Friday 13th

The Safari’s notes from yesterday we didn’t get to post...

Our trip to work on Thursday morning was somewhat ruined by the heap of soil placed in R’Ouzel Puddle – someone has sussed it shouldn’t be a wetland and is doing their best to turn it back into amenity grassland.

Things weren’t going well that morning. All we could get on Patch 2 was 49 adult Black Headed Gulls with a single juvenile, not a great ratio. Having said that we seem to remember there was a dearth of juveniles on the beach last year but other inland sites locally had reasonable numbers – we’ll have to see how this year matches up. The only other sighting of any note was of about two dozen Common Scoters bobbing around on the chop to the south.

Not long before we’d got to the seawall SD had seen two Little Egrets and two Arctic Skuas go past, we’re still waiting four first Patch 2 Little Egret. Shortly after we’d left disillusioned with the lack of birds/mammals/anything news broke of a Marsh Harrier over the airport which is only a couple of hundred yards away as the harrier flies...probably not our day then!

World Population Day was 11^th July and there are now nearly 7 billion of us, way more than twice as many of us than we first saw daylight on this beautiful planet.

From here

The Green Revolution

In the 1950s and 1960s, agriculture underwent a drastic transformation commonly referred to as the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution resulted in the industrialization of agriculture. Part of the advance resulted from new hybrid food plants, leading to more productive food crops. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%.⁴ That is a tremendous increase in the amount of food energy available for human consumption. This additional energy did not come from an increase in incipient sunlight, nor did it result from introducing agriculture to new vistas of land. The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon fueled irrigation.

The Green Revolution increased the energy flow to agriculture by an average of 50 times the energy input of traditional agriculture.⁵ In the most extreme cases, energy consumption by agriculture has increased 100 fold or more.⁶

In the United States, 400 gallons of oil equivalents are expended annually to feed each American (as of data provided in 1994). So it’s probably more now!

Three Choices

Considering the utter necessity of population reduction, there are three obvious choices awaiting us.

We can-as a society-become aware of our dilemma and consciously make the choice not to add more people to our population. This would be the most welcome of our three options, to choose consciously and with free will to responsibly lower our population. However, this flies in the face of our biological imperative to procreate. It is further complicated by the ability of modern medicine to extend our longevity, and by the refusal of the Religious Right to consider issues of population management. Though this is probably our best choice, it is the option least likely to be chosen.

Failing to responsibly lower our population, we can force population cuts through government regulations. Is there any need to mention how distasteful this option would be? How many of us would choose to live in a world of forced sterilization and population quotas enforced under penalty of law? How easily might this lead to a culling of the population utilizing principles of eugenics?

This leaves the third choice, which itself presents an unspeakable picture of suffering and death. Should we fail to acknowledge this coming crisis and determine to deal with it, we will be faced with a die-off from which civilization may very possibly never revive. We will very likely lose more than the numbers necessary for sustainability. Under a die-off scenario, conditions will deteriorate so badly that the surviving human population would be a negligible fraction of the present population. And those survivors would suffer from the trauma of living through the death of their civilization, their neighbors, their friends and their families. Those survivors will have seen their world crushed into nothing.

The questions we must ask ourselves now are, how can we allow this to happen, and what can we do to prevent it? Does our present lifestyle mean so much to us that we would subject ourselves and our children to this fast approaching tragedy simply for a few more years of conspicuous consumption?

May be not quite right in view of a recent assessment of the current available oil reserves. As the price has risen and technology developed the harder to get at reserves are now within grasp...we know the cost but what’s the price?

 Have a blimp here – don’t expect you to read all 891 comments!

Scary times ahead or doom-mongering?

Can we keep adding more humans to the planet ad-infinitum? Sooner or later carrying capacity will be exceeded and you only have to look at the fate of millions of lemmings to see what happens then...and no they don’t all throw themselves off cliffs in a hopeless waste.

On a lighter note we’ve taken some pics of our wildflower areas at work that most people call weeds.

The flower beds are being monitored for their wildflowers. You may recognise some of them as ‘weeds’. But what is a weed; and who decides?

In nature bare soil is a scarce commodity, being ‘made’ by animals such as pigs grubbing up areas, tree falls allowing light to otherwise shaded areas or lifting the root plate, landslips etc and these provide a rare opportunity for plants to take advantage of.

In these beds we are leaving the Thistles, Dandelions, Fat Hen and other ‘ephemerals’ to see how the species composition changes through time. Ephemerals are those plants which can successfully seed into bare soil often having thousands of seeds that blow on the wind as many will land in unsuitable places.

The flowers, leaves and seeds, even the roots, of all these ‘weeds’ are a very valuable resource to our native insects. How many different species of bees are on the Thistle flowers? Dandelion flowers are a very important food source for butterflies many of which are in rapid decline. Most of the ephemeral species are short lived and will eventually be out-competed by perennial wildflowers, some of which have we have planted, such as the Meadow Cranesbill.

Remember ‘untidy’ is not necessarily uncared for or unmanaged...it is what our native wildlife needs. 

Note the ‘tidy’ mown edge to show that it is being maintained.

Not a lot doing today just a couple of gannets offshore along with three neatly spaced Grey Seals and a small flock of resting Common Scoters – then the rain started...again.

Where to next? Hopefully the rain will have passed over and we can get the mothy activated tonight, which could be good if it stays muggy and mild overnight.

In the meantime let us know the carrying capacity of your outback.

Shunshine n showers

The Safari was able to get back to Patch 1 yesterday after work and this time we took the camera, just in case the Tree Bees were about. After a wet and dark thundery morning the sun was now out and it was warm and  sticky...excellent invert-ing conditions.

Our quarry was seen almost immediately but was across a wide expanse of Brambles and point blank refused to come any closer. Nothing for it but to try to get a record shot or two. We leaned against the very prickly shrubbery arm outstretched and pointed the camera in the vague direction of the bee, which was deep in shadow. With the sun over our shoulder we couldn't see the camera's screen so just pressed the shutter and blasted away...not the best results but if you turn your head to the right, squint hard and de-focus your eyes you can just about make out it is a Tree Bee.

The last pic in the sequence shows its big white bottom quite nicely - how these things get airborne must be an aeronautical engineers worst nightmare!

Whilst hoping it would come closer - it didn't - we mooched round snapping away at the other invertebrates around and they were in abundance. We saw our first Meadow Brown of the year, shed loads of bumble bees of various species, solitary bees, a lot of Honey Bees, bee mimicking hover flies, beetles and two dueling Large Skippers, one returning to his look out post after patrolling his territory and seeing off his neighbour.

At the far end of the Bramble thicket we spotted a burnet moth climbing to the top of a grass stem...A lovely fresh Narrow Bordered 5-spot Burnet.

Not a bad half hour session...and we take back some of what we said about the current crop of juvenile females. There were two girls from the local secondary school in the drier pond catching and admiring the tiny Froglets; wonder if they were doinfg it for fun in their own time or as past of a school project - either way they seemed to be having a great time.

No Patch 2 today as we're on a day off. we did have some chores to do and one of those meant we were able to revisit the wildflower meadow at the health centre - here's the view from the bonnet as you park your car...stunning!

One of the biggest threats to this meadow may not be mowing but atmospheric pollution, read somewhere the other day that locally nitrogen deposition from the atmosphere is in the order of 20kg/ha/yr - that's a lot of fertiliser on plants that could really do without it.
This arvo we had another wander down to the Tree Bees and met up with CR. On the way we spotted some gormless nerk, probably the landscape gardener, had trimmed part of the Philadelphus hedge along side the Golden Triangle...nothing wrong with that apart from his done it the day before it was about to burst into flower...what possesses them??? In fact there is no need to ever trim this side anyway, it's only against the field and the wind carves it back in the winter! The white flowers above right of the oval are on the top of the 'inner' hedge and sow what this side should look like right the way down to the ground - surely the most inexperienced landscape technician (won't call them gardeners) can spot and know the significance of flower buds - - numpty!!! Wouldn't let them loose with scissors never mind power tools!

Also seen on the way round was the Peregrine sat on the tower, no long lens with us today and it was a bit dull. we took a series of pics and by the time we'd stood there a few minutes he was clocking us

Then we got all arty when we saw the lovely pinks of the Sycamore seeds alongside the path.

The Butterfly Zone was busy. Loads of Large Skippers, several very mobile Meadow Browns, a Holly Blue, a  Red Admiral and a Large White. We had our first Silver Y moth of the year and shed loads of these tiny Straw Dots.

Tried something a bit different with one particular Large Skipper.

The bees weren't so numerous as yesterday and we only 'may' have had a brief view of our intended quarry. We did see a huge queen Garden Bumble Bee (Bombus hortorum) and a chunky queen Red Tailed Bumble Bee but nothing big  with a gingery thorax.
A few hoverfliees were about including both forms of the Volucella sp which mimics white and red tailed bumble bees. This one is Chrysotoxum festivum.

Still no Tree Bees but we did bump into a confiding Magpie.

Cloudy spells allowed a closer approach to the Large Skippers but still not the Meadow Browns.

A very fresh Small Tortoiseshell was also seen, almost not seen was Serengeti Frank! Where's those Wildebeest Frank?

A Dog Rose was just itching to be photographed - did anyone else make itching powder out of the hips many years ago when H & S in schools didn't exist.

Where to next? A breezy night might make an earlyish start on the Prom an option.

In the meantime let us know what was doing its best to avoid you in your outback.

Exploring Bispham beach and cliffs

The safari had an very pleasant morning at the seaside. A walk along the cliff top found us studying a patch of 'new' vegetation. The grasslands are registered as a County Biological Heritage Site for their soft cliff grassland vegetation. This patch must have been used a depot for the recent tram track works. The original perennial grassland had been destroyed and in its place was a marvelous patch of wildflowers whose seeds have been waiting in the soil for just such an opportunity to germinate and bloom.

Above is Greater Knapweed, a very scarce plant in the Fylde area. There were a few specimens.
Common Toadflax was quite numerous.

The bee visiting the Borage flowers is Buff Tailed Bumble Bee.

This bee is (I think) a male Red Tailed Bumble Bee - I will check in the field guide and confirm later. It is on Black Knapweed, the much more common of the two Knapweeds in this area. An alternative name for it is Hardheads. They are related to Thistles but do not have spines on the leaves. Both species are visited by bees, butterflies and other nectar seeking insects - as are Thistles which are much more important than their generally held status as 'weeds' suggests.

Below is Birds Foot Trefoil, a common plant of dryish soils and a member of the Pea family. This plant is also known as Eggs and Bacon on account of the red flashes of colour (not shown on this late summer photo) on the yellow flowers. Maybe it should be renamed 'Eggs and Tomato Ketchup'! The 'proper' name comes from the shape of the seed pod - which is like a birds foot - and the clover like leaves which have three leaflets - or foils (Latin/French for leaf). This plant is the foodplant of the beautiful Common Blue butterfly's caterpillars and without it there would be no Common Blues. To tell a Common Blue from a Holly Blue have a look at the underside - patterned - Common Blue; silvery blue with a few spots - Holly Blue. Where did you see it? Low over open grassland with wildflowers including Birds Foot Trefoil - Common Blue; High around the trees and shrubs in parks and gardens - Holly Blue - - usually these rules will hold true.

Coming down off the cliff top and on to the beach we started to look in the pools left behind by the tide. Bispham is unusual along Blackpool's beach as it has large area of pebbles mid beach. We soon found this Common (Edible) Whelk and Common Winkle. The hole in the Whelk is probably where an Oystercatcher or Gull has stabbed through it.

A close up look at the 'mouth' of the Whelk reveals there are no teeth - grooves on the upper (thicker) side of the aperture so it is not Dog Whelk. Things with the name 'Dog' were deemed as useless, e.g Dog Whelk is inedible, Dog Rose has no smell, Dog Wood is not a usable wood - Dogfish is an exception.

These two are Baltic Tellins, a very numerous shell on the beach. One is 'right handed' the other 'left handed'.

Above is a Striped Venus shell. Some shells can be aged, like trees, from annual growth rings. I'm not sure if this is one of those species but it looks like it could be. Anyone fancy counting for us?

An Iceland Cyprina shell was counted to be over 400 years old and thus the world oldest known animal when it was dredged from the seabed.

Amongst the gulls was a lovely adult Mediterranean Gull. Not this one, it had started to moult and lost its black head. It did have a large white ring on its right leg which unfortunately we were unable to read. We could quite get close but not close enough, once we were nearly in range it would, infuriatingly, fly another 20 yards or so down the beach.

You've got to admit they are one of the best looking birds in the book!

We also saw 8 Ringed Plovers scampering about on the beach and three Turnstones picking Barnacles off the rocks. The previous day there had been a Grey Seal reported close in shore but today the wind was stronger making the sea much choppier and we couldn't find him.

Turning back to Base Camp the weather looked like it was going to take a turn for the worse but it did give the opportunity for this rather arty shot of the sun catching the fisherman's lines, glinting green, red and silver.

Where to next?....Could be anywhere!

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