A green theme today

The Safari put the moth trap out for the first time this year on Saturday night. We weren’t expecting there to have been such a heavy overnight frost, it was frozen solid in the morning with not a moth in sight, or inside.

Once the moth trap had been fully inspected and a warming cuppa drunk it was time to go out to hunt down something seasonal. We arrived to frost glinting like a myriad diamonds in the morning sun settled on the beach. 

The clear skies meant the likelihood of grounded migrants would be just about zero and the chances of hearing any going over was slim too as they’d be stratospherically high and so out of earshot.

As the sun rose higher the frost in the dunes was now only holding its own in the shadiest areas and its time was now severely limited. 

Crossing the road we entered the reserve cresting the dune overlooking the big wet slack. It’s got more water in it than we’ve ever seen although admittedly we don’t go there too often and usually not in the winter or early spring when water levels are at their highest. From the dune top we could see a pair of Mallards outlined against the rising sun tucked in against the bank on the far right and a Moorhen was there too. A slight movement just beyond the Mallards caught our eye, a wader, and as we lifted our binoculars it flushed giving us good but brief views of a Green Sandpiper (136) calling loudly as it flew out of sight.

The scrub around the slack had a couple of singing Willow Warblers and at least three Chiffchaffs and we heard but didn’t see, the now long staying site’s first ever, Little Grebe trilling from the dense emergent vegetation.

A peruse of the rest of the reserve more in hope than anticipation didn’t give us anything other than the expected Skylarks, Meadow Pipits and Reed Buntings.

By now the sun had risen enough and the direction our shadow was pointing indicated it was time for the main event so back we went to the coastal dunes. 

We walked the track slowly making sure our shadow didn’t fall on the overhanging grasses carefully inspecting all the sunny bare-ish patches with our bins. 

Basking Red Tailed Bumble Bee

Another Red Tailed Bumble Bee - warming its bum at the entrance to a hole

It took six or seven patient passes until we found our quarry. Typically it was tucked in on the very edge of a bare patch but with enough overhanging grass to keep it mostly hidden, they rarely/never sit out in the open here.

Great to see and we hoped to find more but a 4x4 drove up parked right close to the bank (there’s a car park 20 feet away) and the mr & mrs hunting, shooting, fishing types got out and let five dogs out the back, two of which ran straight up the bank into the dunes. Marvellous no chance of any lizards being out for a good while now! Time to head back to Base Camp and a well-earned bacon butty after a pretty productive morning.

At lunchtime we picked up BD and headed for the higher ground out east. Buoyed up by our reptilian Common Lizard success on the dunes we had high hopes for more reptiles up on the lower fells. When we arrived the sun was out and it was pleasantly warm, it was the first safari this year we weren’t wearing a rain coat! 
As soon as we were out of the car BD heard a Nuthatch - a year-bird for him and was then was crouched over a patch of Dandelions his macro lens clicking away at the tiny solitary bees feeding deep amongst the stamens. The new bee field guide has given the two of us some impetus to try to do more recording throughout Safari-land and add some records to the national distribution maps, going to be tricky though, there’s scientific jargon to learn and lots of pics from a multitude of angles of each species will need to be taken and there’s still no guarantee of a positive ID – gotta try though! Please don't destroy the Dandelions, you'll never win and they are so important to huge range of early emerging insects.

We were also on the look-out for freshly opening or slightly more unusual wildflowers as Sunday evening is #wildflowerhour on Twitter and a great way to learn what’s coming in to flower around the country. The trackside was bedecked with Opposite Leaved Golden Saxifrage but that’s probably peaking now. The sound track coming from the woods around us was lovely in the sunshine with plenty of Willow Warblers in good voice and Chiffchaffs providing the rhythm section a few Blackcaps were evident too.

Arriving at our first reptile site we limbed the hill to the rocky patch and turned a few likely looking stones over. Woodlice, Millipedes, a Centipede and several Red Ants’ nests later we’d still not found a Slow Worm, where we too early? Perhaps we were as the Bracken fronds had barely broken the surface yet, in the past we’ve been successful when the Bracken is in the ‘crosier’ stage. Not too disheartened, there are other places to look we continued on the track with Lesser Redpolls circling overhead. A dip in the path held a puddle

And the puddle held a lot of tadpoles whose days are probably numbered.

Then we spotted a movement on the path in front of us, we briefly lost it then it moved again, excellent! A Green Tiger Beetle, and what a beauty, a real stunner!

On we went up hill and down dale passing several Pheasant skeletons and several empty shotgun cartridges - this pastime/'sport' really is just target practice with living things, no attempt to collect their kill, unless it died of injuries later or course - which is just cruel!, and no attempt to pick up the empty cases - litter!

More Willow Warblers entertained us with their singing and there seemed to be Robins everywhere.

We were still on the look-out for interesting wildflowers, bees and rocky areas with stones to turn when BD came across an interesting looking fly which turned out to be a species of Thick Headed Fly, Conopidae, possibly Myopa testacea, not something we've come across before. It's a parsasite of solitary bees and sits on flowers waiting for them to turn up, just as in the pic.

There was some question of whether or not one of the bees we'd seen was actually a Bee Fly but as it wasn't seen well we couldn't claim it.
We had a look up the water board track where we've seen Slow Worms and Common Lizards in the past but they weren't playing out today. Now it was BD's turn to think he'd see a Bee Fly but like ours it vanished too quickly and he couldn't confirm his sighting.
The reservoir appeared birdless until BD spotted a small bird whizzing low over the water, a Common Sandpiper (137). 
Al along the bank it was a procession of Willow Warblers, Chiffchaffs and Robins with the odd Goldcrest thrown in for good measure 

The top of the reservoir leads to a lovely primordial woodland where epiphytes rule the roost and with a couple more days of sun the woodland floor will be a mass of flowering Bluebells.

We heard a Great Spotted Woodpecker but wonder if the Green Woodpeckers are still hanging on here, we've not heard one on our last couple or more visits now. We gave the big rotten tree with the big cavity a rat-tat-tat but no Tawny Owls flew out this time.
The woodland ends up on the lower moors where the wet rushy fields rang to the sound of Curlews singing, Meadow Pipits flitted here and there. In the far distance over the recently patchily burnt grouse  moor a Buzzard hung on the wind - it better move on before something untoward happens to it there. Running around the field just beyond the dry stone wall were three male Wheatears - lovely.

This safari is a one way in same way out affair so we had to retrace our steps. Back at the reservoir some charming person had picked up their dog poo (good - very public spirited) but then put it in an empty coffee cup and left it on the wall (not so good - why???) 

Far better to see was the Common Sandpiper working its way along the water's edge at the bottom of the dam wall.
Almost back at the car we saw a recently fallen Ash tree it's roots loosened by recent heavy rain and still very hairy. Although tree planting on slopes is great to absorb rainfall to reduce the impact of floods by slowing the flow down the hill there will be casualties if the trees cant root deep enough into a hard substrate. Not that that matters it'll  get covered in epiphytes which will  hold water too and it all adds to a different multitude of biological niches for different animals and plants to exploit. We must be too tidy!!!

The afternoon was coming to an end but the road back to town gave us an opportunity for a quick stop at the Kingfisher/Dipper location at the main road bridge...neither was  present. The roadside verge did have the most open Cow Parsley we've seen this spring though.

So we didn't find our scaly quarry up in the hills but never mind it was still a great safari with loads of fun and interesting stuff to see and learn about.
Where to next? Out on safari again tomorrow, this time with our best boy LCV.
In the meantime let us know who's waiting to pounce in your outback.

Back to grim grey and cold

The Safari is a not a little miffed that April went out with a summery bang and May came in with a back to ‘normal’ grey cold and miserable. Is it too much to ask that we can have two consecutive sunny days once in a while?

We eagerly awaited arriving at R’ouzel Puddle only to find once we got there it was full but empty, however the next ‘new’ puddle had a drinking Woodpigeon, quite likely to be a migrant as we don’t see many in amongst the Central Beach feral Pigeons in fact don’t actually recall when the last one we saw here was or if there even was a last one.

We went straight out onto Patch 2 and well before we’d reached the wall noticed that there were plenty of Swallows zipping through and on the wall itself were two White Wagtails niftily catching flies....so far so good! But that’s about as good as it got :-(  We struggled in the cold easterly breeze for a distant Gannet and couldn’t even find a Sandwich Tern. Best sighting was just as we were turning away to leave – three Manx Shearwaters came cruising by, the closest they’ve been so far this season – excellent! But where was everything else? Up at the northern end of the coast by the sound of it! Fellow Patch 2 sea-watcher SD wasn’t out this morning but had had a coastal warbler-fest near the town centre. Acting on this hint we had a shuffy round the gardens here but only came up with the usual House Sparrows, Starlings, Dunnocks and Blackbirds, perhaps we were a little too late and any dropped migrants had already moved on.

In the morning we had a visit from a school group who attacked the pond with gusto...don’t they always? The cold weather seems to have really slowed down the pond life and little other than snails (four species) was being netted. Eventually techniques improved and front swimming (Corixid) Waterboatmen were being hoiked out. Soon the first 3-spined Stickleback was found...a tiny fry...the few we didn’t manage to remove have bred....aaaarrrrgggghhhhhhh. Larger specimens were brought in too. 

Best find was this Whirligig Beetle, a species we don’t see too often in our pond due to its remoteness from other ponds.

We were back out on the wall at lunchtime where again it was hard work on the fallen tide.

Plenty of gulls and Oystercatchers on the beach beyond our southern boundary but not a lot on our beach at all! We counted a distant line of 39 Cormorants roosting on the beach and found a handful more fishing in the water. Still no Sandwich Terns though! We spotted an adult gull flying along the waters edge which caught and held our attention, long wings, little inner primary window, masses of white against a narrow black crescent on the wing tip and a definite ‘double bellied ‘look to its underparts. It cruised back and forth a couple of times but was never near enough for a proper ID....oh for one of those scopes with an integrated camera/video. We didn’t nail the ID due  to an adult Little Gull passing the opposite way behind it which we followed for a couple of seconds but do so we lost the more ‘interesting’ one in the melee of gulls on the beach.

At last we heard a Sandwich Tern; two in fact, where they had sprung from is anyone’s guess, roosting on the beach perhaps. Two Sanderlings were found scampering around amongst the gulls.

A few Swallows hawked along the sea wall to our left then we sort of heard a noise behind us, turned round and came face to face with a 100mph Swift (169, 71) – crikey it nearly took our head off!

An errand saw us nip out and at the corner of the garden a small bird with a lot of white in the wing dropped from on high in to the bushes in the corner of the garden – didn’t get a good look at it as we drove past....leucistic House Sparrow? Not noticed one here but that doesn’t mean to say there isn’t one (or more) knockin about; Chaffinch? Rare as Rockin Horse doo-doo here...or something even more unusual? We didn’t get a chance to look on our return so we’ll never know but like the ‘Blackbird’ in the R’ouzel Puddle we’ll be keeping an eye out for leucistic House Sparrows from now on.

And finally here’s a pic of an alien-looking life form from the beach taken at low tide yesterday by our marine biologist friend. A Sabellaria worm poking out of its burrow, probably one of the most important animals on our stretch of coast due to its reef building abilities.

Where to next? More of the same but will it be third time lucky this week and we hit a bit of decent seabird passage...or better still that odd-ball gull will be stood on the wall 20 feet (7m) away doing a full hat n cane routine for the camera.

In the meantime let us know what’s diving into the bushes in your outback.

No two days are ever the same

The Safari woke up to sunny sunshine and it was already a good bit warmer than yesterday afternoon. What a total contrast barely 12 hours later.

On the very short patch 1 walk we had a Willow Warbler singing from a garden on the other side of the road and on a variation of our drive in we had another Willow/Chiff in a garden whilst waiting for some traffic lights to change.

We hit the Prom just before R’ouzel Puddle – nothing in it today apart from about twice as much water and it was joined by several other potentially interesting migrant attracting puddles, wonder how temporary they’ll be and when they dry out will they leave a patch of gooey mud?

We went straight out with the scope and got some great views of 10 Gannets diving not too distantly as well as a similar number of Sandwich Terns, some of which were courtship feeding on the beach which is always good to see. Right down at the start of the wall there was a Wheatear flitting about (P2 #67). We later found out that earlier had been better with Little Tern, Little Gull, Manx Shearwaters etc and a FLOCK of five Little Egrets – WOW!!! Which were also seen at the northern end of this stretch of coast.

A shimmy down the slade a little later to see what the beach access was like gave us two ‘alba’ Wagtails overhead which annoyingly would drop below eye level and a flockette of Turnstones including this one in its full summer regalia.

Our group on the beach found most of the usual goodies, Edible Whelk, Pod Razors, Common Razors, Rayed Trough Shells, Banded Wedge Shells, a Tower Shell, lots of shed Green Shore Crab skins, a predated Thin Telin, Edible Mussels 

and a few Common Prawns

 ....look at the colours on those legs! 

Hornwrack and Sea Slug eggs aplenty with Spiral Wrack, Egg Wrack, Gutweed, Purple Laver, and Sea Lettuce representing the seaweeds. On small blob of seaweed had a tiny Beadlet Anemone attached which when placed in the tray opened its tentacles much to the delight of the children and adults present. At the very end of the session one family ventured a little further away and came back with a small Common Sand Star which we initially thought was dead and dried up but then showed a little sign of life by putting out a few of its tube-feet. 

We put it back in one of the pools and within a minute or so it was off at high speed to find a safe place to shelter until the tide came in. 

Then one of the children spotted something moving on the seaweed, at first we couldn’t see it but the boy was adamant and we followed his finger tip to a tiny beetle about 5-6mm long. It looked a bit Ladybird like but unlike any species we knew. A couple of pics for iSpot were taken and the ID came back from them very quickly before lunch was over...Sphaerium sp. A terrestrial beetle with a penchant for animal dung...almost definitely blown to the coast by the strong easterly winds recently...or is it another migrant moving along the coast.

Also while we were out we heard a Whimbrel (167, 68) call out along the tide line behind us.

A quick munch of our butties and we were out again ditching the nets and trays for the scope but not a lot was on the now fallen tide. Best was a Common Sandpiper (168, 69) feeding away down the far end of the wall near where the Wheatear had been earlier, a really good Patch 2 sighting.

Swallows were going through all morning but we didn’t get any House or Sand Martins and no Swifts for us yet either.
A strange sounding Chiffchaff going wee-chuu wee-chuu rather than chiff-chaff chiff-chaff; another Patch 2 year tick (70) and indeed a Patch 2 lifer!

Where to next? Tomorrow is the first day of Compost Awareness Week – at some point during the week we will be taking a tray of kitchen waste to the composter for the worms to feast on.
In the meantime let us know what's scuttering to shelter