A Week of Wonderful Wildlife While under Lockdown

The Safari like a lot of folk has been mostly confined to barracks this week.We have been able to get out on Patch 1 for a short walk with the dog every morning but so far haven't taken the camera just the phone for any pics. We've seen a nice variety of wildlife like a small flock flock of migrating Jackdaws, a the female of a pair of Sparrowhawks narrowly missing catching a Wood Pigeon, a kettle of four soaring Buzzards, which is the same number as seen in total at the nearby Marton Mere NR between 1950 and 1991 - how much more common are they now persecution has almost stopped - and a Blackbird which looks to be nesting in the big Gorse bush in the middle of the field that is now smothered in bright yellow flowers - it's such a shame that thsi field will probably be built on before the end of the year. 

So far we've only heard singles of Chiffchaff and Blackcap but we're sure we'll clap eyes on both of them before too long.

For vast majority of the time we've been poking around in the garden, taking snaps of the regular garden visitors doing their usual thing.

Goldfinch

Greenfinch

Collared Dove

Great Tit

Greenfinch

Blue Tit

One regular visitor was seen doing something most unusual. Our resident female Blackbird was quite often seen perched in the Crab Apple tree pecking chunks off the suet block hung from one of its lower branches. On odd occasions it was able to perch on the feeder, this was seen when the suet block begin to get smaller and smaller. What we didn't expect was it to cling to the sunflower heart feeder once the suet block had been finished. In all our five decades of birding, feeding the birds in a variety of gardens and watching bird feeders in 101 locations throughout the land we've never seen this behaviour from a Blackbird before. We were lucky to get a pic as it's quite shy and flies away at the slightest hint of movement from either indoors or out. But it has been back to repeat the performance on at least one occasion.

Our unique female Blackbird

Has anyone else seen a Blackbird (or any other of the typical thrushes) do this?

We've had some half decent sunshine and that has brought a few invertebrates out, mostly queen bumblebees - we've had a Tree Bee and a few Buff Tailed Bumblebees and a queen Common Wasp. A large 'colony' of the solitary Buffish Mining Bees (at least that's what we think they are) is on the street corner a few doors down where they burrow between the stones in a revetment banking and butterflies have so far been only represented by Peacocks.

The moth trap has been on all week but so far only one night has produced any moths and then just these two, a Common Quaker, the pale one, and a Hebrew Character (this is an old pic)

The only other news we have spotted an absolutely butchered Holly bush in the park in Patch 2 and to quote a senior arboriculturalist friend "Sack them - Pr*ck with saw alert!" or if it was done by volunteers some serious training is required. But the big question is why on earth do you need to chop a Holly bush in half in the first place. But then there's been some serious devastation to trees and shrubs in the park since we last visited at the beginning of the winter with some good trees having disappeared reduced to a pile of woodchip but again for reasons which seem inexplicable to us like an old gnarly Hawthorn and a standard Cotoneaster waterii that was full of berries among others.

Some seem to have been taken out to open up the view to the huge pylons that carry the electricity cables across the Wyre and beyond to the huge organised wildlife crime scene that is the Forest of Bowland hills. Whatever the reasons it looks like they're trying to purge any and all wildlife from the park. We're just a bit gutted...and the little pond has been cleared so the Moorhens have vanished but the Typha will grow back so they will probably return in a year or two if the clear out doesn't become an annual thing, it is full of Frog spawn though, acres of the stuff and we're hopeful there'll be a Smooth Newt or two still lurking in there too.
Word on the street is that the Roe Deer is still in the vicinity, one of our dog walking friends reporting it second hand as being seen on the golf course across the road and another saying he disturbed it in the park at 05.00 taking his dogs out before going to work a few days ago...it wold be great to get a pic of this Roe Deer only a few hundred yards from our front door.

Where to next? For the coming week the weather has turned wintry cold again but we'll keep you posted with what we find on our early morning walk and any offerings from the garden. 

In the meantime remember - Keep your distance, stay safe and don't forget there's loads of fantastic wildlife to enjoy and learn about right outside your door or through your window.

A busy week followed by frustrating fog

The Safari had a few opportunities to look at the sea this week but there wasn't much doing. On Thursday we joined up with a local Community Arts group to see what natural materials and things wild we could find for their project. We started off at the chapel at the entrance to the old cemetery 

We measured some trees, finding out their age with a tape measure and a clever piece of card and a friend to discover their height. One some of the trees have had a garnish of bat boxes placed around them.

Anywhere where there's old(ish) trees we look for faces in them. This one's probably no the best we'll ever find.

Beneath the trees we found a few fresh fungi coming up through the grass.

We found a Holly tree which had been attacked, like almost all Holly trees, by the Holly Leaf Miner fly. This one has hatched rather than the larva within the leafbeen predated or parasitised.

Well if we've got Holly, there must be Ivy nearby.

Ivy has lots of good shapes, patterns and forms

And there even some berries left for the birds. 

The group we were with were trying to identify the trees from their twigs and buds. So what's this one folks?

Close by was an Ash tree with its distinctive chocolate brown buds and flattened twigs. So for a bit of a clue we told them the old adage about which of the pairs' leaves coming out first will determine if we have a splash of a summer or  a soak of a summer to come. No sign of any leaves on either of the trees yet.

A nice Wild Cherry tree stood all gnarly on the intersection of to of the avenues.

Some trees around the cemetery have had to be felled and they have left some interesting stumps like this one with a big see-through hole in it, possibly the reason why it was felled.

Along with twig collecting our group were also doing some bark rubbing. Another one for you, what;s this snap from?

A very pleasant couple of hours out. On the way back to the office we stopped off at the waste depot but there wasn't a single gull on the roof.

The following day we were entertaining a half-term holiday group rockpooling on the beach, our first of the year. We thought we'd best do a recce to see the lie of the land - well the sand anyways - and what was about. Good job we did as we found a huge tangle of fishing line with a massive hook in it right where the children would be exploring and no doubt their eagle eyes would have been attracted to the bright colour.

We put it out of reach but somewhere we could show them and tell them about the dangers of marine litter. Then we spotted something else in the pool. On closer inspection it was a large bullet! Where'd that come from?

Having seen corroded live ordnance before we thought it best to call the police. They came and took it away...in his pocket, so much for it being unstable and deadly dangerous!

With the beach all safe and well the kids came and had a great time. A flock of about 100 Pink Footed Geese flew over but they didn't notice they were concentrating too much on hat was around their feet.

Tiny hands soon filled our tubs with all manner of goodies gleaned from the pools and sands.

 Catch of the day was left to us, with this Dab.

Actually we cheated as we knew where it was because it was buried in the sand attached to the fishing line we collected earlier. We' cut the line but there was no chance of removing the hook so we don't reckon much for its chances. When we let it go the children were fascinated watching it wriggle to bury itself.

The enjoyed that more than the fossils we found them, Crinoids aren't as impressive as dinosaurs even if they are much older

After work we took Monty to the park and had a surprise on the way in the form of a couple of rather early 'blooms' of Meadow Foxtail, anyone else seen any spring grasses in flower yet? Sorry about the grotty pic it was almost dark and a  bit breezy.

Far more expected in mid-February are the Snowdrops in blossom around the base of several of the trees.

Where to next? Our bad hands have got tired of typing so we'll have to tell you about more community fun and all that frustrating fog next time.

In the meantime let us know who's very early in your outback.