Wheatear wonderland

The Safari seized the chance to do a bit of a sea watch last week as another Atlantic storm blew through. It was getting a bit rough out there as the tide rose but it didn't deter a couple of fishermen.

The torrential rain made focusing the scope tricky but there wasn't a lot to see any way. The local gulls caught a few small fish by plunging into the rough stuff just beyond thee distance the fishermen could cast, an unidentified duck flew through at the edge of the murk and a handful of Sandwich Terns past closer than usual southwards.  Easily 'bird of the session' was a dark bulky juvenile Pomerine Skua that came out of the grey to the north and briefly sat on the sea at the edge of the grey. We were about to try to ge ta phone-scope pic of it when it lifted and headed out in to the gloom again. After about another 20 minutes and increasingly heavy rain we called it a day.

We were out on the beach with the mutt the following morning and really didn't expect to bump into an exhausted/injured Purple Sandpiper, about the only thing of note we did see apart from a small number of Wheatears buzzing around on the cliffs.

Phone pic of the Purple Sandpiper

On the return leg of our walk we could find no trace of the Purple Sandpiper, there were quite a few Herring Gulls kicking around on the sea wall in the general area and we hoped it had recovered and flown off and not disappeared down one of the gullet of one of the gulls.

The pools left by the receding tide are full of small Sand Gobies at the moment. Seeing them is easy enough as you can spot their shadow on the sand as they dart away at your approach but getting a pic is another matter. It requires stealth and patience as usually just as we've found one in good light and keeping still the mutt charges through the pool and disturbs both the fish and all the fine sand making the water muddy and impossible to see through for a good few minutes.

We took the big camera with us for the afternoon dog walk as it was nice and bright and sunny. We hoped that a couple of the morning Wheatears would still be about. They were and as a bonus we bumped in to good friend PL who had had the same idea.

Turned out to be a good move as there were still several Wheatears at various points along the cliffs, they were very active taking advantage of the fine weather bringing out lots of flies. A supporting cast of a few Small Tortoiseshells, a Carrion Crow breaking open a Mussel it had found washed up on the beach and a young Herring Gull standing sentinel over the proceedings along with a handful of Pied Wagtails, one of which looks like it has lost a foot. We filled our boots!

The Wheatears didn't disappoint either, after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing they eventually gave themselves up settling in convenient places and poses.

Our final pic of the day looks like it could have been taken on the wind-sculpted walls of Wadi Rum in the Jordanian desert rather than the artificial cliffs of North Shore Blackpool - it's probably our favourite of the set

While enjoying the Wheatears we happened to notice that one of the Pied Wagtails was very pale and wasn't a Pied Wagtail at all but a White Wagtail fresh in from the continent. A nice little bonus fro the days birding.

We've also had the moth trap out several times recently. Plagued by Large Yellow Underwings we've been - plagues we tell you - - plagued! But we've had none of the other yellow underwing species. Like Small Tortoiseshells they seem to be noticeable by their absence this summer.  Fortunately just in the last few days or so Small Tortoiseshells have become numerous at last, and we've started to get Lesser Yellow Underwings too, nowhere near as common as their larger cousins but still the second most numerous species in the trap.

We had a little run of Willow Beauties.

Setaceous Hebrew Characters have started to come to the trap.

As have these pesky things - they're often lurking unseen underneath the egg boxes so it's always wise to watch where you're putting your fingers in the trap at this time of year. They're too cold to fly away first thing in the morning so are much more inclined to use their sting, as we've found to our our cost in previous years!

Another sunny afternoon visit to the beach saw us attach the 1.4x converter to the big lens - it's a while since that's been out of the box! We were hoping for some more Wheatears but there weren't any on the cliffs so we had make do with what was on the beach.

Juvenile Cormorant

Common Gull - just beginning to arrive back for the winter

Great Black Backed Gull

Sandwich Tern

Even wit hthe advantage of the converter on the lens giving us extra reach we still managed to take one step too many and flushed it - damn; we hate doing that!

 

Where to next? We've been back to the wetlands and had a great time and  done some more moth trapping to tell you about

In the meantime let us know who's got all the 'W's in your outback.

Remember - enjoy your local wildlife but stay safe keep that social distance up.

 

Back to grim grey and cold

The Safari is a not a little miffed that April went out with a summery bang and May came in with a back to ‘normal’ grey cold and miserable. Is it too much to ask that we can have two consecutive sunny days once in a while?

We eagerly awaited arriving at R’ouzel Puddle only to find once we got there it was full but empty, however the next ‘new’ puddle had a drinking Woodpigeon, quite likely to be a migrant as we don’t see many in amongst the Central Beach feral Pigeons in fact don’t actually recall when the last one we saw here was or if there even was a last one.

We went straight out onto Patch 2 and well before we’d reached the wall noticed that there were plenty of Swallows zipping through and on the wall itself were two White Wagtails niftily catching flies....so far so good! But that’s about as good as it got :-(  We struggled in the cold easterly breeze for a distant Gannet and couldn’t even find a Sandwich Tern. Best sighting was just as we were turning away to leave – three Manx Shearwaters came cruising by, the closest they’ve been so far this season – excellent! But where was everything else? Up at the northern end of the coast by the sound of it! Fellow Patch 2 sea-watcher SD wasn’t out this morning but had had a coastal warbler-fest near the town centre. Acting on this hint we had a shuffy round the gardens here but only came up with the usual House Sparrows, Starlings, Dunnocks and Blackbirds, perhaps we were a little too late and any dropped migrants had already moved on.

In the morning we had a visit from a school group who attacked the pond with gusto...don’t they always? The cold weather seems to have really slowed down the pond life and little other than snails (four species) was being netted. Eventually techniques improved and front swimming (Corixid) Waterboatmen were being hoiked out. Soon the first 3-spined Stickleback was found...a tiny fry...the few we didn’t manage to remove have bred....aaaarrrrgggghhhhhhh. Larger specimens were brought in too. 

Best find was this Whirligig Beetle, a species we don’t see too often in our pond due to its remoteness from other ponds.

We were back out on the wall at lunchtime where again it was hard work on the fallen tide.

Plenty of gulls and Oystercatchers on the beach beyond our southern boundary but not a lot on our beach at all! We counted a distant line of 39 Cormorants roosting on the beach and found a handful more fishing in the water. Still no Sandwich Terns though! We spotted an adult gull flying along the waters edge which caught and held our attention, long wings, little inner primary window, masses of white against a narrow black crescent on the wing tip and a definite ‘double bellied ‘look to its underparts. It cruised back and forth a couple of times but was never near enough for a proper ID....oh for one of those scopes with an integrated camera/video. We didn’t nail the ID due  to an adult Little Gull passing the opposite way behind it which we followed for a couple of seconds but do so we lost the more ‘interesting’ one in the melee of gulls on the beach.

At last we heard a Sandwich Tern; two in fact, where they had sprung from is anyone’s guess, roosting on the beach perhaps. Two Sanderlings were found scampering around amongst the gulls.

A few Swallows hawked along the sea wall to our left then we sort of heard a noise behind us, turned round and came face to face with a 100mph Swift (169, 71) – crikey it nearly took our head off!

An errand saw us nip out and at the corner of the garden a small bird with a lot of white in the wing dropped from on high in to the bushes in the corner of the garden – didn’t get a good look at it as we drove past....leucistic House Sparrow? Not noticed one here but that doesn’t mean to say there isn’t one (or more) knockin about; Chaffinch? Rare as Rockin Horse doo-doo here...or something even more unusual? We didn’t get a chance to look on our return so we’ll never know but like the ‘Blackbird’ in the R’ouzel Puddle we’ll be keeping an eye out for leucistic House Sparrows from now on.

And finally here’s a pic of an alien-looking life form from the beach taken at low tide yesterday by our marine biologist friend. A Sabellaria worm poking out of its burrow, probably one of the most important animals on our stretch of coast due to its reef building abilities.

Where to next? More of the same but will it be third time lucky this week and we hit a bit of decent seabird passage...or better still that odd-ball gull will be stood on the wall 20 feet (7m) away doing a full hat n cane routine for the camera.

In the meantime let us know what’s diving into the bushes in your outback.

Fun in the sun...well nearly!

The  Safari could have gone to twitch the 'Herring/Glaucous Gull hybrid thing' (aka Viking Gull) this morning had we looked at the Fylde Bird Club's website late last night or early this morning but we didn't but opted for a full morning at the nature reserve with thoughts of all manner of spring migrants.

All was remarkably quite again with just the regular Blackcaps, Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers proving spring, or at least a bit of it has actually arrived. A Grasshopper Warbler fired up just as we were passing but it was reeling from deep in cover and so well out of  view.

Along the track we could see a gaggle of birders hanging around in a likely looking spot so we made our way to join them and eventually heard the rattle of the Lesser Whitethroat (165,85). It was some time before it showed itself giving fleeting titillating glimpses deep in the bushes and half a glance as it flew from one bush to the next. It did briefly sit out on the sunny side of a Hawthorn bush but within a second or so darted back in.

Another birder came round and told us he'd had a white Wagtail and a few Wheatears in the recently ploughed field. Before going down that way we decided to have a shuffy from the adjacent hide and see if we could see the Cetti's Warbler - We did and saw it well, but it didn't show well enough for long enough for a pic - ear-splittingly loud when it sings close by tho! A distant Buzzard soared around briefly and a bit of cloud cover brought in three Sand Martins that shot through southwards - going home - had enough?

A small number of Swallows jinked northwards throughout the morning but no House Martins were seen. 

Moving round to the SE corner we soon found the Wheatears and White Wagtail, not the world's best pics of either! You can just about make out the clean white flanks showing it is a White and not a Pied Wagtail. 5 Wheatears were counted in the end, not a bad total for the site.

Whilst watching the wagtail a Reed Warbler was singing behind us, one of three we heard this morning.

We stopped at the duck feeding area and once again there was little interest in the five loaves that were scattered over the floor. We were able to get a couple of nice close up pics of this female Mallard, prefer the one with the water apart from that stone right above her bill.

The pair of Tufted Ducks were a little closer today too but once again the female was camera-shy! Good hair from him though - remind you of anyone?

Just one Black Headed Gull came in to investigate the copious amounts of flour-based chum - we're not so happy with the results today - too much sun has blown the whites - or we don't know how to control the white balance on the camera.
Seems to have lost its head...careless...

A couple of hundred yards further  o is a wildflower area we started nearly 20 years ago with a couple of donated bags of Snake's Head Fritillaries and a handful of rescued Cowslips - it's looking good now and judging by the big patches of Meadow Cranesbill and Agrimony is going to be a colourful show most of the summer.

Another double loud Cetti's Warbler was heard here.

Frank was getting tired by now, we'd been out over three hours, so we headed straight back to the Solihull Special not stopping at the Feeding Station on the way. Along the path past the the hide the warm sun had brought out a few butterflies including this nectaring Peacock. Dandelions are such a good resource for the spring insects its a shame that so many get mown off in the name of 'tidiness'. (Tidiness' is also mentioned on Pg 264 of this month's British Wildlife  magazine)

Little stunners!!! If they weren't so familiar they be really exotic!

Also seen were our first dancing Speckled Woods of the year - also mentioned in British Wildlife is the stalled northward expansion of Marbled White - come on guys get a shimmy on!!!

British Wildlife also has snippets covering Nature Deficit Disorder - one of our hobby-horses...bring back the nature table in schools and back it up with a  proper syllabus on the curriculum from Reception to GCSE! And Juniper restoration in Scotland, maybe if the heather moors weren't burnt so often for the benefit of a few toffs Juniper in England too might stand a better chance of coming  back from the brink...might alsso help with flood attenuation, carbon sequestration as well as much improved biodiversity...can't have that when there's Red Grouse to be shot by the thousand can we?

Where to next? A newting we will go, a newting we will go, hey-ho the merry-o a newting we will go.

In the meantime let us know what's fluttering around in your outback.