'Bee'n busy today

The Safari went out in the garden and came back in sharpish - it was cold out there, well relatively compered to the last few days. We sat indoors watching the wildlife through the window so some of the pics will be a bit on the blurry side. 

Still preferring suet to worms the Blackbirds tried to dangle like Blue Tits to reach the rapidly diminishing block of fat with varying degrees of success.

The male did a little better later.

Perhaps after watching the experts doing their thing.

That Blue Tit could do with starting its moult soon, it's looking more than a bit tatty.

Once the birds went quite around lunchtime the weather bucked up a bit and we were able to get out into the garden and have some fun with the macro lens.

Common Rough Woodlouse

CR put us on to the ID of this dapper hoverfly, Eupeodes corollae

We're hoping he'll be able to help with this one too.

Platycheirus sp?

But our main quarry this afternoon wasn't hoverflies but was the Carder Bees buzzing around the pink flowered thingy-magig that runs along the inaccessible side of the pond. They're quick and they often crawl from flower to flower rather than fly seeing as how there are so many very close together.

They were a bit of a nightmare to get anything like in focus and showing their face at the same time. This little gingery bee was a lot easier being sat stock still on the top of a Foxglove flower.

We've no idea what species it is and doubt we'll be able to key it out from just one pic but we'll have a go.

We've no idea what this tiny little 'black' bee is either but it's cute.

We've never seen either of those two bees before unless the black one is the same as the little bee we saw on the Garden Bioblitz at the weekend - what do you think, same or not?

Where to next? Looks like it might be a sunny morning before the rain starts later on so we'll have a go at the garden birds first thing, hopefully the now very noisy House Sparrows will swing by.
In the meantime let us know who's bumbling around in your outback.

Can't have what you want all the time

The Safari arrived on Patch 2 full of hope this morning. Barely a ripple on the water and just a gentle swell, all looked good for some blubber action. Sadly it wasn't to be, other than a huge number, easily in excess of a couple of thousand, of Common Scoters there was disappointingly little out there.

The works garden had a Robin which was new in, not seen one there for a long time and the Dunnocks were doing their autumnal peeep calls. Another smaller bird darted across a gap in the hedge but we didn't get anything on it and despite a few minutes serious 'pishing' it never reappeared...a warbler of some description but which one??? All are particularly scarce here especially in the autumn when they don't sing to give their presence away.

A bit of time in the garden later with a new volunteer didn't produce anything more exciting than a lot of Black Ants and a medium sized Lob Worm. 

A late lunch saw us back on the wall again, the sea was even calmer but there was more haze and glare from the strong sun. A few Cormorants were scattered here and there and the Common Scoters were still sat in the distance all along the horizon but this time we did have a bit of blubbery luck in the form of a mid distance Grey Seal's nose.

On the way back to Base camp we had to drop off the genny we'd borrowed for the moth trap on Saturday evening. There was no-one about at the allotment to take it from us so while we waited we got the camera out and had a stroll round their plot. Lots of bees of several species were about, overhead a Southern Hawker buzzed at one time catching a tiny fly but releasing it immediately, must heave been a distasteful one!

Common Carder Bee on Nasturtium

There were a lot of butterflies about but all seemed to be Small Whites. Most of them wouldn't settle long enough for a a snap but this one spent a few minutes slurping up nectar on a just about open Ice Plant (Sedum spectable?)

Birds were represented by a flurry of raptors, indeed we saw no birds of prey at the nature reserve yesterday but got almost the full set of local species in a short spell this afternoon; with a very high Buzzard being alerted to us by the gulls on the refuse centre roof. Again they found a Sparrowhawk soaring around but we found the Kestrel without their help.

Our contacts didn't turn up and we had to leave. A little later than usual our commute ended up in the gridlock that forms by the school field. There's nowhere to go you just have to wait your turn but there was interest outside the windscreen - flying ants, and they had attracted the attention of a couple of dozen gulls, mostly Black Headed Gulls. In a traffic induced daze we watched them circling round picking off the unfortunate insects, two gulls almost collided above us as they went after the same insect - squawks all round as they veered away from each other at the last minute. Then we saw a flash of too much white for a Black Headed Gull and had to wait a while hoping the queue wouldn't move too much in the meantime - Result! A second winter Mediterranean Gull! Probably the closest we've ever had to Base Camp, we've never had one on Patch 1

Where to next? Hopefully there'll be better or at least closer blubber on Patch 2 in the mmorning and then we have to nip out to the nature reserve for an hour or so.

In the meantime let us know who's having a good old slurp of nectar in your outback.

Beaten by butterflies

The Safari has been doing some sums after the Red Arrows whizzed over Base Camp at the weekend. From what we can gather their 20 minute display of nine planes (and one present on the ground in reserve) along with coming from and returning to their home airfield the team uses enough fuel to keep our Land Rover rolling along for about 15 years! All worked out at our current rate of mileage of course.

We noticed a few bees out today on a variety of plants but the Marjoram was probably the most popular.

The works garden still has a Teasel in flower, or at least most if the head still has some flowers on it.

A look at Patch 2 was disappointing with little out there on a carpet-flat sea, can't believe there wasn't a Harbour Porpoise to be seen, just a distant Grey Seal.

The back green briefly played host to another Wheatear, another couple this autumn and that be more than all previous records put together.

Then our group turned up to have a look at the pond. It didn't take them long to start pulling out lots of Greater Pond Snails and 3-spined Sticklebacks.

When they stopped for their lunch we promised to find and bring them a butterfly or two as we'd seen some Large Whites flying around the gardens. The very warm sun meant they were far too quick for our net.

A Meadow Brown settled for a while but that was after we'd put the net away!

Too busy in the afternoon to spend anything more than a few seconds outside.

Where to next? More pond devastation and we'll go to the park we thought we were going to this afternoon but got our days muxed ip.

In the meantime let us know who's been to quick for whom in your outback.