Our beach really is a fabulous place to explore

The Safari was desk -bound this morning and heavy rain earlier prevented any Patch 2 visit. we got out a lunchtime to see more or less b*gger all out there.

As we were packing the Land Rover for our afternoon session with another family group further up the beach at an area we don't often have a really close look at...exciting stuff...we passed the Campanula we spotted with the Young Uns the other day and decided to get a few pics of it cos tbh we're not 100% sure if it's a real wildflower or some garden escape. Those clever iSpotters will no doubt be able to help.

On the beach the children soon had their buckets full of a variety of seaweeds including the very common Sea Lettuce and Purple Laver with side orders of Spiral and Egg Wrack. We spotted a large piece of Sea Oak.

Soon enough tiny Green Shore Crabs found their way in to the nets and under the piers there were lots of Brown Shrimps.

A sharp pair of eyes spotted this Necklace Shell which is covered with Hedgehog Hydroid but it wasn't until we'd been handling it for a while that we saw there was a shy Hermit Crab inside!

Find of the day went to the first find of the day. As we were all walking down the steps to the sand we spotted a dark shiny shape, a huge Mermaid's Purse which almost succumbed to the hordes of wellies tramping down the steps.

Not sure what species of shark - more accurately elasmobranch - it is from, perhaps a Thornback Ray.

After our day was done at the beach we nipped up to the northern estuary to have a look at the rising tide. We didn't have long and it was still too low to push the waders close enough to photograph. Only one slightly dodgy pic of some Redshank being washed off a mid stream sand-bank.

We watched a Small White butterfly alight on a Bramble flower some distance away. Luckily we had the long lens and framed the shot. As soon as we pressed the shutter it did what butterflies do best  - fluttered by. There is a bee in the shot too which we hadn't seen through the view finder.

So another great day by the seaside...come on Benyon give the seas the protection they desperately deserve...your becoming a bigger pillock with every dithering day.

Where to next? Not sure yet, anything could happen tomorrow.

In the meantime let us know what's hiding in someone elses cast offs in your outback.

Got some visitors to these pages from Lebanon. Hope they aren't those ones that massacre tens of thousands of migrants and then gloat about it on F/b, if you're not please try to educate those mindless idiots that do those awful things and if you one are one of those mindless idiots grow up and stop and desist right now you're a disgrace to humanity!

A day full of surprises

The Safari wasn’t out long as usual on Patch 1 but still managed to get a patch tick when a pair of Great Black Backed Gulls (P1 #36) flew over calling loudly and causing a more than a bit of panic amongst the rooftop nesting Herring and Lesser Black Back Gulls. Just goes to show how little we’ve done on the patch this year if we’ve had to wait a few days short of a full six months to find this species AND we’re still waiting for a Patch 1 Common Gull!!!

The drive to work showed a slightly choppier than of late sea and nothing again on R’ouzel Puddle. Grabbing the scope we headed over the road to strain our eyes into grey murk for...wait for it...a distant Grey Seal and a couple of Sandwich Terns...and a silvery something floating in the distance, possibly some inflatable cartoon character or other – deffo not the driftwood from yesterday which had disappeared off the beach.

We settle down at our desk and began the days toil. Not long after our second brew of the morning we got a txt from a colleague telling us she was at a site and it was a sight worth seeing, a quick conversation later and the Land Rover was out of the car park and pointing north to a new Health Centre complex. Here the landscaping had included much groundworks and some wildflower sowing along with SUDS – Sustainable Urban Drainage – pulling into the car park we were met with a veritable riot of colour and life – WOW – IMPRESSIVE. A school group was also on site planting wetland plants into the drainage swales – EXCELLENT. A PERFECT foil to the doom n gloom about ‘over-tidying’ we ranted on about yesterday.

We met the landscape manager who was really enthusiastic about what he and his team had created. It’s to be hope the site’s top brass don’t see it as ‘untidy’ and order someone to mow it to death although we did discuss management and maintenance options to hopefully head that nonsense off at the pass.

Whilst there we spotted a plant we didn’t recognise – it may be ‘just’ White Campion but we don’t think so the leaves aren’t right. BTW the some of the Red Campion seedheads at work have Campion moth caterpillars in them.  

Yellow Rattle was good to see as it should help keep the longer grasses at bay. 

Although it wasn’t sunny the place was alive with bees and we saw a spankingly fresh Small Tortoiseshell, a Common Blue, a pair of dancing Holly Blues and this rather battered Small Copper.

Back at the office butties were rammed down our cakehole so as we could get on the beach and try to photograph the Plumose Anemone. We couldn’t; our sneaky plan of putting the camera in a placcy bag failed when the bag in question sprung a leak and drowned the camera – good job it wasn’t the new posh camera...have an even more cunning plan involving a periscope tomorrow!!!

With a failed camera we wandered around a bit on the beach spotting goodies like Squid eggs! Nothing for it but to race back to the office and get the good camera. Never seen Squid eggs before although we have discussed with others the possibility of snorkeling around the pier legs in summer if the water ever gets warm and clear enough looking for Cuttlefish.

Plenty of Necklace Shells about and still alive too. 

A few Edible Whelks were found and checked for Hermit Crabs, the last one did have a crab but ‘only’ a very small and shy Green Shore Crab.

More Necklace Shells were found including some with their foot out and a couple with the prickly piggy-back riders Hedgehog Hydroids – at least that’s what we think it’s called.

And we got our best, but not really any good, pic of the Plumose Anemone...

Better luck with the periscope tomorrow? We’ve a feeling it’ll the periscope will make it too dark for photography but we can but try and see what happens.

Where to next? Who’s going to have to try to beat the Germans; Spain or Portugal?

In the meantime let us know what surprises lay in wait in your outback.