All a bit of a do

The Safari was at a summer fair entitled A Bit of a Do today and great fun it was too in the summer sunshine. Shame the gusty wind kept blowing all our leaflets all over the place despite being weighed down with a variety of objects like a lump of coal and a heavy bunch of keys.

In between chatting to the public we kept an eye out for any wildlife on the move. Overhead the local gulls were supplemented by just one Swift, this is the second nearest we've had to Base Camp about a mile away!

The rough field adjacent to the festivities was well worth a look in the lulls when folk were being entertained by activities on the stage. We caught a female Common Blue butterfly in a disposable drinks cup to show the children. A male was also out there with two Meadow Browns, Large and Small Whites and numerous Silver Y moths. A striking Emperor dragonfly also put in an appearance to the accompaniment of a Meadow Grasshopper.

There were plenty of Bumblebees were out too attracted by the plethora of wildflowers.  

One there we couldn't identify, we weren't sure if it was a wildflower or a garden escape even. Apparently according to our good friend and gardening guru KS it's Triteleia laxa known by several common names, including Ithuriel's spear and Grassnut. It is native to California where it is a common wildflower. Bonny looking thing where-ever it comes from.

Nearby was a tiny Wild Pansy, the only one we found despite wandering over most of the field.

But it was the clovers that were top of the bill. After trying in vain, maybe we were a week to early, at the nature reserve to find a couple of species recently there they were right under our feet in abundance today.

Hop Trefoil was the first we came across.

A little further into the field was a drier sparser patch that had lots of clumps of  Hare's Foot Clover

More mooching about had us finding a Kidney Vetch, a species we've not seen at the nature reserve for many years now.

Another sparse patch gave us find of the day, a single flowerhead of the now quite scarce Cornflower. A beauty! It's amazing what's in the seedbank if it's given a chance to show itself. Shame this area is earmarked for re-development. It was a school that was demolished and the ground leveled out and then had a thin layer of soil graded over it and subsequently left to its own devices.

Last but not least was a Speckled Wood butterfly that flew over our display table as we were packing up at the end of the afternoon.

A great day in the sunshine letting folk know how great our local wildlife is and how we really need to take up renewable energy much more that we're doing so far. 

Where to next? A family bereavement has forced last minute changes to whatever plans we may have had for tomorrow.

In the meantime let us know what was hiding in plain sight on a plain site in your outback.

Told you they'd find summat

The Safari had the Young Uns helping to do some work in the work's garden humping and shifting some rocks which will become part of a new and interesting habitat in due course. Part of their 'reward' is to help remove the ecological nightmare that are the 3-spined Sticklebacks from the pond. We only got about 200 or so!!! But didn't get the Goldfish some nutter has put in - an ecological disaster in our small isolated pond...and they probably thought they were doing it and us a favour, after all a pond MUST have fish mustn't it! We are getting increasing pee'd  off by the level of general ignorance about natural history and basic ecologic principles; these seriously need to be taught from an early age in school and probably should end up with the opportunity to do a GCSE (or whatever they'll be called in the future). How can anyone be expected to uhderstand environmnetal issues if they have no concept of ecological interactions or even know what is actually in their environment.

Case in point today the 'normal' news for the masses is full of potentially pregnant Giant Pandas - all cute n cuddly - but not a sniff of a mention of the imminent extinction in our own country of the no less beautiful Hen Harrier and how that has been caused by a multitude of factors not least of which is illegal killing on the orders of posh mega-rich people. Too hard a concept for them to get? Or is it because 99.9% of them haven't heard of the Hen Harrier - well it should be a fairly common British bird and so they should have done!

If you haven't already now would be a good time to sign the petition to make land owners legally responsible for the actions of their staff - well in all other industries they are so why not game shooting?????

Minor rant over on with the proper stuff. Here's a couple of the larger female Sticklebacks

And one of the ones responsible for all the tiny fry we've removed

We did a bit of  'weeding' in our wildflower garden which was absolutely buzzing with all manner of bees, hoverflies and other bugs. The sharp eyed Young Uns spied the underside of a small ladybird which turned out to be a black one with red spots and a Harlequin Ladybird at that, possibly the first for Blackpool, can't recall any others being mentioned at the mo. They also found another Deptford Pink, good job we weren't too over ambitious with the shears. Wonder how many - or more accurately how few - other sites around the country this year. Going to have to be careful to keep the population going in future years

On the other side of the path is an enormous thistle-like architectural ornamental plant which has been threatening to open its flowers for some time and finally it has much to the joy of the bees.

 Today we had a quick look at the sea early doors and at lunchtime but there wasn't anything other than a few each of Sandwich and Common Terns.

An early finish saw us down at the recycling plant disposing of some ancient poorly constructed wardrobes which are being replaced in our refurbishment. On the way back we have to pass the start of the North Blackpool Pond Trail where a couple of days ago a gigantic totem Frog had been installed  that we just had to go and have a look.

Last night we were at the BEAT NatureWatch meeting where PT showed us some pictures of the wildflower meadow her volunteers had recently sown. We hadn't seen it yet and found it was well worth the short walk even though it is perhaps a little past its best.

Simply beautiful! 

Worryingly was another example of woeful general ignorance when two young totties walked past while we were crouched down taking the pics one said to the other in a hushed tone "why's that fella taking pictures of those weeds?" Where are we going with this level of general ignorance it really is quite frightening. We've become that conditioned to no nature were almost frightened by it, or weirded out by it, when it springs forth in from of our very eyes.

Where to next? The small matter of the NBPT Bioblitz tomorrow to help with follewd by a National Moth Night event at another location, gonna be a long day!
In the meantime let us know who has no idea about the joys of the wildlife in your outback.