The best laid plans scuppered by the weather again

The Safari was up at Leighton Moss with CR again after a weather induced decision took us away from our prefered venture into south Cumbria where we had hoped to fettle out some scaly things. The weather forecast had other ideas though and told us to expect wintery showers thick and fast throughout the day. So change of venue it was and not to worry as Leighton Moss had a pair of Garganey recently arrived and the prospect of smaller arrivals in the form of Willow Warblers and Blackcaps to look forward to as well as the possibility of an Osprey going over and the resident Bitterns, Cetti's Warblers and Bearded Tits and maybe even a Jay (no chance!) to add to our Challenge tally.

News on the street was that the Garganey were at the Grisedale hide so that's where we set off for first. Once at the hide we learnt we'd arrived about half an hour after an Osprey had passed through...would there be another one later?????. But there was no sign of the Garganey. In fact there wasn't much sign of anything although to be fair Cetti's Warblers taunted and teased us by signing from invisible locations and Bitterns boomed similarly invisibly. The light was atrocious too, those regular showers didn't materialise and we had bright sunshine all morning making viewing  in to the light awkward and uncomfortable at times with the glare off the water. Then something unseen flushed a small group of Teal from the left which flew across in front of the hide and landed away to the right, but following them, swimming rather than flying, was the pair of Garganey. Why the shout hadn't gone up from the left hand side of the hide we don't know but they were getting to the point of no return into the bad light when we picked them up and spread the word.

They sailed passed us and settled in a really bad patch of glare, impossible to get any more pics. #128.

A quick look from Tim Jackson Hide wasn't up to much so we opted to head for the causeway and break open the butty box there passing through Lillian's Hide on the way. Again there wasn't too much to be had at Lillian's and looking anywhere right of straight out was difficult due to the glare, we tried to look through the diving duck flock to see if the female Ring Necked Duck was still present but to be honest it was hard enough to tell Pochards from Tufted Ducks the light was that bad. 

As usual while we're on safari we keep a tally of Egrets v Herons. By now Egrets had a slight upper hand by now but for a change Herons weren't going to beaten easily today although they are hard to keep a track of as they move around a bit and accidental double counting can easily come into play. With not much to aim the camera at here and Heron's being big and slow we tried a bit of BiF photography, one day we hope to get the hang of it!

A bit nearer were a few Black Headed Gulls coming and going from the nesting platforms put out for the Common Terns.

Away in the distance and sitting alone, all Billy No Mates, was our friend the Cinnamon Teal x Shoveler hybrid. We thought we'd seen him earlier at the Tim Jackson hide but that must have just been a moulty normal Shoveler showing a large white facial crescent.

Bitterns boomed and Cetti's Warblers cettied but still unseen. Distant Marsh Harriers harried the ducks in the pools at the back side of the reedbed but nothing was really close to keep us entertained to we moved on, those butties now trying to break out of the box! The walk to the Causeway Hide past the wooded area didn't provide any Siskins as it had on recent visits and nor were there any fresh-in Blackcaps or Willow Warblers. We were hoping for a butterly or some solitary bees too but despite the sunshine neither were on the wing. From the Causeway Hide we could see the water level had dropped a bit since our last visit but was still a good bit higher than normal. Small numbers of Tufted Ducks and Pochard were the main event.

Again the walk through the woods down to Lower Hide was disappointingly quiet, no longer being allowed to chuck bird seed down willy-nilly has meant you're not being accosted by Robins and Great Tits for a free hand-out but has made the bird life in the woods much harder to find. And the 'Jay field' was devoid of Jays, no change there then! 

From Lower Hide we heard yet more booming Bitterns and even more singing Cetti's Warblers, one was right outside the back of the hide but whenever it struck up and we poked our head out of the window or door it was nowhere to be seen.It comes to something when you're reduced to taking pics of immature Mute Swans sailing by, there wasn't much else to see never mind point the camera at; no amount of willing got a Bittern to come to the edge of the reedbed.

It was that bad we were reduced to aiming at a small clump of Marsh Marigolds in front of the hide.

We were about to leave when the first of the day's showers struck. We stayed put and waited for the Sand Martins to drop out of the sky - none did! The rain didn't last long and now that our butty boxes were empty we set off back towards the Garganeys. The woods were still quiet, no Willow Warblers nor Blackcaps had arrived. But just as we got back to the Causeway a Blackcap briefly sang a few notes, good to get one on the day list but no chance of a pic of it in the dense Blackthorn thicket. The Causeway hide was full to busting so we went straight through even though there were point blank Tufted Ducks in nice light right outside the window. A quick look from the screen outside the far door gave us a consolation not too distant drake Pochard.

Along the causeway a male Marsh Harrier began to come into range but veered away rather than posing for pics, we did get our first (and only as it happens) Water Rail of day, sqealing from the reeds to our left. A brief stop at the feeders had a camera-shy pair of Bullfinches and a brief view of a Treecreeper but not much else. Continuing directly to the Grisedale Hide we passed a singing Chiffchaff along the path just past the visitor centre.

On reaching the Grisedale Hide the light wwas better than earlier, or at least not so much in your face, hard right was harsh light. But there was a bit more activity. A couple of Marsh Harriers cruised around

Grey Lag Geese noisily came and went

And in theafternoon sunshine the Teal looked particularly splendid.

The males are easy to appreciate with their colourful heads with the gold pencil lines and their filigree vermiculated flanks but the females are also striking in a more subtle way with spots and speckles in a multitude of hues of brown and cream.

The Osprey nesting tower has once again been taken over by one of the resident pairs of Great Black Backed Gulls - woe betide any Osprey that tries to displace them! It might be wise for the reserve to cover the the platform until the Ospreys start to arrive in numbers but even then there's no guarantee the gulls wouldn't get there first. Both, however, are Amber Listed in the UK although the Great Black backed Gull population is about 15,000 pairs compared to only 250 pairs of Ospreys, the latter are rapidly increasing while the gulls are just about stable with maybe a slight increase in recent years.

Meanwhile a female Marsh Harrier refused to do the decent thing and come close.

We always like to get a pic or two of the Gadwall but today although there were several about they weren't for showing particularly well. Still it's always good to admire their vermiculations

A splendiferous drake Teal came by and had a little preen and wash n brush up

Before hauling out in a patch of reeds and settling settling down for a nap

Grey Lag Geese continued to go back and forth while the crowd in the hide waited for the garganeys to reappear - word was they were far to the right in a little bay behind a small bush but also in very glary light so spotting them was really tricky.

Eventually, we think by fluke, we spotted the Garganey coming out from behind the tree and managed to get most folks on to them although views weren't that great. After a few minutes they did the decent thing and started swimming across the pool in our direction giving most people much better views though often obscured in the cut reeds.

They swam a little firther our way but stopped short of passing in front of the hide where they would have been in much much better light.

The pair began to pick flies that must have been hatching both off the water's surface and the vegetation.

Great to see them, somehow we didn't come across them at all last year.

We left them to the rest of the crowd, without about an hour of our time there remaining we thought we'd have a look at the saltmarsh pools. We successfully traversed the very pot-holed track without losing an exhaust pipe or wheel for a shuffy. At the Allen Pool there wasn't a lot to shuffy at but we did pick out a gorgeous adult Mediterranean Gull from the throng of Black Headed Gulls. If our soundtrack at the Moss was the booming of the Bitterns here it was the cacophony of the Black Headed Gulls, there'll be no break in their noise for the next three months - a constant 24/7 barrage of strident sound. The Med Gull was very rude and went and sat on the furthest island from us so no way we could get a pic and it must have snuck off while our attention was focused on whatever else was on the pool cos when a family of young birders came into the hide we couldn't re-find it for them.

From the hide we could see many more birds over the embankment and better viewed from the Eric Morecambe Hide so off we went. There we found lots of Redshank, including this one having a good old bathe.

One swimming

And several mooching around looking for a bite to eat

Birders with scopes found a Peregrine sat on a fence post miles away and we found a couple of Goosanders tucked under the bank of the furthest pool but it was the  that were the main reason for us to brave the track from hell. There were plenty about but none particularly close and they were scattered all across the marsh in small groups. These were about the nearest

And were joined by a couple of others from further away across the pool.

There were some on the nearest vegetated island that appeared to be feeding, on what exactly???

A large flcok of Black Tailed Godwits in the middle of the pool was disturbed by something unseen, or they had just managed to frighten themselves, but once in the air it broke up into smaller groups ansd a couple of them landed quite close. Great to see them attaining their brick red summer plumage.

We were told of a Green Winged Teal that had been seen earlier but hadn't been seen since a passing Marsh Harrier had spooked everything. We failed to find it, there's more than plenty of places it could have been hiding. There'd been a second Mediterranean Gull earlier too but we still couldn't find the one we'd originally seen from the Allen Hide.

Then all to soon it was time to brave the Bank Holiday traffic and head back to Base Camp. We needn't have worried the traffic going our way wasn't too bad but we certainly wouldn't have fancied being stuck in the miles of dead slow tail back heading up to the Lake District or Scotland.

Back at Base Camp we've been keeping an eye on the local birds, here's one half of one of the two local pairs of Dunnocks that came for easy pickings while we had taken a break from topping up the feeders and left them stood on the potting bench/moth trap table at the bottom of the garden.

We've got about three dozen House Sparrows eating us out of house n home. They must have been enjoying having a dust bath as the ground has been absolutely saturated for months - breaking news...it didn't last long, yet more persistant heavy rain has saturated the ground again.

Then our phone pinged a WhattsApp message about three Red Kites heading south a few miles away...with the wind direction they could well come our way so we went and stood in the garden waiting for the rooftop Herring Gulls to go ballistic and let us know they were on their way. In the meantime we took some gull shots to get the camera settings right and practice panning and focussing n stuff and fluked this Lesser Black Backed Gull going over the garden. They're outnumbered hundreds to one by the Herring Gulls here still.

Almost two hours we waited, camera poised for an instant strike but to no avail; the Red Kites didn't materialise.

We'll leave you with last week's pic of the Sandwich Tern we told you we wouldn't post cos it was so dire...you can judge for yourselves.

 

Where to next? Hopefully the weather will improve and we'll get out on safari and find something that isn't birds for a change.

In the meantime let us know what the soundtrack of your outback is.

The third week of lockdown local wildlife safaris

The Safari has had a rather productive week despite being on Lockdown. Last week ended on a high too with our first ever spring record of a Rook flying over Base Camp, they are very infrequent in the autumn, usually tagging along with flocks of Jackdaws on passage.

An early morning visit to the prom last Monday gave us a distant flock of Eiders heading south and the day got better still when a Chiffchaff dropped into the Base Camp garden staying a while to have a  little bathe in our ornamental waterfall. That gave us just enough time to grab the camera and fire off a few shots through the increasingly dirty kitchen window - time for the mop, bucket and Windowlene. Number 32 on our 1 mile from home challenge which was a two week challenge but has now been extended to six weeks - we get the impression it might be expanded even further yet too.

It wasn't the only bird having a spruce up that day, a Blackbird was in there too.

The following day we were back in the park this time we'd taken the camera to see if we could get a pic of the local House Sparrows that hang around the perimeter of the field where it backs on to the neighbouring gardens. Crikey it took some doing they were either very flighty not allowing any sort of close approach or keeping hidden in the dense Ivy or thick twiggery of the bushes. It took several circuits to finalyy get one submitted to the SD card for #33.

On a further lap of  the fields we heard a commotion of Sparrowhawk yikkering coming from the Butterfly Zone. We headed over that way to see what all the racket was about only to find the pair mating in one of the Sycamores at the edge of the scrub but requiring a very tricky shot through plenty of intervening branches and twigs.

Flamin out of focus twigs!

Job done and off...

The female

Never seen that before and very lucky to witness we guess. 

Nearby Green Alkanet was flowering in a sunny glade

Bright sunshine, warm too, brought a Peacock to nectar on the Aubretias in the garden tubs. Our first and so far only butterfly pic this year.

The fine weather got us to thinking about doing a bit of gardening so out came the stout gloves and secateurs and we ventured into the Bramble-infested no-man's land behind the garage. Now Brambles aren't that bad and provide habitat and food for a humungous number of invertebrate species but in a very small garden it's easy to have too much of a good thing. While doing a bit of snipping we heard the gulls go up in alarm and looking up we saw about a dozen of them chasing an Osprey almost directly over our head, tantalisingly close to being a Garden Tick but at least we'd joined the Osprey-from-the-garden-during-Lockdown club. We dropped the secateurs and tried to remove our gloves as we sprinted back down to the kitchen where the camera lay waiting. Too late - by the time we'd grabbed it the Osprey as nowhere to be seen, obscured by all the neighbouring houses. We called CR but sadly he missed ti too. There's a moral here - if you go up to the furthest reaches of the garden take the flippin camera with you!!! A Blackcap was singing very close to Base Camp much of the day too but never ventured in to the garden.

That takes us to Thursday. Leaving Base Camp for the early morning quick dog walk we had a skein of about 90 Pink Footed Geese fly over us. Later, on the proper exercise/dog walk we heard or first  Coal Tit for a long time, singing away in the line of tall conifers by the water tower and further on in the park the Chiffchaff and Blackcap now seemed to be settled in the Butterfly Zone which incidentally is so far devoid of butterflies.

Base Camp's moth trap has been dire, a combination of the Super Moon, neighbouring high intensity security lights and severe local habitat destruction aka garden tidying has butchered the local moth populations. A tatty Hebrew Character was a welcome find but we're getting to the stage of How many kilowatt hours per moth!

The Super Moon - we were out too late to find it in all its pinky glowing glory

Good Friday was a good day on the prom early morning, out on the beach we came across a Green Leaf worm in a little puddle, not something you see ervyday and it soon buried itself in the soft sand. A few yards further on a recently deceased Lesser Spotted Catshark lay on the beach. Probably a victim of the anglers that are still out angling abeit in much smaller numbers than usual.

When we got up to the top of the cliffs at the furtheest point of our walk there was a bit of passage going on. We counted at least 35 Meadow Pipits and 21 Linnets going northwards, five Pink Footed Geese heading NW out to sea, got our first Swallow of the year, quite late we've ususally come across one in the earliest days of April rather than into the second week and a Blackbird was singing from a promenade rooftop - most unusual, the first we've heard along here in several years of 'treading the beat'.

Back at Base Camp several Nomad Bees were flying around and a Sparrowhawk soaring away to the north got the gulls going and our pulse racing again.

Easter Saturday started well with 50 Pink Footed Geese going north and a few minutes later we heard our first Willow Warbler of the year, which, like the Swallow, was quite late for us. We heard the conifer Coal Tit singing again and followed it up with a second this time in the big conifers in the park.

Most unexpected, although at migration time birders should always expect the unexpected, a pair of Shelducks flew towards the sea just east of the park - a Patch Tick!

In the garden a female Light Brown Apple Moth graced the trap and up to four Greenfinches graced the feeders.

Best sighting of the day was a female Orange Tip butterfly, really scarce here, flying through the gardens just round the corner on our very quick lunchtime dog-pee walk. In the afternoon another good sighting was had, a Red Mason Bee, a new species for the garden, was discovered when we ventured behind the garage to bash some Bramble again.

A Common Quaker and a large Crane Fly were in the moth trap on Easter Sunday.

And a review of the stealth-cam revealed the Hedgehog is still about if only an occasional visitor this week. we've repositioned the camera to see if we can get a better view of him for next time.

In other news the sunny week has given us lots of invertebrate photo opportunities at Base Camp - here's a selection of what we've seen.

Buffish Mining Bees - from the 'colony' at the corner of our street

Several Eristalis Drone Flies take up positions around the garden. We've not had a proper look at them but guess they'll be E. pertinax.

Some of our plant pots have more moss than plant!

In the latter half of the week Gooden's Nomad Bees became regular visitors but they're a nightmare to photograph as they just won't settle for more than the briefest moment - here's a few of the hundreds of pics we've tried to take of them.

Another good find in the 'Bee-line' was this Tawny Mining Bee sunning itself on the fence, a rare find in the garden.

While watching our first Zebra Spider of the year clamber about on the the trellis 

we spotted this tiny Hoverfly flitting around the flowers by our knee - no idea which species, one of the Sphaerophorias perhaps.

Where to next? More of the same - here's hoping the weather stays fine for daily Base Camp safaris and there's still the opportunity to take the dog for his walks round the park and occasional visits to the beach which he loves.

In the meantime let us know what's in your very much restricted outback. Stay Safe - Keep your distance!!!