What are we playing at?

The Safari hasn't had a lot of luck recently. We've been out n about but not seen a great lot to shout about...or get any pics of really.

Back on Patch 1 the big Parasol Mushroom from our Oddball Bat post now looks like this...or did look like that a coupla days ago, we didn't check it yesterday due to horrendous thunderstormy rain nor did we today either.

Having a bit more time to ourselves at Base Camp hasn't produced the goods although this Grey Squirrel is the first we've seen in the garden for quite some time, it was on next door's feeders for ages before it hopped over the fence.

Taken in the gloom through the double glazed kitchen window

Also over Base Camp was the first Meadow Pipit of the autumn, just the one - no sign of any migrant floodgates opening yet.

We had an early morning three hours round the nature reserve seeing very little at all and not once needing to raise the camera. Best of a very slow morning was a mixed flock of tits and warblers in which was a single Lesser Whitethroat. Insects fared a little better with at least four Red Admirals seen around the reserve and a cluster of four Small Tortoiseshells butterflies in the top corner nectaring on the abundant Hoary Ragwort flowers. At least something is abundant this year!
At the Viewing Platform therre was no sign of the Otter nor the Bittern - there never is for us! But in the still very leafy Sycamore trees above our head a small bird was flitting about we did our best to get the bins on it but it just kept disappearing behind the foliage to be relocated a yard or more away only to instantaneously disappear again. Was there a hint of red on its back end? Did we really see that or just think we did after the event? It called several times a loud strident soo-iit as it moved about the tree tops. After a minute or so of losing it among the leaves and Monty getting restless we moved on but had we just ignored a Redstart which would have been our first at the reserve for a number of years and our first self-found one for a long time?

A venture to the cliffs to look for Bottlenose Dolphins didn't go as planned when Monty legged it down to the beach so we had to abandon our initial plan and once got him back under control had a wander along Chat Alley where we successfully found some chats, five Wheatears, none of which would pose for a pic. They were very flighty but it was busy with joggers, cyclists, dog walkers and fishermen driving past to their favourite spots.

Yesterday we met up with GB after the storm. The initial plan was to head out east but with lost time we just stayed local and had a mooch along the northern prom. Worth it too. At least five Grey Seals one of which was very close in but due to the earlier very heavy rain we hadn't brought the camera out....dohhhhh...and it didn't rain and we were over-dressed in our waterproofs! On the golf course and beach we counted 9 and three Wheatears respectively but reckon that there were almost definitely many more. It's be interesting to see how many more and what we missed when Fleetwood Bird Observatory post their tally for 31st August. We did get a good count of at least 120 Sandwich Terns fishing very close inshore catching Sand Eels and then roosting on the beach, joined by eight Turnstones, the 'largest' flock we've seen so far this autumn. Out in the bay it was just coming up to low tide and there were a lot of Cormorants roosting on the recently formed King's Scar (labelled as Rosmic Island on Google Maps - would be much better if people kept off it though as we've been told that good numbers of Grey Seals have been seen hauled out on it recently.) an impressive shingle island, how big is it going to get in the years to come??? There were several Cormorants in the middle distance fishing but we failed to find GB any Harbour Porpoises - he reckons he jinxes us, he could be right as conditions were bob on for spotting any cetaceans that might have been out there.

The local Love my Beach beach cleaning volunteers were out doing their thing and had put some interesting and too-large-for-their-bags items on the sea wall. One of those items of interest was a gull skull

Another thing we noticed was the large number of Garden Snails out for a slime along the prom, most but not all were heading towards the beach. Was it something to do with the overnight rain, do they eat seaweed, did this one have a towel and windbreak to take advantage of the sunny weather down on the sand??? All very odd, you'd think the osmotic potential of the salty sand and vegetation (not that there's much of that just a few leaves of Sea Lyme Grass and even lesser amounts of other species) would be enough to do a snail in but headed beachwards they were.

We know where it's going but why - Answers on a postcard please

This morning we were supposed to join CR on a jaunt to the big wetland reserve on the Southside but once again our plans were thwarted by poor Monty honking up in the most wretched way all night. So insead of heading towards exotic birds we're heading tto the vets instead.

We took him for a quick trawl round Patch 1, you could tell he's under the weather as his tail was down all the way round. It's usually up like a flag and wagging non-stop. The earlier light rain hadn't dropped anything exciting and nothing was heard or seen going over but we did come across a Great Spotted Woodpecker, they seem to have moved back again after being lost when their favourite dead tree was cut down, a Coal Tit, a Goldcrest, a Blackcap and a small flock of Long Tailed Tits. Not a total dead loss then.  

Here's a quiz for you - who else do you know wanders round with, bins, a camera, a dog and occasionally peers into roadside gullies? And then finds one to photograph as it has a bit of self-contained jungle growing in it. Go on own up - you do it too, don't you?

We received some pics from one of our recent Moth and Bat Nights from organiser HP today, we're sure he won't mind us posting them on here.

A good crowd of eager wildlife enthusiasts

Feeling how soft and velvety the fur is on a mummified Pipistrelle bat

Just how well can moths see in the dark? Look at the tapetum on that! Well it's probably not actually a tapetum in the vertebrate sense but it serves the same function

If anyone would like the Safari to do local-ish wildlife events, guided walks, talks for groups, schools etc for a reasonable fee please get in touch.
And there endeth our second week of retirement. What have we learned? Even though we have loads of time nothing seems to go to plan and if it can go wrong it will go wrong...Things can only get better - sounds like that could be a good title for a song!

Where to next? We can feel a bit of seawatching coming on tomorrow morning, after a just post-dawn mooch round patch 1 of course.

In the meantime let us know who's going down the drain in your outback.

Oddball bat

The Safari was out helping LW at the zoo with her Grab that Gap project this morning. She needed some help identifying the plants that had come up in a small piece of the garden that has been set aside for native wildlife. A grand total of 47 species were recorded including a several bumble bees and hoverflies feeding at the flowers and a Great Spotted Woodpecker flying over us. Our reward for helping out was a nice cuppa and a rather unusual bat. It had been found wet and bedraggled crawling  on a footpath before the zoo opened and was rescued otherwise it would likely been trodden on by the throngs of visitors. It was taken in to care and looked after all day and night but eventually died. But just look at it. how mad is that! A pied winged bat, is it a Daubenton's Bat with that white ventral fur or is that part of the leucism too?

It;s currently in the garage at Base Camp drying out, could do with it in a warm airing cupboard but it doesn't smell too good. We've put a gauze 'tent' around it to stop any flies laying their eggs on it and the resulting maggots eating it to nothing. Hopefully the tragus in the ears won't deform too much as it mummifies and we can get a good close up pic (with a peg on our nose!) to aid/confirm identification.

A gloomy luchtime shuffy round Patch 1 wit hMonty had us looking for any grounded migrant birds which may have been about, bit late in the day we know but you've gotta try! No birds were found but we did come across three lots of Parasol Mushrooms along the woodland trail we've not wandered down for a few weeks. Well worth the detour  today!

We'll have another look tomorrow if we can to see if the top one has fully opened, it looks like it's going to be a big dobber but wouldn't be surprised if some numbnut had splodged them thinking they were deadly poisonous.

On our second visit of the day we couldn't find anything out of the ordinary but Monty did...he went sniffing about in the undergrowth and came out with another dog's lost ball and must have put his beak through big spider's web somewhere along the line.

The Posty arrived yesterday wit ha parcel for us from our Extreme Photographer. Inside the plain brown card wrapping were a couple of field guides that'll get some serious use next season...Cheers Bud!

And a soirree with friends D & PH had this beauty opened in front of our very wide eyes - we do like a bit of cake!

Apart from the bright yellow puffa jacket that looks like us to a tee!!! The both Monty and the nature reserve look pretty authentic too! But how did it taste? - - as good as it looks - - yummo double yummo

Where to next? Tempted by the cake we might do a long early morning on the nature reserve in the morning.
In the meantime let us know who looks good enough to eat in your outback.