Dingy December days give typical winter fare

The Safari and Monty have mostly been getting wet this week, for the last two days its been perpetual dusk. Earlier in the week a frosty start gave the opportunity for a dry - well at least not rainy - wander round Marton Mere, it wasn't that dry underfoot...think big puddles and quagmires.

The early morning frost was melting and the limp sun was lifting a cold mist over the wetlands as we walked in. To further brighten the morning a Cetti's Warbler sang briefly but otherwise all was quiet. Certainly no sign of the Roe Deer that was spotted very early morning a few days previously. Our prize of a king-size Mars Bar to the first person the get a pic of a deer on the reserve is still up for grabs...

To give Monty more of a run we chose to walk round the perimeter of the reserve where we heard but couldn't see a couple of Goldcrests in the dense Blackthorn boundary hedge. We had a look for any Long Eared Owls from the few places it's now possible to see over the hedge but yet again all the previously favoured spots were uninhabited. Where are they? Are there any about? News of a roosting Tawny Owl nearby a few days ago may not be good news for any Long Eared Owls as there's a bit of intra-guild competition between the two species and sometimes aggression too from the larger and much more powerful Tawny Owls. Maybe any LEOs that have been around have been scared off/eaten??? 

Nothing of note was noted along the embankment and the few remaining trees in that corner of the caravan site were devoid of birds. We parked up in the Fylde bird Club hide and enjoyed a bit of sunshine illuminating a nice variety of water birds, about 50 Teal, there was a Green Winged Teal at this time of year back in '94 and we checked the 'normal' Teal just in case...none - unless there's an unidentifiable female in the flock! Mallards, Shoveler, Gadwall, a dozen or more Wigeon, the flock of Grey Lag Geese with a (the?) neck collared bird that was too distant to read and to get a pic of with the 300mm - our 600mm is in dock for auto-focus issues to be sorted, hope it's not going to be too expensive to sort out, a a real life lesson in filling out those 5 year warranty cards/web pages!!!

The Coot had yet another mass panic but we couldn't see what had caused it. News was that one had been taken by the Otter a day or so ago so they have good reason to scatter. Otters are fairly catholic in their diet but the do prefer fish so if ours is eating Coots does that mean there's not many fish of a suitable size or just a super-abundance of pretty clumsy and easy to catch Coots available?

The Coot panic made a good flock of gulls lift off the water to our left but they settled back down in the same place out of sight from our vantage point in the hide so e left to check them over from 'under the trees'. The now fallen Typha here allows good views over the western end of the mere and the all important gull flock although today we didn't find anything other than Herring Gulls and a couple of Black Headed Gulls in the flock.

Another Cetti's Warbler sang from close to the Dragonfly Den hide and the recently cut swathes through the reedbed played host to a few Coots, a couple of Moorhens and a Heron.

There wasn't anything to point the lens at until we came across this Robin sitting at the side of the track.

we got a snap off and then it dived down to the path to collect a tiny morsel it had somehow seen and then returned to a perch close to the one it left but just a little further away from us. But as we inched closer trying to get closer than before for the 300mm to bed more effective a dog walker appeared from found the other side of the bush and the Robin was gone.

The Feeding Station was well provisioned but there was little activity apart from the ubiquitous aliens, Pheasants and Grey Squirrels, so we chose not to stay long.

It's not often you come across a solitary Goldfinch but this one feeding on the soggy heads of a Spear Thistle was just that, there were no others to be seen or heard in the immediate vicinity. Where were its chums?

Again we tried to inch closer to get a better range for the 300mm but this time we spooked it and off it went. We imagined that once it took flight others would join it from their hiding places but none did.

Just outside the reserve the morning's frost and mist had created artistic droplets all over the vegetation  -we couldn't resist snapping away at some of the Rose Hips at one of the path junctions.

As our walk neared its end there's a few Apple trees with a good number of windfall apples still lying on the ground. We could see some Blackbird activity in and under the trees so approached cautiously.

There were several, probably at least double figures lurking in the undergrowth but were quite aggressive towards each other with lots of chasing rivals off to get to the best fruit so it was quite tricky to keep tabs on them all. We did however see the pale rump of a Fieldfare lift up through the twiggery and heard the unmistakable 'whacka chacka' call as it did so. It then took some careful repositioning to be able to see it anything like well up in the top of the tree, this was easily our best view.

It shifted position and we lost sight of it somewhere round the back of the tree and lower down but thought we'd refound it again when we saw a 'paler than a Blackbird' movement at the foot of the tree. Not the Fieldfare but a Song Thrush this time.

By now a cluster of dog walkers was closing down on us and their mutts were running amok here there and everywhere through the vegetation - needless to say that was the end of any chance of seeing the Fieldfare again as most of the birds took flight and went over behind us back the way we'd come from towards the reserve. 

We did see LR's favourite gull though, a Black Headed Gull that has been pacing up and down the track for a good few winters now - wonder where it hangs out during the summer, a local nesting colony on the Lancashire coastal marshes or much much further away???

November ended with 192 bird species on our year list of which we'd got pics of 176 for our Photo Year List Challenge - a rather unexpectedly high 'strike-rate' of  91.6666666666666666% and we still haven't been able to submit such local species as Jay, Yellowhammer or Corn Bunting to the SD card.

Where to next? Blimey anywhere will do as soon as this dreek rainy weather gives over.

in the meantime let us know who's got the track side eagle eyes in your outback.

Getting cross over crossbills and some terrible toll tunnel trauma on a twitch

The Safari has been out n about enjoying the autumn colours, the hot summer is probably responsible for the vivid show everyone (hopefully everyone) is enjoying this season. 

Before we tell you of our adventures we've some info about the nasal saddled Pochard we told you about last time.  We submitted the data in the Colour Ringing website and as is often not the case the ringing scheme got back to us almost by return of post.

As you can see it's not been tagged that long but our sighting is the only one away from its assumed breeding area, or at least summering area.

If it hangs around at MartIn Mere all winter it's going to be reported a lot more butr it may leave then where will it turn up and will anyone see it and if they do will they report it? Please do if you do!

We've had a couple of visits to MartOn Mere - confusingly similar names. Mostly trying to dodge rain showers and totally failing to get any pics of the quite numerous but extraordinarily flighty Redwings, couldn't find any owls of any description either, although to be fair there's still quite a lot of leafery on the trees making spotting anything in the scrub nigh on impossible.

There are quite a few Water Rails on site at the mo and quite often they scurry between the islands of reeds in front of the Fylde Bird Club Hide, they don't hang around and rarely give any indication they're going to break cover so as soon as you spot one it's press that shutter button time and hope for the best before they reach the dense cover on the other side of the gap!

Along the embankment the light was much better even if there weren't many birds to be seen. The view's not bad though.

The scrub didn't give us any photo opportunities either so we decided to go 'round the back' on the Heron's Reach path to see if we could see any winter thrushes - we didn't and still haven't seen any Fieldfares round these parts but reports of them in oour area are now beginning to filter  through to us so there are some around now. The trees provided us with a gorgeous colour palette.

Later in the week we went up to Beacon Fell with JH and GB. We'd seen reports of large numbers of Crossbills at another site not too far to the south and the vis miggers have been seen odd birds, normally there are none, passing them at their coastal watch points so we thought the coniferous forest up in the Country Park had to be worth a try.

But walking round it became obvious that the woods were devoid of birds with barely a tweet heard. Can't believe we heard no Coal Tits, Goldcrests or Siskins. The only 'lively' area, and that wasn't THAT lively, was the tiny feeding station by the Visitor Centre and cafe where we sat outside with a brew. Small numbers of Blue and Great Tits and Chaffinches were coming and going, a couple of Coal Tits smash n grabbed as they do and a Blackbird came and went but star of the show was this posing Robin.

We haven't been on a 'proper' twitch for yonks preferring these days to drive no more than an hour to a site to do some birding and other wildlife spotting. Can't really remember when our last more distant twitch was. But that changed on Friday when we made the decision to go and see the Pied Wheatear that had been present on the north Wirral coast for a couple of days, just over an hour's drive away.

We picked up GB and set off. We had no problems negotiating the fairly busy Friday morning motorway and then being taken a rather odd route through Liverpool to reach the Mersey Tunnel but it was when we reached said tunnel that we had a bit of a serious blip. We followed a car in to the booth area and it went straight through but when we pulled up we saw there was nowhere to put our cash - we'd followed a car going through a pre-paid or contactless line - dohh they didn't have those last time we came this way so we ended up having to reverse out upsetting the line of vehicles behind us - thankfully not that many! Wonder if a brown envelope will end up on our doorstep in a few days with a citation, as the Yanks call them, in it - certainly hope not! But our calamities didn't end there, once through the booth and out on the open road we hit the gas to make up for lost time only to realise we'd passed two speed cameras at at least 10 mph over their limits - sincerely hope they weren't armed and dangerous!!!

Panics over the rest of the journey was thankfully uneventful. But where exactly was the bird? Not hard to find just look for the small crowd of birders assembled a little way down  the promenade.

The bird itself wasn't hard to find either, it was sat up on the seawall just six feet in front of the throng.

Time for a few photos of the Pied Wheatear, (192, PYLC 185 - Challenge target reached!) a British Isles Lifer for us - the last ones we saw were way back in the dim and distant late 1970s when we spent a summer working on a variety of ecological projects in Israel. Unless of course it gets re-identified as a, Eastern Black Eared Wheatear which could be a possibility, in which case we've seen them more recently, in Greece 2012.

Not the best light on our visit but we were lucky as it was its last day there, not being seen the following day.

We were giving Monty a stretch of the legs on the little green on the other side of the road when we noticed the group of birders moving our way down the prom. Looking towards where they were looking we saw the Pied Wheatear was sat on the sea wall directly behind our car. Never had a twitch quite like that before!

Not a bad looker for an immature bird. Unfortunately as GB had to back home for an appointment we couldn't stay too long or visit any other local sites, it really was a 'Tick n Run' twitch.

Today was a family day and a walk up the River Brock at the popular picnic spot. The threatened rain never showed up but the sky didn't really clear either so we although we thoroughly enjoyed the autumn spectacle we didn't see the colours quite at their most vivid.

Monty's not bothered about autumn colour, evenif he could see them - he's much happier with a river and a ball.

A beautiful afternoon out.

Where to next? Dunno yet but we'll be out on safari somewhere at least locally next week.

In the meantime let us know who's got all the colours of the rainbow in your outback.

Non-birdy wildlife at Marton Mere followed by a good bird day there

The Safari was able to get an unexpected sneaky visit to Marton Mere yesterday morning.There were a few birds about the first notable one being a Cetti's Warbler in one of the ponds at the wetland on the way in. That was followed by a Sparrowhawk circling over the north western corner of the reserve. A few Skylarks were going over calling but unseen the continued on and off all morning, no idea how many were involved all together. 

We decided to go round anti-clockwise taking us to the Feeding Station first where it was quiet with only two Pheasants and two Chaffinches. A volunteer was mowing the path edges behind us and the noise was upsetting Monty so we high tailed it out of there, wasn't owt happening anyway. We'd just got out through the caravan site gate when four Redpolls (MMLNR #82) went over. They'd come from over the mere so hadn't been parked up in the Alders behind the Feeding Station. 

Moving further down the bank we didn't see much on interest until we came upon a smashed up mushroom.

Why do folk do that - fear of the unknown we guess going back to the 'all mushrooms are edible - some only once'. But if no-one's going to eat it why smash it up with a stick? Some folk are absolute numpties, so disassociated with wildlife and nature and sadly that's the norm now.

No more than a couple of yards away were two Shaggy Inkcaps which must have popped up after Mr/s Destruction had gone otherwise they'd no doubt be smashed up too despite being edible - and good...although we weren't going to take a bite out of these as they were very much in a dog zone!

While we were getting down n dirty with the Shaggy Inkcaps Monty's nose had taken him off to our left and he was pulling hard on his lead making us take notice of him again - good job we did he'd pulled himself within range of this Fox do-do and was just about to drop his shoulder for a good old roll in in it...Nooooooooo - only an idiot would have a dog!!! Fortunately we managed to drag him away from it before it was smeared all over his back - why do they do that - YUKKKKK

From the fence we could see there wasn't muxh by way of waterfowl or gulls in front of the Fylde Bird Club Hide so we opted to keep moving instead of going in, good move cos if we had have gone in we'd have missed the two Swallows scudding across the grassed area going westwards at a rate of knots.

With Redpolls and Swallows of interest spotted already we thought it best to call in at the visitor centre and report them officially. On the way up there we saw a cluster of Common Inkcaps - unsmashed and yet these can give you a seriously dicky tummy if eaten and you have alcohol in your system...best avoided unless your a total tee-totaller.

After a quick chat at the VC we continued our circuit. At the gate by the bridge over the outflow stream we found an interesting pellet sat on top of the rubbish bin. It's about the size of our thumbnail and almost spherical. We're not sure what it might have been produced by, Little Owl, Blackbird (bit big for one of those?) something else??? The snail is intriguing, we're no good at snail ID is it a terrestrial species or is it from the adjacent stream?

Some of the black bits look very much like beetle elytra (wing cases) which would point towards Little Owl, or maybe Kestrel perhaps - can anyone shed any further light on the ID? So far on Twitter we've had no response and on Facebook a 'Big Gun' is gunning for Little Owl. Thoughts anyone...over to you.

Our walk around most of the rest of the reserve was pretty uneventful apart from a couple of small flocks of Pink Footed Geese dropping in to the fields to the east but landing out of sight behind a rise in the ground and a handful more Cetti's Warblers scattered around the site. When we reached the path to the Viewing Platform we spied this rather impressive fungus at the side of the path, must be 18 inches end to end - a real beast! No idea what it is though.

At the Viewing Platform we hoped for a Bittern but it wasn't to be, 'just' a small flock of Long Tailed Tits working their way through the top of the recently pruned Willow tree to the left of the bench - great stuff as there is now a sweeping visita right around the northwest corner of the reedbed - just right for spotting any Bitterns popping up out of there and heading towards you.

Just as we were leaving a huge pall of thick black smoke came up from behind the barn just beyond the reserve's eastern boundary - doesn't look good but who ya gonna call? Fire brigade or the Environment Agency? Probably shoulda called the latter.

Framers eh? Sometimes we think they dshouldn't be allowed in the countryside - and we're from farming stock!

The walk back to the car gave us the same number of Goldcrests as we had all last weekend at Spurn - one, in the allotment hedge at the wetlands.

This morning dawned cold and clear, the sun hasn't risen now when we're out on Monty's early morning walk and today there was a crisp frost on the grass and car windscreens. As ever we look for the Peregrine on its usual (now unusual) perch but yet again no sign of it. But high up in the cold steel grey ether we heard another Brambling, none for 14 1/2 years then two in a couple of days! P1 #51)

Coming back on to the main road and looking down the hill we could see a huge swirl of Jackdaws, about 100 of them which we guessed must have roosted somewhere nearby.

Back at Base Camp we were pleased to find about half a dozen Blackbirds in the garden feasting on next door's Rowan berries and our Pyracantha bush.

Blackbirds we expect, maybe not as many as six but they are daily visitors but Starlings are another kettle of fish altogether, very rarely do they come in to the garden so to see three drop in begs the question are they local birds or migrants from afar that have possibly traveled on the coat tails of the Blackbirds...you decide.

Either way it was great to see them in the garden.

A flock of about 85 Jackdaws went over going south west, almost definitely not the 100 we'd seen earlier.

And with the sun shining we decided on taking Monty for another spin round Marton Mere. The walk started as yesterday with a/the Cetti's Warbler at the wetlands. We'd not gone far when we heard the unmistakable woosh woosh sound of Mute Swans' wings carving up the air. Two of them came low overhead making for Stanley Park lake.

So close we could only fit one of them in the frame.

We opted to give Monty a bit more of a run before putting him on his lead so went round the outside of the reserve along the bridlepath, here a patch of sunshine had warmed the place up enough for a Common Darter to fly past and alight on the fence to do a bit of basking and catch a few rays.

We carried on on our way and into the reserve (with Monty now on his lead) and set off along the embankment where we met TS. We'd gone that way on the off chance we might see the Bittern fly over the reedbed and/or hear the pings of a fresh-in Bearded Tit, there's been a bit of an influx along the north west coast line and our reed bed is as good as anyone elses!

While we were chatting we both saw a large black bird we both at first glance thought might be a Raven but when it banked it turned into our first Marsh Harrier here since before 2010. Unfortunately it stayed down the far end before dropping in to the reedbed somewhere near the scrape putting about 60 Teal to flight. We hoped that when it got up again it would come our way and we'd get some spectacular views of it wafting over the reedbed in front of us - no such luck it went down the far end again and then set off high to the north east and away.

We also noted a steady passage of Skylarks and a few Chaffinches from our spot on the embankment. Behind us were more Pink Footed Geese than we'd had yesterday and more still were going over further east.

TS went on his way and we stopped a few more minutes to watch a Sparrowhawk speed by and listen to Water Rails squalling and Cetti's Warblers exploding but not a peep out of any Bearded Tits that might have been but probably weren't lurking in the reeds.

We followed on in TS's footsteps passing a family who think it's acceptable to come in to a nature reserve and take away the birds and animals winter food supply - armed with a long pole to reach the Apples no-one else could reach - how many hundredweight of invaluable winter food is lost to these numpties each autumn - all for the sake of saving a few pence at the supermarket. We're only taking  two or three they told us, each with one of those large 'indestructible' carrier bags in their hands.

Tw*ts

Fortunately the morning picked up soon after that when we heard the soft 'peeuu' call of a Bullfinch and then watched a female lift out of the scrub fly a short distance and then drop back in again. That's the first sighting since early April. 

Our offer of a king sized Mars Bar for the person who gets a decent pic of one still stands, got to be better than our two paltry efforts so far to get that prize though.

Then we had 'bad news' from MMcG we'd just missed a Jay and a Bittern he told us, but we did get on to the two Whooper Swans that were cruising round the far end of the mere, our first actually on the water for several years.

We hung around chatting to the Ranger and volunteers for a while hoping the Bittern might show itself again - it didn't and they disappeared in to the reedbed to remove a substantial Willow growing on a bit of an island so went back towards the Feeding Station. We'd only gone a few steps when BOOM a flock of nine Coal Tits flew over us and went across to the trees in the caravan site - awesome as those over the other side of the pond say. No other species were in the flock and nine is at least six more than we've ever seen on site before!

Best of the rest were the shed loads of Jackdaws, must seen 1000 all morning up to now and a Great Spotted Woodpecker going east over the wetlands.

It was quieter back at Base Camp after lunch but thee were still a few Jackdaws on the move. After the school traffic had died down we took Monty out to the park, Patch 1, but without a camera - shoulda took one as as soon as we got there we spotted a Jay coming in from the east, very very seldom do we see them round here.

Sparrrowhawk and a Small White butterfly were best of the rest until we got home and had a Red Admiral perched up on one of our down pipes at Base Camp.

Where to next? An all day safari over to the Southside with CR tomorrow

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

Struggling with the weaher a bit

The Safari hasn't enjoyed the change in the weather back to more normal summer weather. cool wet n windy. 

We have done a few events namely a family holiday club rockpooling down on the beach, great fun but no pics...the sand on the beach and the camera aren't the best of  bedfellows.

We also did a moth and bat night for a local friends group at their park. The weather in the few days leading up to event was decidedly iffy but fortunately the evening turned out mild and dry and the bats put on a great early performance for us and then the moths followed suit with a reasonable variety and the ever popular with the children, Large Yellow Underwings - big and colourful.

A breezy morning up Beacon Fell with GB had us taking no photos but we did hear what was possibly a Crossbill but we weren't able to get a view of it through the tree-tops. On the whole it was quiet with even the Goldcrests and Coal Tits were hard to come by. A stop to look for dragonflies at the pond was a bit of disaster as a heavy squall blew through soaking us and then we saw the pool was almost dry.

Monday morning saw us at  Marton Mere for a habitat/winter works survey and we were able to get on to the island for the first time in years. The scrape looks good - almost exactly how the team imagined it when the Lottery project was first conceived, just needs a bit of time to develop more invertebrate rich organic ooze.

A view of Marton Mere and Blackpool Tower that few folk get to see

Scrape old (close) and new (beyond the green strip) looking good

Volunteers and Interns assessing the possibilities of changing some of the vegetation structure

The prolonged dry spell has meant low water levels and that has meant some plant species not seen all that often like this Marsh Cudweed.

And an old favourite Trifid Bur Marigold - yes there really is a plant called a trifid!

Then we stumbled across this little blue thing- Skullcap, a species we've not seen there before and that doesn't happen often!

We had to leave early as we had another family group in the afternoon so didn't get a chance to have a look at the grassland and scrub works.

The family group was back on the beach at the rockpools. Lots of shells and some decent sized Green Shore Crabs but the stars of the show were these two Blennies.

Now there's nothing overly special about Blennies we catch them every time we take a group down there but look closely - these two have jumped out of the water and stuck themselves to the side of the tub with their (relatively) huge pectoral fins. 

Now that is a bit special as we knew they could do that but in all our years of rockpooling here we've never seen it before. That and the Skullcap at the Mere just go to show not matter how long you've been watching wildlife there's always something new to see and learn. Awesome!!!

After a summer of enforced absence due to having to take Monty (on his lead of course - unlike 99% of other dog walkers- grrrrrr) and there mot being a lot of shade in the red hot sunny recent months we had another visit the following day. 

Nothing much was going on but we did see a couple of Sand Martins mooching about. They aren't on our Photo Year List Challenge yet so we stood and waited and waited for an opportunity. While we waited a trio of Wigeon flew over, the first arrivals of the 'winter'?

Easier to snap away at was this eclipse drake Mallard.

Eventually after about 100 shots we got one that's just about acceptable for the challenge, well it is identifiable - just! (PYLC #152)

It was a long way off on a gloomy day- honest

The walk back to the car had us passing one of our favourite plants on the reserve, the Perennial Pea that's been there for years - possibly the plant noted as the first record for Lancashire way back in 1966, but we could be confusing it with a different specimen that may or may not still exist.

We had yet another visit today on another grey drizzly gloomy day and not a lot was seen and not a single photo taken...that doesn't happen often!

The weather has put the mockers on the mothing back at Base Camp with the trap only able to go out on a few nights. Quality rather than quantity apart from dozens of Large Yellow Underwings.

Canary Shouldered Thorn - a stunner - - far more stunning than most of our butterflies shame no-one sees them as they fly in the dark of night

Cydia splendana - a rather dark individual which had us guessing a bit

Not a moth but a somewhat scary Ichneumon Wasp

Possibly Ophion obscuratus

Square Spot Rustic

Yellow Barred Brindle photobombed by an Agriphila trsitella

All good stuff!

Where to next? We've got another moth and bat night coming up at the weekend and a safari up the motorway tomorrow.

In the meantime let us know who's doing the sticking in your outback.