunch we stopped at the forestry centre where B disappeared for a few minutes just before two Ravens flew right over the car park, a species he's not seen before - a bad dip!

Trendy forest visitor centre

From there we hit a trail known as The Fox a forestry track, one we've driven a few times now but always worth the trip. It was near here that some Red Kites were released a few years ago but the dreadful weather meant we stood little chance of seeing them today.

As the day progressed the weather improved and the scenery started to come out of hiding.

These are the 'stairs' mentioned in the 'Going up the stairs' pic on our sidebar

Where's there's brown Bracken there used to be probably used to be high scrubby forest, denser forest would have been on the bright green fields 1000+ years ago

That's the Safari tying on our broken rock slider - sure we knocked it off on the same boulder last time we were here

 The sun came out a bit too

Decent into Little Langdale

There is some serious conservation work trying to revive the fortunes of upland Juniper which has suffered the ravages of over-grazing by sheep and aging so that there is little fertile seed produced. In areas where it is still vigorous sheep are now being excluded and seedlings frown in the nursery and planted out if there isn't enough natural regeneration. It was a the top line of the scrubby forest long since gone now. Although the landscape looks beautiful to many those with an ecological eye see little but the remnants and scars of a ravaged land.

Unfortunately there is now a Phytopthora fungal disease which has been identified as coming from South America which is attacking them.

This stand looks healthy enough

The tradition of sheep-farming goes back many hundreds of years, probably to the Vikings if not much earlier perhaps even the Bronze Age - it's a long long time since the hills were fully forested with an accompanying suite of animals such as Wolves, Wild Boar, Eurasian Brown Bears, some still linger in the names of the hills and valleys.
Here's a few more trail pics.

Eventually we came out of the forest and on to open fellsides to find the sun had come out and the mist lifted to give us splendiferous views of the higher ground.

The Fairfield horseshoe - we've climbed that many times

Red Screes in the left middle-ground, Ill Bell and Yoke in the distance

With snow Red Screes Froswick, Ill Bell, Yoke and Buck Crag

At the foot of Buck Crag is an old road, Garburn Pass we worked on in the 80s making culverts and putting in drainage so that it was passable to vehicles. Sadly now it is closed to motorised vehicles due to the prejudices of some in the walking fraternity. If they knew how much effort we put in moving rocks up to two tons in weight with just crowbars and muscles.
We'd love to get up close and personal with that part of the world again but it is now beyond our walking capabilities - thanks a bunch Ramblers...NOT...and with getting so many lanes closed you've made honey-pots out of the remainder making you complain even more and some of those are also used by the farming community so will still have vehicles on them anyway. Have you seen the 'motorways' your boots have made across the high tops? They're a bit wider than the trails we've used today,

The Langdale Pikes

Wetherlam

Bowfell? top left with snow

 There's a bit of architectural heritage around these parts too

Old church at High Nibthwaite - think that's where it is

By the size of the windows we reckon 16th or 17th C. And look at the Sedum on the ledge above the window

Elterwater village at the end of our journey

Here's a trek we did a few years ago covering some of the same trails

In wildlife news we've just had a couple of Swallows (Garden #25) go over and weren't sure that we didn't hear a Sand Martin earlier.
Patch 2 has been kind to us with a Yellow Legged Gull (P2 #45) yesterday and the day before and a probable 1st winter Caspian Gull today, it was distant in the dark rainy gloom but we hope we got enough of a description to get it past another CB.

Many thanks to BD for his exceptional pics - far superior to the usual out of focus poorly exposed rubbish you normally see on here - you've been spoiled this week that's for sure.

Where to next? Looking good for some migrants tomorrow

In the meantime let us know who's wobbling about in your outback

Friends of Devonshire Road Rock Gardens moth & bat night

The Safari, in association with the Friends of Devonshire Rock Rock Gardens, held a very well attended moth and bat night last night, pity we forgot to invite the moths and bats!

We did have a mooch round and got a few registers on the bat detector. Some of the group took nets and torches and had a rummage around the bushes. Our Extreme Photographer had a close encounter with a Fox and a small mammal mouse/vole/shrew shot across the track in front of him. He did find and was able to pot up a Hawthorn Shield Bug.

The wet net was taken to the pond where yours truly struggled to get just a few of the many Smooth Newts in there.

Any webs on the trees were checked for their resident spiders and we found a couple of beauties, both turned out to be the same species although the second one was three times the size of the first; male and female? Whether they are or they aren't different sexes they are 'new' to the Fylde.

With rain setting in we had to abandon the event earlier than planned but it was too cold for any insects and therefore bats to be out...better luck next time...which will be August Bank Holiday.

Yesterday we took a few, what we consider to be, fairly good pics...reason - we had three things in our favour 1, sunshine, 2 time...no deadlines and 3, no Frank being held in the other hand.

Here's some more from yesterday.

Andrena sp

Unknown bee

Adrena nigroaenea

Hybrid Bluebell

Dandelion

Forget-me-not - anyone know which species

Fox & Cubs aka Orange Hawkweed

Ladies mantle

Nomad Bee sp?

Today we had another bash at the Hawthorn Shield Bug as we'd kept it overnight to get some pics in better light..well daylight for a start!

We didn't know they had a 'Rhino' horn, did you? 

Chores were order of the day but then we gt a txt from AB saying there was a Whinchat at the wetland near the nature reserve. we asked if we could go and the answer was in the affirmative - pheww. Took ages to get there - too many dipsticks out on the roads on a Bank Holiday weekend :-(

Worth it though. (170, MMLNR 87)

A Grasshopper Warbler was reeling from the next bush along but we couldn't see it.

Then AB got wind of a Cuckoo a few miles away...of we went with AB & co and once again we were baulked by numpties doing 25mph when they should have been doing at least 50!!! Jeezzzzz we hate them and why the old ba* in the sports car needed her brakes we'll never know - we've seen slugs corner faster than she did!!!!!!

A great surprise greeted the Safari at the Cuckoo site...not wildlife but a real old beaut none the less

Old grey tractor fetish sated we went to the other end of the site away from the main road so that we could listen better without the traffic noise. No Cuckoo but a very distant Grasshopper Warbler.

We did see this rather snazzy little red fly

 Easier to identify, or at least far more familiar was this very confiding Large Red Damselfly.

Wonder if they'll turn up again at Base Camp, they didn't last year.
A morning visit to Patch 1 gave us a Lesser Whitethroat (P1 35). The Golden Triangle has breeding Wren, Robin, Dunnock, Song Thush, Blackcap, Chaffinch, Greenfinch and maybe Woodpigeon and Goldfinch; we really hope no-one decides it needs 'tidying up'.

Where to next? Everyone keeps telling us tomorrows weather is going to be dreadful but hopefully we'll be able to get out early before the deluge starts.

In the meantime let us know if anything was attracted to light in your outback.