All change!

The Safari has reached one of those life moments - we've just gone and taken early retirement! With the pretty rotten last twelve months we've decided that life's too short and having just missed yet another close encounter with the surgeon's scalpel we felt it was time to ditch the daily grind and enjoy some quality Safari-time and look after Monty while Wifey continues to bring home the bacon...well we really hope she will cos being a poor pensioner now if she doesn't we'll starve.

And so ends an era...and sadly it is also the end of Patch 2 as we won't be down that way very often from now on, our seawatching will be done much closer to home from the cliffs at Chat Alley from now on. Patch 2 ended on 56 species.

Talking of seawatching we came across this little snippet from the  Cornwall Bird Watching & Preservation Society

Lizard Point, Introduction to Seawatching 08:00 – 10:00: 6 Cory’s Shearwater, 3 Balearic Shearwater, 9 Sooty Shearwater, 1700 Manx Shearwater, 650 Gannet, 1 Storm Petrel, 1 Greenshank, 1 Ringed Plover, 4 Sanderling, 1 Black-tailed Godwit and 3 Chough.

Blimey that's just a two hour 'introduction' to seawatching - that lot would take us two lifetimes and more to come across at Patch 2 or Chat Alley!

Our first assignment as a retiree was to lead a moth and bat night for a local Friends group at their park. We've done them there before around this time of year but have been dreadfully unlucky with the weather. Last night it seemed the curse would continue, rain threatened, the wind howled and it wasn't very warm. But the gods were with us, the train kept off and the crowds turned up eager to learn about the bats and even hopefully get to see some. At least they'd see a couple as we'd brought along our rubber 'Halloween' bat help point out all the animal's salient features, we also had a our mummified Pipistrelle Bats that have been donated by a couple of friends over the years so that they could see how small bats are and how velvety soft their fur is.

Here's a pic of young E demonstrating how his patent bat-attracting-stick works. We had to use a length of rush as there wasn't any suitably long grasses nearby and were worried that the greater thickness of the rush's stem would keep the bats away...should we even find any.

As the darkness gathered we switched on the bat detectors and led the group to the most sheltered area of the park down by the big hedge. There's a bit of a ditch too which helps as it's a breeding ground for all those little midges the bats feed on. Fortunately it didn't take long before the first clicks of a passing bat were heard on the detectors. Then more were heard and the first bat seen. By now excitement was rising and almost all the group got to see bats close up as the patent bat-attracting-sticks we'd given to the children came in to play and did what they are supposed to do. It's magic - pure and simple!  Better still with more sophisticated bat detectors available now between the group we managed to determine that both Pipistrelle and Soprano Pipistrelle Bats (our 10th mammal species of the year) were present.

We're led to believe there's definitely a bat in this pic - Thanks to @OhNoItsSteve for this and the pic above

Once we'd had our fill of bats it was time to turn the bat attracting lamp on and wait to see what it might bring in. Large Yellow Underwings didn't disppoint, the children loved them - big and gaudy so far superior to the many dowdy Common Rustics and slightly more interesting Flame Shoulders. Catch of the day was a cracking Burnished Brass sadly no photo for you as we forgot to take either our camera or phone.

The following morning the trap was checked - we'd taken it out of the car overnight - but not having put a cover on it there had been a mass exodus leaving just a single Large Yellow Underwing behind.

Later getting into the car a Copper Underwing sp flew out! Didn't see that one arriving last night.

A morning trip to the nature reserve felt birdy, in fact it felt like an Osprey sort of a day. But after a couple of hundred yards it was evident it was going to be a rather unbirdy sort of a day. Autumnal with Dunnocks peeping and Robins ticing but other than that it was very quiet, even the now laden with  ripe berries Elderberry bushes were devoid of birds. A Sparrowhawk drifted south and Mallards sat quietly on the water as a single Snipe did a quick fly round before plummeting back in to the reedbed. No sign of the recent Otters or the Bittern this morning.

Down at the far end a female Reed Bunting posed nicely.

Not long after watching her a Magpie flew past us carrying what looked like a Shrew sp.

In the scrub even the normally hyper-active Whitethroats were keeping a low profile until this one popped up in front of us and stayed on its perch long enough for the camera to be pointed at it.

Back at the Elderberry bushes there was still nothing happening and we were thankful that this lovely Small Tortoiseshell came to the nearby Buddleia bush for a refuel on its abundant nectar.

Arriving back at Base Camp for breakfast we were please to see a lone House Martin (Garden #28) swooping around over the garden and after breakfast we heard the gulls making a commotion while we were doing some chores so we grabbed the bins  and dashed outside hoping to see an Osprey going over - close but no cigar, 'just' a Buzzard being seen on its way by those gulls.

That afternoon we took Monty to his favourite riverside walk and he was taught to swim by a friendly black Labrador. It was very busy with humans and their dogs and not very busy with any wildlife at all. But where some children were playing in the river we had a brief sighting of a Dipper (166) fly past them so a result, a dog that can now swim and a new bird for our year list - no chance of a pic of it for our Year Bird Challenge though.

So all in all not a bad day after all.
Where to next? Could be anywhere the world is now our oyster! But it'll probably be back to the nature reserve for starters before we get too adventurous.
In the meantime let us know who's been swapped for lesser goods in your outback.

100000 and counting

The Safari has been a bit busy of late but we have been out n about.

The big news is 110,000 would like to see their Hen Harriers be 'allowed' to return to the uplands, can we make 200,000 by 6th September? That's the day the parliamentary committee sits to decide if and when there will be a debate. At the present time it's looking likely there will be a debate and it may well be held in October.

There are some things about grouse shooting we really don't like - We have a lot of Blackbirds (a wild bird) visiting our garden we wonder if we could get a licence from Natural England to catch them at night and dose them to protect them from Strongyle worms like the moorland brigade are allowed to do to Red Grouse (another wild bird)? Surely what's good for one species of wild bird must be good for another?

Beefy Botham (a former hero) claimed an unnamed moor had huge numbers of Lapwings and Curlews nesting citing a BTO survey which turned out to be poppy-cock. We'd like to ask Beefy why he/they didn't name the moor if it was that good! Then again they always come out with grouse shooting is good for waders. We'd be quite happy with a trade off of species, maybe fewer Hen Harriers and waders for more of lots of other things like trees, mosses, lichens, beetles, Stonechat, Whinchats, Stoats, Weasels, Adders and much much more.Anything has to better than a mono-culture of Heather and an over-population of Red Grouse with very little else,  apart from those waders of course which are benefiting not from any real conservation work but from the total purge on predators large and small, legally and illegally.

They also go on about the 'conservation' of Grey Partridges. We think that would be easier if they didn't introduce about 6 million Red Legged Partridges without so much as a by your leave to out compete them and then got their mates not to do this sort of stuff to the hedgerows.

Not alot of cover or food for any type of partridge in those, they'd be better for partridges if allowed to growth a bit thicker and wider like this one with a bit of rough grass at the base too.

It's not rocket science!

Rant over on to the good stuff.

On Saturday the moth trap had a couple of nice specimens in it.

Common Rustic - pale form

Large Yellow Underwing

The following day we had family duties but managed to stop off at the new reserve near ma n da's. We didn't have long there and were looking fora Little Stint that had been reported over the previous couple of days. We looked first at the small Lapwing flock in the water towards the corner and ignored the gulls on the bank which was a mistake as we were told by another birder there was a Mediterranean Gull ( a lifer for Wifey and #107 on her year list) among the Black Headed Gulls.

Best bird in the book

We didn't see the Little Stint but found two Dunlins instead. We were also told that there were a couple of Hobbies in the area...dohhh.

On the way back the warm sun had brought out a nice selection of butterflies. Wifey saw her first Holly Blue along with the more familiar Peacocks, Small Tortoiseshells and Peacocks.

Peacock

Red Admiral

The local farmers were in action too making the most if the dry weatrher as they have to at this time of year.

Strange as it may seem we've never driven a combined harvester.

At ma n da's we saw a couple of Swifts passing over the garden and another Holly Blue flitting around the shrubbery. Holly Blue is a species we'd never have expected to see in the garden all those years ago, it wasn't found round those parts.

Yesterday we didn't see much other than a shed load of Sandwich Terns moving south, three (probably four) Grey Seals and two Turnstones.  Back at Base Camp there was a hatch of flying ants which attracted a huge flock of gulls.

Later we went to the coast for an evening wander with Wifey.

Interesting new rocks - hidey holes of all manner of creatures

Old sea defence blocks

This morning we went to the nature reserve before work. We missed the shot of the day when we saw a mother Rabbit and one of her offspring silhouetted on the track not far in front of us, we failed to get the camera out before they got wind of us and hopped off into the undergrowth.

We did see a Rabbit later on in the dark under the trees.

On a nearby tree we spotted some graffiti we'd not seen before.

We didn't know Patch 2 had ever met Patch 1 but if they have a thing going on that's OK with us.

On the way out from the viewing platform we saw the Rabbit again, this time something other than us had caught its attention. We hoped a Stoat or a Weasel would appear but nothing did.

The scrub was pretty quiet, Blackcaps chacked, Whitethroats churred, Willow Warblers/Chiffchaffs hweeted and Robins ticked but we saw none of them. A pair of Greenfinches were almost posing.

A little later we heard then saw a Greenshank (MMLNR #94) flying around trying to land on the extensive Yellow Water Lily pads . There was also a Redshank on the scrape - we've never had that shank combo there before.

And if you think if there's no grouse shooting and no Heather management the uplands will just turn into an impenetrable Bramble thicket here's something to think about, a Scycamore tree poking its head out of an impenetrable Bramble thicket, it takes time but the trees will show through the scrub in the end.

And finally a little baby from Pembrokeshire from our Extreme Photographer.

Where to next? A bug hunt with some families tomorrow afternoon.
In the meantime let us know who needs culling in your outback.