Its all happening under the pier

The Safari spotted a most welcome returnee on the drive up the hill, the Peregrine was back on the tower after an absence of several months.

Our planned whale and dolphin watched was totally scuppered by the weather, visibility in the totally dreek conditions was only a few hundred yards. But after that we had an event for young children and their parents on the beach up by the pier. While we waited for them to arrive the weather started to clear a bit. They arrived in dribs and drabs and as we waited for the last few to arrive we chatted to the others and it wasn't long before the subject of killer gulls came up. There were some concerned parents of not much more than toddlers in the group - they've really believed the Daily Fail's rubbish - and here we were stood around with at least 50 of the ravening feathered monsters hanging around.

We told them about the different species found on our beach - more than the whole of Australia - and how the lessening amount of brown showed how they aged. We pointed out the Black Headed Gulls brown heads and looked at the silvery mantle of the Herring Gulls but then noticed one of them wasn;t quite 'right', far too dark but not a Lesser Black Back Gull either. It was (possibly) the long staying Yellow Legged Gull that's been hanging round here for a few years.

Once on the beach and now not worried about any species of gull no matter which they started their beachcombing. Being little ones we'd told them not to touch any jellyfish, it wasn't long before the shout of "jellyfish" went up for along the beach. Oh my it was a real whopper! A Lion's Mane Jellyfish nearly a metre across the widest visible tentacles. 

The beach wasn't over-exciting so they wandered down under the piers where there are pools of water around the legs. Minutes later the firsts small Green Shore Crabs and Brown Shrimps were in the pots. What we hadn't realised was there were quite a lot of Sabellaria 'reefs' amongst the piles.

This wasn't the best find of the day though. One of the little ones caught something quite unusual, some kind of Isopod the like of which we've never seen before. It was very thin about a centimetre long with a pair of long antennae almost as long as the body. Wish we could have been able to get a pic. We have our marine biologist friend DB on the case, wonder what she'll be able to tell us tomorrow.

All good stuff!
Where to next? More sea staring - weather permitting
In the meantime let us know what's amongst the piles in your outback.

Invasion of the killer jellyfish

The Safari is exaggerating slightly. The day dawned bright warm and calm, actually it was well past dawn by the time we got out of our pit. Looking at the sea on our commute we were eager to get out but for the second day in a row it wasn't possible which was a tad annoying to say the least - it was just about perfect out there. Not to worry we would be out on the beach exploring with a group of youngsters soon enough.

Today we were near the pier rather than at our usual temporary rockpooling site so it was all a bit new to us. There wasn't much standing water near the new steps but a bit of a shingle bank that had been thrown up had a few strandlines on it which looked promising. We started off there looking for pebbles, one's with stripes in them, round ones, flat ones, ones that looked like a marble; the children were only very young. All the while keeping our eyes peeled for shells and other items of interest.

Once we'd looked at this small section and not found a great lot although the kids did like the seaweed with 'armbands' to help it float - Spiral Wrack and Bladderwrack - we wandered a fair way down the beach to the nearest pool of water. A decent amount of shells had been washed up here including all the favourites, Banded Wedge  Shells, Striped Venus, Common Otter, Prickly Cockles, Common Cockles, Mussels, Pod Razors, Bean Razors, Curved Razors, Telins, Tower Shells, Whelks, Rayed Trough Shells along with lots of Masked Crab carapaces. All of which found their way into the tubs.

In the pool lots of tiny young Brown Shrimps skittered away from the nets, many weren't quick enough and found themselves in the tubs too.

Fish catcher extraodinaire from last week RC found another flat fish, not a tiny juvenile this time but a full grown whopper, dead though.

Looks like the remains of a Dab

We'd already seen quite a few mostly small jellyfish stranded on the beach but were quite unprepared for the mass of them in one corner of the pool. Lets just say there were a few more than plenty.

Almost all appeared to be dead, we didn't see any pulsating trying to swim off. The great majority were the harmless Moon Jellyfish but scattered here and there were a few orangy Lion's Manes.

At the nend of the session we gathered together to show everyone what each other had found. There's a nice big Thornback Ray mermaid's purse in the middle and a 'modern' lump of limestone that's sheared in the shape of what is almost definitely some kind of largish fossil.

The seaweed bottom left is a piece of the invasive non-native Wireweed originating from the Pacific Ocean.

Back at the office at lunchtime the sun was still strong and bright and had brought a few insects out in the wild garden. There were some Tree Bees collecting pollen and our first Large White butterfly of the year here. There's still nont that many hoverflies about although there were several of this shiny metallic Broad Centurion Flies (Chloroyia formosa).

A pair of bee mimicking Narcissus Bulb Flies were really making the most of the sunshine.

A quick look at the sea at lunchtime revealed it was very poor - other than a handful of Herring Gulls there was nothing to be seen at all.

Where to next?Back in the rockpools tomorrow.

In the meantime let us know who likes jelly in your outback.

Beat the weather!

The Safari set up the Stealth-cam last night but when we looked out of the kitchen window before going to bed the intended quarry was no where near the camera but tucking into a pile of old  muesli we'd put out on the patio, didn't know they were veggie! We grabbed the normal camera and very quietly snuck outside until we were within a couple of feet of him/her.

This morning we were late in again due to vehicular failure last night and having to use Wifey's car. The weather was simply awful when we dropped her at her work and we didn't hold out much hope of our family group coming out later in the morning.

Fortunately the rain stopped as we set off and although all of us were dressed as if it was a wet weekend in October the rain held off and it was quite mild.

The children soon got their eye in for good finds...

Baby flatfish, only about an inch long, Dab?

Mermaid's purse, Spotted Catshark egg - there's an embryo inside but you can't see it because we didn't spot the shell fragment - it won't hatch as the case is torn.

The main feature of the morning was the huge numbers of jellyfish that were washed up, varying in size from an inch or so across to over a foot in diameter. They were this dense for hundreds of yards and probably similar on the next strandline down the beach too. Tens of thousands have been washed up along the NW coast this week, maybe even millions, not seen anything like this for years, if indeed ever before! Most were the harmless Moon Jellyfish, a few Compass Jellies were found and just a handful of Lion's Manes.

Note nos 2 & 3 trapped in a plastic bag - just right for murdering a turtle

Compass and Moon Jellies found side by side - we didn't place them like that but someone else on the beach earlier might have done

Find of the morning was a ???

 No not the little bug, we know that's an Idotea baltica.

Soft but firm and looked like it had some kind of holdfast,which we're holding so you're not able to see it

We think it's some kind of sponge, one for those clever iSpoters.

Another great day on the beach, hopefully there'll be some good pics of some of the other things we found sent in over the weekend for our wildlife exhibition at work.

Where to next? Could be an early start in the morning, if Frank can be prised out of bed...he's lost two kilos at doggy fat-club this week.

In the meantime let us know what's lethally squidgy in your outback.

The trouble with Buzzards

The Safari  has been following a few environmental debacles recently all concerning Buzzards, namely DEFRA’s ludricrous attempt at legalising ‘control’ in some areas, the Buzzard eats baby Osprey footage, the getting beyond a joke DEFRA/NE Wuthering Moors affair.

Yesterday we had cause to travel 200 miles (320km) (100 there, 100 back) mostly by motorway and this sort of trip always presents the opportunity to count the Buzzards v Kestrels on route; the latter being formerly quite common along the well grasses verges but in recent years it would seem that now motorway travelers are more likely to see soaring Buzzards rather than hovering Kestrels.

We went to see our lad who is very poorly in hospital in the Midlands. As a police detective we wondered how he would go on if he had 43 charges, with a reasonable evidence to support them, against a burglar? When he’s well enough we’ll ask him how many of those 43 he reasonably expect to stick and get a conviction for in court. Would his answer differ if this alleged burglar was discovered to be a close friend of the nephew of the Duke of Rockingborough or had friends in high places in  the government? Would any charges be brought?

Maybe a rethink of this is required with other agencies brought in to the mix.  What about the insurance industry? Surely our uplands shouldn’t be drained if they are water sponges and could prevent the serious flooding we are now seeing all too regularly on our tellies. Additional tree planting along the water courses wouldn’t go a miss either. Could the insurance industry not lobby government to take a hard line to protect their financial interests? Which has more clout the needs of the many not to have their homes and businesses flooded out or the ‘sport’ of a few that want to shoot Grice?

Then there’s the Buzzard baby Osprey malarkey – conspiracy theories abound but Buzzards are opportunists. However certain questions/conspiracies need addressing – why did the Buzzard abandon its meal and how and why was it ‘recovered’? Strange how this was recorded on an estate and not a nature reserve where far more monitoring of such nests goes on at a time when Buzzards are in the news and the ‘control’ programme had just been cancelled and the tone of the news releases was ‘isn’t this awful one of those over-numerous pesky Buzzards has just eaten a conservationists favourite we told you they needed ‘controlling...coincidence??? Get over it intra-guild predation happens – not often but it does happen...and those conservationists’ favourites were just about wiped out by the Buzzard hating huntin shootin fishin brigade in the first place! Good gawd man the hooky beaked damned things eat Trout don’t you know!!! As were Buzzards, we can remember not too long ago the Buzzard was a seriously rare bird in Safari-land. So much so that in 1991 while the American Bittern was on site a group of visiting birders claimed a Buzzard, which they may well have seen, but some of the locals viewed the claim with some suspicion/incredulity as it would have only been something like the 5^th or 6^th local record for over 50 years i.e not many more than the number of American Bitterns seen in the same period!!! Thankfully it’s different now...there’s far more Buzzards than American Bitterns although another one of those wouldn’t go amiss especially for the younger birders.

Seems there is a concerted campaign against the hooky-beaks at the moment while there are ‘friendly’ faces in Government.

So just how many Buzzards did we see – was the sky blackened by their outstretched wings, were they swooping down plucking unattended children from their playgrounds? We saw a grand total of six on the way down in good Buzzard weather and good Buzzard habitat (= one every 17 miles) but just one Kestrel (with prey). On our return journey we saw only two but got three Kestrels and a single Sparrowhawk.

This morning Patch 2 gave us two Grey Seals and a fly by four Eiders. Lunchtime saw little improvement; nine Sandwich Terns roosted on the beach and out in the distant river mouth many terns fished. Not a lot else but there was a noticeable increase in the numbers of Oystercatchers on the beach with an uncounted couple of dozen or so. Three Redshanks whipped past too.

A brief sortie on to the beach wasn’t as good as hoped as the brisk wind had chopped the sea up on the recent hide tide making most of the pots very murky so we couldn’t see into them. Two small Lion’s Mane Jellyfish found in pools near the wall were probably the most interesting find, one was turned turtle but still pulsating and very much alive.

Only shallow but very murky and dull

Common Periwinkles waiting for the tide to come back in

Three Elegant Anemones

 Where to next? Not sure, but could be more beachy stuff.
In the meantime let us know what's lurking in the water in your outback.