More news from the mere

The Safari has enjoyed to bright crisp mornings this week. The colder weather has brought a few more birds to the feeders at Base Camp including at long last the first Coal Tit of the autumn. Of most note have been the much larger than usual number of Blackbirds enticed in by the good crop of berries on next door's Rowan trees. The sunny mornings have offered several lovely autumnal photo opportunities.

After many attempts we finaly nailed the berry in the air between the mandibles shot.

A wander over to Marton Mere yesterday gave us a nice Mistle Thrush dropping in from on high on the top of pathside bush right in front of us. We get the impression that they are far less numerous locally than in recent years but in the NW they are about as common as they were back in 1995 but then the population rose by a massive 50% in the early naughties before dropping back to 'normal. Perhaps that's why we think they are less common now - certainly extinct as a local breeder around Patch 1 now especially as their favourite nesting trees have been felled, both for dubious reasons too. We don't hear them singing in the early part of the year from over by the railway as we used to only a couple or so years ago and we've not had one in the garden at Base Camp, actually usually on the TV aerial rather than down on the ground IN the garden, since 2013!

We met up with LR in the Feeding Station hide, still not a great deal happening in there despite the dropping temperatures. Grey Squirrels entertained us with their acrobat antics trying to defeat the anti-squirrrel baffles and Pheasants mopped up the spillage below - bring on the aliens. Natives were represented by a small number of Chaffinches, Great and Blue Tits, a Robin, a Wren, a Dunnock and a gaggle of Magpies.

A look from the Bittern-spotting area didn't give us any Bitterns and not a whole lot else apart from a lorra lorra Coots, maybe over 200 of the the little black beauties, LT picked up a Little Grebe on the far side that we didn't manage to get on.

Cetti's Warblers shouted at each other from the depths of the reedbed, by the time we'd completed the circuit we'd heard half a dozen of them. A couple of them were, as always, at the Fylde Bird Club hide but better than them was a female Goosander that circled round to the left of us and fortunately came in and landed right below us. Our first here for a few years, 2015 in fact.

All too soon it swam out of view behind the reeds.

Leaving the water we continued round to the embankment to have a listen for any Bearded Tits without any joy; everywhere else in west Lancashire/SW Cumbria seems to have them so why not us? Surely it can only be a matter of time before someone drops on them.

Talking of dropping on we watched a male Kestrel do a bit of hovering over the field to the east before swooping round to take up position on the big post a Barn Owl nesting box used to sit on. It didn't stay there long before dropping off and coming up with lunch of hat looked like a Short Tailed Field Vole. Leaving it to it's lunch we pressed on finding the scrub quiet save for a couple of Redwings, we've still not had a Fieldfare over on the side of the country this autumn. Then LR shouted out "Egret!". We looked over towards the water only to see him pointing the opposite way - we spun round with the bins to our eyes and saw that it was quite long winged and definitely black footed rather than yellow-footed - - get in! A Great White Egret which is a site tick for us despite what it says in the birds of Marton Mere 2nd Ed an event we don't recall back in February 2012. Maybe AB can confirm we were with him on that day and we did see it.

Anyway it was good to see on, we think it was a fly-over and hadn't been grounded somewhere round the mere. 

At the Viewing Platform there was still no sign of any Bitterns but we did start to notice some small loose flocks of Starlings going past.

None seemed to turn back so we guess they were heading to the pier to roost. but then we saw more starting to congregate down at the far end, over the reedbed and fields.

More and more came in to join them until the flock became quite a large swarm.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Starlings was that there were two large flocks and individual smaller flocks joining them seemed to know which one they belonged to. The ones at our end spent much less time flying round, well you couldn't call it a murmuration by any stretch of the imagination, but dropped in to the reeds to roost very quickly and newly arriving flocks went straight in to settle down for the night. Whereas the ones at the far end built up in numbers and had a bit of a murmurate before funneling down in to the reeds, not all of them mind and late joining flocks continued to fly round before dropping in, so much so that there were still a lot in the air when we had to leave but the western lot close to us had now gone quiet deep in the reedbed and very few were coming in to add to their number now. How do they know who is who and where they should go to join their mates?

Today's Marton Mere meander was much quieter, we couldn't find anything to point the camera at all the way round. Our best sighting was a Red Admiral butterfly on a sunny but still quite chilly morning and we think we may have heard a Bullfinch but a five minute wait listening for a second call proved fruitless.

A couple of Goldcrests were best of the rest, like we said it wasn't too lively for us today, had we not been dragged hither and thither by Monty we might have had a bit more time to stand and study the surroundings a bit more thoroughly and found a bit more but it wasn't to be.

Where to next? Another safari to the Southside tomorrow.

In the meantime let us know who's swarming round your outback

Little time for blogging but there's still some wildlife being seen

The Safari is back to work after the holiday and with puppy classes and other stuff to attend to in the evenings we've not had a chance to put pen to keyboard to let you know what we've been up to and what we've seen.

Our trip to the Southside was a fun day out with our birding mates but we spent more time chatting than watching. The site we visited is renowned for its Stonechats

and wintering Short Eared Owls, there were four of these but by they time they got up to fly round mid afternoon we'd walked well past their favoured area so mostly only got distant views.

When we birded this area on our bike on the early 70s Little Egrets wouldn't have been on our radar, they weren't in the basic field guides we had at that time.

As is always the case with nature reserves these days there was a numpty with a dog who let it run all over the place without any control what-so-ever. Once over the river it ran miles across the farmland from where it disturbed a flock of Lapwings and Golden Plovers.

Had there been livestock in some of the fields instead of newly planted crops and stubble the dog would have ended up getting itself shot by the farmer - it's almost a shame nature reserve managers don't have the same rights as farmers to protect their 'livestock' and were allowed to shoot unleashed dogs running amock on reserves.

At lunchtime the other day we got out to have a look for the local Snow Buntings, news from the birding website was they'd flown high and away the previous day but we went out feeling hopeful in good sunshine. After a good while and almost at the point when we had to think about going back to work empty handed they flew in from behind us and landed not 20 yards away. Edging round to get them in better light they were now only 20 feet away.

After work we met up with CR at the pier to watch the Starling murmuration over the high tide. There was a bit of a sunset too. A Sparrowhawk came in and bunched the Starlings up and just happened to become the only Sparrowhawk we've taken a pic of over the sea.

Not a bad end to a week with only 'limited' opportunities for watching wildlife.
Our various lists stand as follows:-
Garden - 8
Patch 1 - 14
Patch 2 - 12
Year List Photo Challenge - 17 - some of the other challengers are well over 50 already and over a third of their way to their target - - we're 'pacing ourselves'!

Grand Total - Long Tailed Tits going to roost in the dark gloomy drizzly fog on Patch 1 while out with Monty in the very last of the light yesterday were #50 for the year.

Where to next? A weekend busy with family stuff may mean little time for wildlife again but we're sure we'll see something somewhere.

In the meantime let us know who was only feet away in your outback.

A mixed bag for a grey and dreary Sunday

The Safari was hoping to get out early for a wander down along the dunes just south of Patch 2 this morning but it didn't happen. Instead we ended up heading north with Wifey who had an errand to run for her sister who was working in her shop today. While Wifey went inside we stayed out to watch the car and watched the urban wildlife flying round the rooftops. Mostly Herring Gulls and Feral Pigeons.

Once the errand was completed we took Monty for a slither up the hill over the estuary at the rather soggy Country Park.

Looks like he's discovered mud!!!

Chomps more grass than the average horse too!

There were a lot of flighty thrushes flying around. Mostly Redwings and Blackbirds with a few Fieldfares and a Mistle Thrush or two thrown in for good measure. None of them allowed anything like close enough approach with the camera. Put on the muddy banks of the dropping river in the estuary there were a decent number of Lapwings taking to the air from time to time. 

Closer, on the marsh, but not close enough was a Little Egret working its way along a small creek.

Back at Base Camp Monty was washed down and a bite of lunch was eaten, then it was time to hit the dunes in search of a Snowflake which we now knew probably hadn't been seen since early morning.

We started off at the bottom of Patch 2 and walk the strandline south watching for flits and hits of movement among the clumps of washed up seaweed lying at the top of the beach. As expected we came across a couple of Pied Wagtails after only a couple of minutes.

Once passed those our luck ran out and we didn't see another small bird for ages until a female Reed Bunting was spotted lurking in a patch of Marram Grass on the edge of the dunes. We continued for about a mile seeing just another pair of Pied Wagtails before the light really started to fade. The area of the lower dunes just behind the posts was awash with doggy footprints so we can only imaging our lovely little Snow Bunting had been dogged-off...but will it reappear in the week when it might be a little less busy.

At the farthest point a couple of lads were having a blast up and down the beach on their kite trolleys. Even in the very light breeze they were getting a fair turn of speed going.

We hurried back to the car and leaving the beach watched a couple of folk watching an enormous gaggle of Starlings lined up on the tram's overhead wires. The lady asked us if we were filming the birds so it would have been rude not to point the camera at them even though the light was atrocious.

We left and headed back to Base Camp passing the pier where no roost had started and the sky was dull and grey. As it transpired there was an awesome sunset just after we reached Base Camp and had settled down to a nice cuppa. What a shame we didn't stay out a few more minutes and catch the murmuration with a totally fiery sky.

'Our' Peregrine was roosting in its usual place close to Base Camp when we took Monty out for his tea-time mooch round the block, probably been there all day as we saw when we left this morning.

Where to next? A day off work tomorrow with some jobs to do but we're sure we'll find some wildlife somewhere to tell you about.

In the meantime let us know who's been dogged-off in your outback.

Ever been to Baffin Island?

The Safari went to meet, recently back in town, JH at the Starlings at the pier on Friday night but the weather was dire and access to the lower Prom restricted by the annual rally car race. The tide was out and the Starlings roosted on the beach before headed under the pier without really doing any murmuring. We left before the weather worsened and plenty more were still coming in as we drove away.

Yesterday morning we did the BTO Goldfinch Survey and counted an acceptable four - mightn't sound many but certainly better than the normal none!

After breakfast we had a day out with Wifey meeting up with our long-time chums over at the Place we do not Mention by Name over on the south side. 

While waiting from the crew to arrive we had a look through the visitor centre window overlooking the captive pond where Wifey practiced her ID skills using her new EDs. She found Pochards, Gadwall, Shelducks, Wigeon and even a Coot.

Female Wigeon

Shelduck

Shelduck again

Once the crew was assembled we headed out into the rain straight to the nearest hide where hundreds of Whooper Swans were milling around waiting for the mid-afternoon feed.

 Left over spilled grain from an earlier feed was being hunted down by a few Wigeon.

The flock of 3000 Lapwings held about 50 Ruff (100). Marsh Harriers and Buzzards kept putting them up making for a fantastic spectacle. We couldn't find any Peregrines but a Sparrowhawk put in a brief appearance. Unfortunately the Barn Owls were out in the rain before we arrived but not when it was drier while we were there.

The volunteer in the hide told us where to look for the Tawny Owl and AB's astonishing eyesight picked it out hidden deep in in the Ivy at the top of a tall Silver Birch tree. Eventually all the group got on to it and we just about managed to get the scope on it. AB then said there were two up there! Tawny Owl (101) on the list in a tree only yards from the only one we saw last year, probably one of the one's we saw today was the same bird as that one.

Back at the first hide we watched a Marsh Harrier pull morsels from a dead Whooper Swan and looking through the birds on the mud we found a couple of Black Tailed Godwits (102).

The long staying Ross's Goose was also there.

Lovely looking thing but the million dollar question is how wild is it??? Every summer it disappears and every autumn it seems to reappear when the Pink Footed Geese arrive. Does it go back to Baffin Island or does it end up on someone's duck pond less than a hundred miles away.

It's been suggested we have a whip round for a satellite tag or pull a feather off it for isotope analysis. Could be a disappointing result...or...

There's never been a 'genuine' proven one in Britain could this be it?

Trying to get to the last hide on the reserve we were turned round by the ranger who'd just locked it up - we'd run out of time! Another great day out with the old crew.

Today we had a cold afternoon on the nature reserve starting at the Feeding Station where we had three Reed Buntings (MMLNR #66) and then a strange thing happened. A Jackdaw turned up, nothing unusual with Jackdaws but in all our years visiting the reserve we've never seen one at the Feeding Station.

Not many minutes later another little beauty turned up, a Lesser Redpoll (103, MMLNR #67) very briefly dropped down to the small drinking pool and was gone in a moment. We dashed outside to look in the Alders behind the hide but there was no sign of it anywhere.  

From there we went to look at the water to see if the Iceland Gull or a Mediterranean Gull would turn up. They didn't, although there had been a Med in the morning. It was very quiet with very few gulls about today. The best we saw was a Collared Dove (MMLNR #68). A Sparrowhawk worked the reedbeds waiting for a Snipe to flush, one did but was far too quick for the predator.

More bizarreness occurred when four Stock Doves left their usual haunt over on the big barn and flew round the east end of the reserve for a while almost looking like they were going to land at the edge of the scrape for a drink at one point.

The reedbed along the embankment didn't give us any Bearded Tits this week and there were no Mistle Thrushes in the 50 strong flock of Fieldfares in the field - the flock of 50 plus Linnets was nice though. 

Instead of going to see the owls, we were told the path was very wet and we were shod in boots rather than wellies, we double back to do more gulling but the water at the hide was devoid of gulls so we returned to the Feeding Station with BD who we'd just met. Always nice to see Long Tailed Tits but there was no sign of the hoped for Treecreeper.

Best now was a Great Spotted Woodpecker giving great views at the far feeder and then the rain started and it was time to go.

Not a bad weekend on safari.

Where to next? More weather is forecast so Patch 2 may provide some interest again.

In the meantime let us know who's unexpectedly arrived in your outback.

Are you suffering from excessive wind?

The Safari is beginning to get rather peed awff with the amount of wind being delivered by these successive winter storms now. As one batters through there’s another one lining up in the west Atlantic, there’s just no respite!

Looking at the sea we had to feel for the Common Scoters, it must be like living in a washing machine for them at the moment and most of their food seems to have been washed up on the beach. Yesterday a very rough guestimate of about 2000 tightly packed Herring Gulls were feasting on a huge shellfish wreck along the beach at Patch 2. With them were a handful of Black Headed Gulls, a few Common Gulls, a couple of Great Black Back Backed Gulls and a single 1^st winter Yellow Legged Gull (98, #31). Out at sea others had seen good numbers of both Kittiwakes and Little Gulls but we could only find a couple of Little Gulls (P2 #32) and half a dozen Kittiwakes. A flock of five Pintails went through low over the tide’s edge and we had a dark phase unIDd skua go north at distance, it looked quite broad winged so probably not an Arctic Skua, can’t go on any of the lists unfortunately but no doubt we’ll get better views of some other skua species over the course of the year.

While working in the garden with our volunteers we saw that at least 20 House Sparrows were taking advantage of the food provided by a generous member of the public. How long they’ll have sufficient cover to hide in is the big question as the ‘official’ gardeners are on-site flooring, aka pruning, all the shrubbery for the first time in many years. It looks ferocious but should help thicken them up over the next couple of growing seasons – the garden will look pretty bare and uninviting to wildlife until that happens though. Maybe it’ll attract different wildlife like perhaps a Stonechat, a species we’ve somewhat surprisingly not recorded here; the nearby dunes must be just too tempting for them as they are regularly found there on passage.

Last night there was some weird cloud action at sunset. We had to go outside to check the back gates were fastened securely against the increasing wind as we'd heard something bang out the back. Looking up we saw the most impressive mother-of-pearl coloured clouds well above the normal and all too familiar rain clouds - we've never seen anything quite like it before - time to ignore the gate for a mo and dash back inside for the camera.

Nacreous clouds between 9 to 15 miles up in the stratosphere

This morning we drove under a swarm of Starlings leaving their roost at the pier, very impressive, shame the traffic light weren’t on red and we couldn’t stop to enjoy the spectacle. Arriving at work the Song Thrush was poking about under the front hedge with a Blackbird, the front hedge won’t be so fiercely pruned just trimmed to a bring it back to a neater ‘A’ shape so there should still be somewhere for the Blackbirds, Dunnocks and Robins to nest.

This morning there wasn't much happening on Patch 2 early morning, best was a half decent count of around 175 Oystercatchers, but it was a little better by lunchtime on the rising tide. Flock of four Kittiwakes followed a few minutes later by one on it's own. A Little Gull weaved in and out between the enormous crashing waves in the distance and a quick look along the advancing tide line towards the pier gave us a 1st winter Little Gull with a few Black Headed Gulls picking who knows what off the surface of the water, the Black Heads wading, the Little Gull doing it in their usual dipping flight.
We had a chat to the work's gardeners and discovered to our amazement that the bush they were working on had the Blackbird's nest in it, not just one but about five old ones and one currrent one with cheeping nestlings in it! 
A couple of hours later we met up with BD who is holding an exhibition of his brilliant pics at work this month and next. After discussing the intricacies of our picture hanging doobries we headed over to the seawall to see what we could see. Immediately there was a 1st winter Kittiwake below us, what a great start.

A few other gulls drifted by including this 1st winter Common Gull. 

After a while a second Kittiwake turned up and for a split second we had them both in the viewfinder but alas they were too quick for us.
From there we went to the pier to watch the Starlings coming in and murmurating above the tide.

Here they come!

Getting close to the action

There were quite a few of them

For the first time we saw a Sparrowhawk taz past us only inches off the tarmac and disappear under the pier. Moments later the Starlings bunched up.

An excellent if rather chilly session in the brisk wind. The late arrivals missed the main murmuration which was a shame as there might have been as many as 50,000 altogether.
Where to next? More Patch 2 gulling tomorrow.
In the meantime let us know who's seasonally maladjusted in your outback.
Formatting has gone haywire again - doh! Sorry

A look-see on the beach

The Safari has had a look through hundreds of rubbish pics of murmurating Starlings, this one is one of the few keepers, like we said that Peregrine needs to earn its keep and get them to bunch up tighter.

We've also been looking at some of the climate facts n figures for town now that the year has rolled on. It's important to realise that one place doesn't represent the whole planet so don't be going drawing any conclusions about your own neck of the woods from our figures.

We'll start with daily maximum temperatures - and we're only doing temperatures we don't have enough rainfall figures to do the comparisons.

Also be aware that we shouldn't be comparing 30 year time-spans with a 10 year time-span.

The most obvious thing is how similar the last 10 years have been to the late 20th Century - no sign of any warming. In fact if you look at August and are over 30 years old it's true that summers were warmer in the old days.

The daily minimum temperatures are completely different and we'd say statistically significantly so! Apart from March there's no overlap at all!

So why aren't the night-time temperatures leading to warmer daytime temperatures - cloudier so that more heat is trapped at night but also meaning the sunshine can't get through during the day??? Your guess is as good as ours as to what's going on. What's going to happen in the next 20 years, where will those green lines be then?

Today we had a look for the potential nestling-feeding Blackbird but it was nowhere to be seen in the heavy rain this morning. 

The sea was a washout early on we lasted only two minutes before deciding it was too wet and visibility too poor in the low drizzly cloud. Lunchtime was drier but now there was a crazy 'heat' haze going on - it was worse than summer! But we did feel a bit of warmth in the sun which helped make our mind up about getting down on the beach.

Wellies on and off down the steps we went.

The strong low sunlight was very harsh. We soon came across some of the goodies left by the ebbing tide. First onto the memory card was a clump of Hornwrack, looks like seaweed but is actually a Bryozoan, a tiny colonial animal - you can see the empty individual holes of each animal in the second pic

A few paces further on we found a Mermaid's Purse, the egg case of a Lesser Spotted Catshark, we didn't see it at the time but from processing the pic it looks like there might well be an embryo inside.

A movement in the nearest pool made us squint for a closer look and we saw a flock of a dozen Redshanks roosting up. They are wary birds and wouldn't allow a close approach, if we'd have had a bit more time we might have laid down an inched closer on our belly for better shots.

We pushed our luck an foot too far and they flushed up on to the wall some yards further down the beach.

We were now close to the reason we wanted a look on the beach in the first place. To have a look at what the pipe engineering works have left behind and it wasn't good. The beach sand level is well down and has exposed a large amount of rubble and shingle.

It doesn't bode well for our school groups coming down to investigate the rockpool wildlife. All the lower pools are filled with shingle. We don't allow the little ones to climb the wall for obvious reasons.

Where there was life has been scoured clean by the action of the shingle in the waves, the stonework has been scrubbed clean, even the Barnacles have been removed.
And if a rock is thrown higher up onto the Sabellaria mounds it doesn't do them any good at all, they act like grindstones.

To say we're not happy about this sate of affairs is a big understatement - how can it be rectified, the sea might be able to fill the pools very easily but it's not going to be able to get the stones out is it?

To take the edge off our extreme disappointment we continued to look along the strand line. 

It didn't take long to find something a little different, a Blunt Gaper - don't see too many of these so after getting pics we pocketed it for our collection.

Also found was a fresh Rayed Trough Shell, still with both its bivalve halves stuck together and still its original unbleached pink colour.

Pretty good for a 20 minute saunter, shame about the ecological calamity, that wasn't foreseen or mentioned in the Environmental Impact Assessment document we've got on our desk.

Where to next? We'll be somewhere out on safari at the weekend and then there's the small matter of another Goldfinch survey.

In the meantime let us know who's to timid for a close approach in your outback.