The safari was out late on patch 1 with big Frank, no Foxes to frighten tonight but we did hear over the noise of the Illuminations traffic and the rustling of the last leaves on the trees in the breeze was the faint but very obvious 'sseeeepp' of the first Redwing of the winter...they're here...so you're all spared Chapter 2...for now at least.
Where to next? An exciting safari coming up this weekend...more details tomorrow.
In the meantime let us know what's flying around in the darkness in your outback.
Well that was probably my shortest post yet!
Taking you to the best wildlife sites in Lancashire and beyond.
Friday, 9 October 2009
Thursday, 8 October 2009
What A Monster Week!
The safari has nothing to report today so I'll tell you a story wot i rote - what do you think? The brilliant illustrations were drawn by my good friend James . Commission your own brilliantworks from him.
Chapter One
A day at the lake
It was one morning early in the summer holidays and although the weather was warm it was still raining.
Peter and Hannah were playing upstairs, Mum was home doing the laundry... again, Dad was already at work.
Peter was getting impatient with the weather he didn’t fancy spending the whole six weeks of summer indoors. He liked to be outside. “How much longer is this awful rain going to last” he thought. He was getting bored driving his virtual Ferrari F1 around Silverstone for what seemed like the seven hundred and ninth lap. Despite all this practice he still managed to race down Hangar Straight to fast and spin off at Stowe Corner most laps.
Peter was good at computer games but really preferred to be playing outdoors in the open air.
Suddenly Hannah burst into Peter’s room “it’s stopped raining!” she cried, “the sun has come out at last.” Peter had missed this exciting event, as he hadn’t yet opened his curtains. “Let’s ask Mum if we can play out.” Hannah went on.
“Everywhere is still wet,” said Mum, “and stay away from the lake it will be very muddy around the edge, mind you don’t come back filthy dirty like last week. The washing machine nearly spat your clothes back out at me last time” she joked.
Hannah and Peter lived in a house with a little garden, which had a shed, a bit of lawn, a few bushes and a small pond. There were no fish in the pond but every spring frogs and toads appeared from nowhere, or so it seemed. They spent ages watching the tadpoles develop into miniature frogs. Once, last summer, Hannah thought she saw a newt peering out from under the waterweed at them.
She put her hand in to catch it, but no luck; it just vanished.
Eager to get out they dashed to the shed to get their nets and some pots but decided not to take their fishing rods this time.
Peter and Hannah lived on the edge of town and it was only a short walk to open fields, ditches, hedgerows and best of all a lake. Well, not a huge lake but certainly much larger than a big pond. One side was in a field and the cows regularly came down to drink, which was why the edge was so muddy. Over on the far side of the lake there was a small wood whose trees hung out over the water, their branches sweeping down to touch the surface in places and a few trees had toppled in to the lake during past winter storms. This was a great place to fish but you did risk getting your tackle caught in the trees.
Most of the fishermen were grown-ups and they liked to fish by the little reed bed over in the far corner. There were plenty of fish in the lake; Peter and Hannah usually caught small perch,
rudd 
and roach. 
The grown-ups managed to catch bream,
carp,
tench 
and even terrifying looking pike from time to time.
Everyone ‘knew’ the lake was bottomless, although this afternoon, even after all the recent rain, a cow was stood nearly half way across, the water just reaching up to it’s knees.
“Hannah! Keep out of the mud. Mum’ll go bananas,” yelled Peter.
He had started watching the iridescent little damselflies going about their daily business.
There were dazzling blue ones and a few that were brilliant red like elongated rubies flitting gently back and forth between the floating lily leaves and the tall upright reed stalks. Now and then a quiet rattle caught Peter’s attention as a bigger, but equally brightly coloured, dragonfly darted past at breakneck speed. All around him was the hum and murmur of insects on what had become a very hot and sunny afternoon. He tried to catch the dragonflies in his net for a close up view of these fascinating creatures but they were far too fast for him.
“Look at this” Hannah shouted over to Peter. “What is it?” he replied still engrossed with the damselflies. “Tracks in the mud” answered Hannah. “What tracks, has someone had a horse in the field?”
“No, come and look, it’s like a slide!”
Peter and Hannah were familiar with most of the animal tracks to be found around the lake; welly boots and dog prints of all sizes where people had thrown sticks for their pets to fetch and the hoof prints of the cows. Sometimes a pony or horse was in the field, but this set of tracks was different.
“Is it a mink?” asked Peter.
Occasionally the fishermen said they had seen the otter in the early morning 
but Peter and Hannah thought it was much more likely to have been an American mink so near to town.
“No, it’s much much bigger than that, come and see”
Peter got up and ambled over to his sister.
“WHAT made that track?... Why didn’t you say?”
“I did say, you didn’t come”
The track was over a metre wide and had smoothed down the mud in a single slide like stripe, either side were several regularly spaced deep notches. It was as if someone had rowed a large boat, like the kind you see on park lakes, up out of the water turned round and rowed back in again. There were no boot prints to suggest a boat had been launched and no one had ever seen or even heard of a boat being used on the lake. Whatever could have made a track like that?
Peter went nearer to investigate, stepping off the grassy bank. ‘Gloop’. He was in the mud.
“Now look at you. Mum’ll go mad!”
Peter was up to a knee in the mud, his welly vanished in the black ooze. He took another step to try to free himself and his other leg disappeared. As he lost his balance he sat down on the wet surface. His cap slid off his head in to a particularly sloppy puddle.
“Oh Peter, you’re as dirty as Mum told us not to get” cried Hannah.
“It’ll dust off when it dries out” Peter hoped. He didn’t fancy a tongue lashing from Mum and no tea when he got home. After all the pair of them had been warned.
As Peter struggled to his feet he had a brainwave. “These look like flipper marks, the notches to the side, maybe a seal has been here. You know, like the ones we’ve seen at the seaside when we’ve been on holiday.”
“A seal?” replied Hannah “We’re miles from the sea. How is a seal going to find its way here? And even the biggest seals we saw weren’t big enough to make a track that wide.”
“True” thought Peter, some of the seals had been quite big but not that big. “What about a sea-lion? The big male at the zoo is huge; he could make tracks as big as that.”
“No, sea-lions lollop, quite different to the way seals slither along on their bellies, so the track would be very different” answered Hannah. “Something was certainly here last night, but what?”
“I have no idea.” said Peter.
This was a great mystery. A large creature was living in their lake, which no one knew about. How could that be? There was always someone there, the farmer, fishermen, other children playing. Surely someone would have noticed an animal at least as big as one of the cows.
“I know,” said Hannah all of a sudden, “We need a midnight stake out. Do you think Mum and Dad would let us stay out all night?”
“Doubt it.” replied Peter rather crestfallen. He had liked the sound of a stake out. It would be really exciting to stay out all night but realised the chances of them being allowed to be were very, very slim.
Hannah was deep in thought; she was determined to find out what the mystery what this mystery animal was. She knew a lot about animals. She had lots of books and learned about them from the Internet. But she really couldn’t think what animal could have made those bizarre tracks in the mud she was staring at right now.
Curiosity was getting the better of her... she needed to know!
A plan was needed to get them to the lake for an all night watch.
Peter had become fed up thinking about the strange tracks and wandered along the bank looking at the bees visiting the flowers. He noticed that some of them had different coloured tails, red, orange or white and different patterns of black and yellow stripes too. “Wow” he said to himself, “I thought there were only honey bees and bumble bees, what are all these different types?” He was engrossed watching the bees, hoverflies and butterflies on the different flowers. He loved the way the butterflies unrolled their enormously long tongues to sip the nectar deep in the base of the flowers. Lost in his weird and wonderful insect world (The plants had weird and wonderful names too; skullcap,
hardheads,
amphibious bistort
and birds-foot trefoil to name a few) Peter was miles away when a deep voice behind him made him jump up with a start. 
“Sorry young man, I didn’t mean to frighten you.” It was a fisherman. “I saw your net and wanted to know what you’ve been catching, tadpoles?” He had noticed all the mud on Peter’s clothes and assumed he’d been near the water’s edge and fallen in.
“No” said Peter, “I’ve been trying to catch the dragonflies.”
“No luck then?” asked the fisherman.
“No, they’re too quick for me.”
“Ah” said the fisherman, “that’ll be because it’s hot and sunny. You know they’re cold blooded so become more active the hotter the weather gets.
“Yes.” replied Peter.
“So the best time to try to catch them” the fisherman explained “would be in the morning while they are still cool”.
He added “they angle themselves on a reed facing the sun, just like sunbathers, so as to warm up quickly. That’s the time to catch ‘em, still gotta be quick with your net though ‘cos their eyesight is fantastic, much better than ours! They’ll see your net coming almost before you’ve swung it at them! Can see all round too, even right behind themselves.”
“Cor, I’ll try that tomorrow morning. Thanks,” said Peter excitedly.
“See you then” said the fisherman.
By this time Hannah had caught up with Peter and heard their conversation.
“Are you coming back again tomorrow?” she asked.
“Oh no” replied the fisherman, “I’m staying all night. Hope to catch some big tench. My name’s Jim by the way.”
“Tench!” said Peter and Hannah in unison.
“Yeah, there’s some good uns in this lake. I don’t get over this way very often so I’m gonna stay a coupla nights, see if I can get any.”
“We’ve never caught a tench,” said Hannah “Just perch and roach. Are they hard to catch?”
“Not really, but although they like the warm weather they don’t like the bright sunshine so evening and early mornings are best. That’s why I’m stopping overnight. Got my little camping brolly to snooze under.”
He did have a lot of gear with him. A large bag of rods, a huge box on wheels and a rucksack with chairs, pots and pans hanging from it.
Hannah was beginning to get an idea.
“You’re going to stay here all night?” she checked.
“Yes, two, maybe three nights if the fish are biting!”
“Hmm,” thought Hannah “maybe we don’t need to ask if we can stay out all night if Jim is going to be here anyway.” “Peter, lets bring our fishing rods with us tomorrow.”
“OK,” said Peter “but I still want to try to catch one of those dragonflies and get a really good look at it close up.”
It was now nearly teatime. Dad would be home soon, so they set off back across the field and headed for home.
Jim started to set up his camp in the corner of the lake by the reed bed. A good place for tench his experienced eye told him.
“Look at the state of you!” yelled Mum “I told you not to get muddy. Peter you’re black from head to toe, what on earth have you been doing?”
Hannah was cleaner, just, only her socks and trainers were dirty.
“Do you think the laundry does itself?” Mum was in full flight “I’ve got better things to do with my time than clean up after you two!”
“But Mum we saw”... Hannah tried to explain.
“I don’t care if you saw Martians, look at the state of you. Can you not just look without jumping in? Doohh, wait ‘til your father gets home.”
Tea was a quiet affair. Dad could tell Hannah and Peter had been up to something and had earned themselves a telling off from Mum.
“What you been up to today, kids?” he tentatively asked, “Had a good day?”
“We found some”... but before they could tell the story of the mysterious tracks Mum interrupted.
“They found some mud, or rather, a lot of it in Peter’s case. Filthy they were when they came home. Absolutely filthy! They’re not going near that lake tomorrow and that’s that!”
“Oh Mum, we wanted to go fishing tomorrow. There’s a fisherman there who might show us how to catch tench. Can we go... pleeeeeaase?”
Dad saw Mum’s expression. “On one condition, as the weather forecast says it is going to be a nice hot dry day you can go, but... and it is a big BUT... stay away from the mud... promise!”
“Promise,” added Mum hopefully “and be careful who you are speaking to over there!”
By next morning Mum had relented a bit. The day was going to be a hot one, far too nice for children to be indoors messing on their computers or whatever it is children do these days. They would be much better off outside getting fresh air and exercise. She had made a packed lunch ready for Peter and Hannah to go fishing. She didn’t mind them doing that as it kept them out of mischief, as long as they stayed clean.
“Thanks Mum.” said Peter as he grabbed the bag of goodies from the fridge.
Hannah was already in the shed collecting their rods and tackle boxes.
“Do you think Jim will have caught any tench?” asked Hannah, and in a whisper “do you think he saw anything last night?”
“Saw anything? In the pitch dark!” replied peter
“You know, the mystery animal, do you think it came out again?”
Peter had been concentrating on tench fishing and all but forgotten about the mysterious tracks in the mud. Hannah had re-awoken his curiosity.
“Come on, let’s go and find Jim.”
They dashed to the lake.
Running along the bank they saw Jim’s camp in the distance. He was still there just like he said he would be. They also saw that the mystery track was still there although the cows had walked over it during the night. There were no signs of any new mystery tracks.
Jim was boiling up some water on his camping stove for a cup of tea. He smiled broadly when he saw Peter and Hannah and pointed to his keep net.
“You got some then,” said Peter somewhat breathlessly.
“Can we see them?” asked Hannah.
Jim started to gently pull the long net out of the water. “I would have put them straight back, but as you said you would be here this morning I kept them for you to look at.”
In the net were four large tench. Apart from the pike and a few carp Peter and Hannah had seen people catch these were the biggest fish they’d seen from the lake, and certainly the biggest they had seen close up.
“Wow, they’re ugly but beautiful at the same time,” remarked Hannah.
“Now how can that be?” said Jim.
“Look how beautifully shiny green they are, but I don’t like that beady red eye... and all that slime... yuk!”
Jim laughed at Hannah’s explanation.
Peter just stared; he wanted to catch fish this big.
Peter nudged Hannah, “go on ask him,” he half whispered.
“Ask me what?”
“Er... er... did you see anything last night?”
“Like what? It was pretty dark, no moon you see.”
“Like anything... unusual, or... mysterious?”
“Noooo, nothing unusual, like what? Poachers, cattle rustlers, or what?”
“Not people, Jim, an animal of some sort.” said Peter.
“Oh, an animal, ah, now very early this morning just at first light I thought I saw an otter.”
“I don’t like to be rude, but don’t you mean a mink?” asked Hannah, “there aren’t any otters around here; it’s too close to town. We do lots of tracking around this lake and we’ve never seen any otter prints.”
“Ah, tracking eh, that’s a good skill to have, great fun too. Just over there by the reed bed there are some hoof prints, ‘slots’ from a roe deer.
But just because we’re close to town doesn’t mean there aren’t any otters, they can be found along the rivers running through some town centres. They’re so secretive and only come out at night so no one ever sees them and then everyone thinks they’re none there. When you do your tracking do you look for spraint?”
“Spraint? I’ve heard of it but what is it? Asked Peter.
Jim chuckled “It’s the otters ‘calling card’ shall we say... their poo! You can always tell otter spraint, it smells of fish and is full of scales. Usually they deposit it on a prominent rock. It advertises their territory to other otters.”
“Yuk”, thought Hannah, “You have to sniff it?... no way!”
“Anyway kids, enough about imaginary otters, let’s get you tackled up and see if we can’t get you in to some real tench.”
Jim helped Peter set his rod up and left him fishing while he did the same for Hannah.
“I thought you said they didn’t like sunshine. Will we catch any this morning, it’s getting quite hot?”
“Well you never know your luck with fishing, we’ll see”
Hannah’s swim was not far from the mysterious tracks in the mud.
“Why did you ask me if I’d seen anything last night” asked Jim, “were you expecting me to see something?”
“Dunno” replied Hannah and pointed at the tracks. “Look there, that slide mark in the mud, we saw it yesterday and can’t work out what made it.”
“Gee, that’s a big animal that made that; must be a boggart,” joked Jim.
“A boggart? What on earth is one of those?”
“You’ve never heard of boggarts? Most large lakes have one; never seen one myself though, thank God!”
“Why thank God?” Hannah asked nervously.
“Well you see a boggart is an imaginary creature that lives at the bottom of bottomless lakes. They only come out at night to feast on cows or sheep or children even...not that children should be roaming the fields at night.... maybe they did in the old days, eh. If they eat cows I don’t particularly fancy meeting one when I’m out fishing.... Good job they’re only imaginary.... I hope!”
“Well” said Hannah, “whatever made those tracks is certainly real. I can’t imagine an imaginary creature leaving tracks of any sort never mind like those there.”
Jim stroked his chin in thought. “Hmm, those are real enough and I’ve no idea what could have made them. Certainly too big for the otter I saw. And there are definitely no otter footprints either?”
“None” said Hannah, “just those slashes in the mud.”
“Strange” mused Jim, “Enough of boggarts, let’s see if we can catch you some fish.”
The day was getting hotter and hotter. Peter had given up fishing for tench and changed his bait from sweet corn to a worm and was happily catching small perch. Hannah persevered with the corn and had plenty of bubbles around her float. Bubbles, which Jim explained weren’t the ‘needle’ bubbles tench usually make, but could have been from a carp. Never the less she had no bites all day.
Eventually it was time to pack up and go home.
“Are you staying all night again tonight?” Peter asked.
“Yes, sure, after last night’s fish I’m going to see if I can get a few more, maybe bigger ones. Will you two be here again tomorrow? See if you can get here early, that’s the best time for the tench.”
“We’ll ask Mum” replied Hannah, “and mind the boggart tonight!”
“What’s a boggart?” asked Peter.
Hannah smiled and ‘made like a monster’, “ggrrr”, at Peter.
Mum was very relieved to see how clean they were today. She hoped it was a sign of things to come for the rest of the holiday.
At the dinner table Dad asked how the fishing trip had gone. He heard tales of giant tench, plenty of tiddlers, boggarts and the mystery tracks. None of it really sunk in but he did suggest he get the tent out at the weekend and he would stay with the children overnight to help them catch their big green monsters with the beady red eyes.
“Ah, great, thanks Dad!”
Well that's the end of chapter one - what do you think, any good? If so do you know any good publishers?
Where to next? If Blackpool's amazing wildlife doesn't put on a show again tomorrow you might be saddled with Chapter two!
In the meantime let us know what, if anything, is worth writing about in your outback.
I've nicked some of the pics from Google images. Apologies to all those people who have had the opportunity to take pics of stuff I haven't.
The story is called What a Monster Week!
Chapter OneA day at the lake
It was one morning early in the summer holidays and although the weather was warm it was still raining.
Peter and Hannah were playing upstairs, Mum was home doing the laundry... again, Dad was already at work.
Peter was getting impatient with the weather he didn’t fancy spending the whole six weeks of summer indoors. He liked to be outside. “How much longer is this awful rain going to last” he thought. He was getting bored driving his virtual Ferrari F1 around Silverstone for what seemed like the seven hundred and ninth lap. Despite all this practice he still managed to race down Hangar Straight to fast and spin off at Stowe Corner most laps.
Peter was good at computer games but really preferred to be playing outdoors in the open air.Suddenly Hannah burst into Peter’s room “it’s stopped raining!” she cried, “the sun has come out at last.” Peter had missed this exciting event, as he hadn’t yet opened his curtains. “Let’s ask Mum if we can play out.” Hannah went on.
“Everywhere is still wet,” said Mum, “and stay away from the lake it will be very muddy around the edge, mind you don’t come back filthy dirty like last week. The washing machine nearly spat your clothes back out at me last time” she joked.
Hannah and Peter lived in a house with a little garden, which had a shed, a bit of lawn, a few bushes and a small pond. There were no fish in the pond but every spring frogs and toads appeared from nowhere, or so it seemed. They spent ages watching the tadpoles develop into miniature frogs. Once, last summer, Hannah thought she saw a newt peering out from under the waterweed at them.
She put her hand in to catch it, but no luck; it just vanished.Eager to get out they dashed to the shed to get their nets and some pots but decided not to take their fishing rods this time.
Peter and Hannah lived on the edge of town and it was only a short walk to open fields, ditches, hedgerows and best of all a lake. Well, not a huge lake but certainly much larger than a big pond. One side was in a field and the cows regularly came down to drink, which was why the edge was so muddy. Over on the far side of the lake there was a small wood whose trees hung out over the water, their branches sweeping down to touch the surface in places and a few trees had toppled in to the lake during past winter storms. This was a great place to fish but you did risk getting your tackle caught in the trees.
Most of the fishermen were grown-ups and they liked to fish by the little reed bed over in the far corner. There were plenty of fish in the lake; Peter and Hannah usually caught small perch,
rudd and roach. The grown-ups managed to catch bream, carp,tench and even terrifying looking pike from time to time.Everyone ‘knew’ the lake was bottomless, although this afternoon, even after all the recent rain, a cow was stood nearly half way across, the water just reaching up to it’s knees.
“Hannah! Keep out of the mud. Mum’ll go bananas,” yelled Peter.
He had started watching the iridescent little damselflies going about their daily business.
There were dazzling blue ones and a few that were brilliant red like elongated rubies flitting gently back and forth between the floating lily leaves and the tall upright reed stalks. Now and then a quiet rattle caught Peter’s attention as a bigger, but equally brightly coloured, dragonfly darted past at breakneck speed. All around him was the hum and murmur of insects on what had become a very hot and sunny afternoon. He tried to catch the dragonflies in his net for a close up view of these fascinating creatures but they were far too fast for him. “Look at this” Hannah shouted over to Peter. “What is it?” he replied still engrossed with the damselflies. “Tracks in the mud” answered Hannah. “What tracks, has someone had a horse in the field?”“No, come and look, it’s like a slide!”
Peter and Hannah were familiar with most of the animal tracks to be found around the lake; welly boots and dog prints of all sizes where people had thrown sticks for their pets to fetch and the hoof prints of the cows. Sometimes a pony or horse was in the field, but this set of tracks was different.
“Is it a mink?” asked Peter.
Occasionally the fishermen said they had seen the otter in the early morning but Peter and Hannah thought it was much more likely to have been an American mink so near to town.“No, it’s much much bigger than that, come and see”
Peter got up and ambled over to his sister.
“WHAT made that track?... Why didn’t you say?”
“I did say, you didn’t come”
The track was over a metre wide and had smoothed down the mud in a single slide like stripe, either side were several regularly spaced deep notches. It was as if someone had rowed a large boat, like the kind you see on park lakes, up out of the water turned round and rowed back in again. There were no boot prints to suggest a boat had been launched and no one had ever seen or even heard of a boat being used on the lake. Whatever could have made a track like that?
Peter went nearer to investigate, stepping off the grassy bank. ‘Gloop’. He was in the mud.
“Now look at you. Mum’ll go mad!”
Peter was up to a knee in the mud, his welly vanished in the black ooze. He took another step to try to free himself and his other leg disappeared. As he lost his balance he sat down on the wet surface. His cap slid off his head in to a particularly sloppy puddle.
“Oh Peter, you’re as dirty as Mum told us not to get” cried Hannah.
“It’ll dust off when it dries out” Peter hoped. He didn’t fancy a tongue lashing from Mum and no tea when he got home. After all the pair of them had been warned.
As Peter struggled to his feet he had a brainwave. “These look like flipper marks, the notches to the side, maybe a seal has been here. You know, like the ones we’ve seen at the seaside when we’ve been on holiday.”
“A seal?” replied Hannah “We’re miles from the sea. How is a seal going to find its way here? And even the biggest seals we saw weren’t big enough to make a track that wide.”
“True” thought Peter, some of the seals had been quite big but not that big. “What about a sea-lion? The big male at the zoo is huge; he could make tracks as big as that.”
“No, sea-lions lollop, quite different to the way seals slither along on their bellies, so the track would be very different” answered Hannah. “Something was certainly here last night, but what?”
“I have no idea.” said Peter.
This was a great mystery. A large creature was living in their lake, which no one knew about. How could that be? There was always someone there, the farmer, fishermen, other children playing. Surely someone would have noticed an animal at least as big as one of the cows.
“I know,” said Hannah all of a sudden, “We need a midnight stake out. Do you think Mum and Dad would let us stay out all night?”
“Doubt it.” replied Peter rather crestfallen. He had liked the sound of a stake out. It would be really exciting to stay out all night but realised the chances of them being allowed to be were very, very slim.
Hannah was deep in thought; she was determined to find out what the mystery what this mystery animal was. She knew a lot about animals. She had lots of books and learned about them from the Internet. But she really couldn’t think what animal could have made those bizarre tracks in the mud she was staring at right now.
Curiosity was getting the better of her... she needed to know!
A plan was needed to get them to the lake for an all night watch.
Peter had become fed up thinking about the strange tracks and wandered along the bank looking at the bees visiting the flowers. He noticed that some of them had different coloured tails, red, orange or white and different patterns of black and yellow stripes too. “Wow” he said to himself, “I thought there were only honey bees and bumble bees, what are all these different types?” He was engrossed watching the bees, hoverflies and butterflies on the different flowers. He loved the way the butterflies unrolled their enormously long tongues to sip the nectar deep in the base of the flowers. Lost in his weird and wonderful insect world (The plants had weird and wonderful names too; skullcap,
hardheads, amphibious bistortand birds-foot trefoil to name a few) Peter was miles away when a deep voice behind him made him jump up with a start. “Sorry young man, I didn’t mean to frighten you.” It was a fisherman. “I saw your net and wanted to know what you’ve been catching, tadpoles?” He had noticed all the mud on Peter’s clothes and assumed he’d been near the water’s edge and fallen in.“No” said Peter, “I’ve been trying to catch the dragonflies.”
“No luck then?” asked the fisherman.
“No, they’re too quick for me.”
“Ah” said the fisherman, “that’ll be because it’s hot and sunny. You know they’re cold blooded so become more active the hotter the weather gets.
“Yes.” replied Peter.
“So the best time to try to catch them” the fisherman explained “would be in the morning while they are still cool”.
He added “they angle themselves on a reed facing the sun, just like sunbathers, so as to warm up quickly. That’s the time to catch ‘em, still gotta be quick with your net though ‘cos their eyesight is fantastic, much better than ours! They’ll see your net coming almost before you’ve swung it at them! Can see all round too, even right behind themselves.”
“Cor, I’ll try that tomorrow morning. Thanks,” said Peter excitedly.
“See you then” said the fisherman.
By this time Hannah had caught up with Peter and heard their conversation.
“Are you coming back again tomorrow?” she asked.
“Oh no” replied the fisherman, “I’m staying all night. Hope to catch some big tench. My name’s Jim by the way.”
“Tench!” said Peter and Hannah in unison.
“Yeah, there’s some good uns in this lake. I don’t get over this way very often so I’m gonna stay a coupla nights, see if I can get any.”
“We’ve never caught a tench,” said Hannah “Just perch and roach. Are they hard to catch?”
“Not really, but although they like the warm weather they don’t like the bright sunshine so evening and early mornings are best. That’s why I’m stopping overnight. Got my little camping brolly to snooze under.”
He did have a lot of gear with him. A large bag of rods, a huge box on wheels and a rucksack with chairs, pots and pans hanging from it.
Hannah was beginning to get an idea.
“You’re going to stay here all night?” she checked.
“Yes, two, maybe three nights if the fish are biting!”
“Hmm,” thought Hannah “maybe we don’t need to ask if we can stay out all night if Jim is going to be here anyway.” “Peter, lets bring our fishing rods with us tomorrow.”
“OK,” said Peter “but I still want to try to catch one of those dragonflies and get a really good look at it close up.”
It was now nearly teatime. Dad would be home soon, so they set off back across the field and headed for home.
Jim started to set up his camp in the corner of the lake by the reed bed. A good place for tench his experienced eye told him.
“Look at the state of you!” yelled Mum “I told you not to get muddy. Peter you’re black from head to toe, what on earth have you been doing?”
Hannah was cleaner, just, only her socks and trainers were dirty.
“Do you think the laundry does itself?” Mum was in full flight “I’ve got better things to do with my time than clean up after you two!”
“But Mum we saw”... Hannah tried to explain.
“I don’t care if you saw Martians, look at the state of you. Can you not just look without jumping in? Doohh, wait ‘til your father gets home.”
Tea was a quiet affair. Dad could tell Hannah and Peter had been up to something and had earned themselves a telling off from Mum.
“What you been up to today, kids?” he tentatively asked, “Had a good day?”
“We found some”... but before they could tell the story of the mysterious tracks Mum interrupted.
“They found some mud, or rather, a lot of it in Peter’s case. Filthy they were when they came home. Absolutely filthy! They’re not going near that lake tomorrow and that’s that!”
“Oh Mum, we wanted to go fishing tomorrow. There’s a fisherman there who might show us how to catch tench. Can we go... pleeeeeaase?”
Dad saw Mum’s expression. “On one condition, as the weather forecast says it is going to be a nice hot dry day you can go, but... and it is a big BUT... stay away from the mud... promise!”
“Promise,” added Mum hopefully “and be careful who you are speaking to over there!”
By next morning Mum had relented a bit. The day was going to be a hot one, far too nice for children to be indoors messing on their computers or whatever it is children do these days. They would be much better off outside getting fresh air and exercise. She had made a packed lunch ready for Peter and Hannah to go fishing. She didn’t mind them doing that as it kept them out of mischief, as long as they stayed clean.
“Thanks Mum.” said Peter as he grabbed the bag of goodies from the fridge.
Hannah was already in the shed collecting their rods and tackle boxes.
“Do you think Jim will have caught any tench?” asked Hannah, and in a whisper “do you think he saw anything last night?”
“Saw anything? In the pitch dark!” replied peter
“You know, the mystery animal, do you think it came out again?”
Peter had been concentrating on tench fishing and all but forgotten about the mysterious tracks in the mud. Hannah had re-awoken his curiosity.
“Come on, let’s go and find Jim.”
They dashed to the lake.
Running along the bank they saw Jim’s camp in the distance. He was still there just like he said he would be. They also saw that the mystery track was still there although the cows had walked over it during the night. There were no signs of any new mystery tracks.
Jim was boiling up some water on his camping stove for a cup of tea. He smiled broadly when he saw Peter and Hannah and pointed to his keep net.
“You got some then,” said Peter somewhat breathlessly.
“Can we see them?” asked Hannah.
Jim started to gently pull the long net out of the water. “I would have put them straight back, but as you said you would be here this morning I kept them for you to look at.”
In the net were four large tench. Apart from the pike and a few carp Peter and Hannah had seen people catch these were the biggest fish they’d seen from the lake, and certainly the biggest they had seen close up.
“Wow, they’re ugly but beautiful at the same time,” remarked Hannah.
“Now how can that be?” said Jim.
“Look how beautifully shiny green they are, but I don’t like that beady red eye... and all that slime... yuk!”
Jim laughed at Hannah’s explanation.
Peter just stared; he wanted to catch fish this big.
Peter nudged Hannah, “go on ask him,” he half whispered.
“Ask me what?”
“Er... er... did you see anything last night?”
“Like what? It was pretty dark, no moon you see.”
“Like anything... unusual, or... mysterious?”
“Noooo, nothing unusual, like what? Poachers, cattle rustlers, or what?”
“Not people, Jim, an animal of some sort.” said Peter.
“Oh, an animal, ah, now very early this morning just at first light I thought I saw an otter.”
“I don’t like to be rude, but don’t you mean a mink?” asked Hannah, “there aren’t any otters around here; it’s too close to town. We do lots of tracking around this lake and we’ve never seen any otter prints.”
“Ah, tracking eh, that’s a good skill to have, great fun too. Just over there by the reed bed there are some hoof prints, ‘slots’ from a roe deer.
But just because we’re close to town doesn’t mean there aren’t any otters, they can be found along the rivers running through some town centres. They’re so secretive and only come out at night so no one ever sees them and then everyone thinks they’re none there. When you do your tracking do you look for spraint?”“Spraint? I’ve heard of it but what is it? Asked Peter.
Jim chuckled “It’s the otters ‘calling card’ shall we say... their poo! You can always tell otter spraint, it smells of fish and is full of scales. Usually they deposit it on a prominent rock. It advertises their territory to other otters.”
“Yuk”, thought Hannah, “You have to sniff it?... no way!”
“Anyway kids, enough about imaginary otters, let’s get you tackled up and see if we can’t get you in to some real tench.”
Jim helped Peter set his rod up and left him fishing while he did the same for Hannah.
“I thought you said they didn’t like sunshine. Will we catch any this morning, it’s getting quite hot?”
“Well you never know your luck with fishing, we’ll see”
Hannah’s swim was not far from the mysterious tracks in the mud.
“Why did you ask me if I’d seen anything last night” asked Jim, “were you expecting me to see something?”
“Dunno” replied Hannah and pointed at the tracks. “Look there, that slide mark in the mud, we saw it yesterday and can’t work out what made it.”
“Gee, that’s a big animal that made that; must be a boggart,” joked Jim.
“A boggart? What on earth is one of those?”
“You’ve never heard of boggarts? Most large lakes have one; never seen one myself though, thank God!”
“Why thank God?” Hannah asked nervously.
“Well you see a boggart is an imaginary creature that lives at the bottom of bottomless lakes. They only come out at night to feast on cows or sheep or children even...not that children should be roaming the fields at night.... maybe they did in the old days, eh. If they eat cows I don’t particularly fancy meeting one when I’m out fishing.... Good job they’re only imaginary.... I hope!”
“Well” said Hannah, “whatever made those tracks is certainly real. I can’t imagine an imaginary creature leaving tracks of any sort never mind like those there.”
Jim stroked his chin in thought. “Hmm, those are real enough and I’ve no idea what could have made them. Certainly too big for the otter I saw. And there are definitely no otter footprints either?”
“None” said Hannah, “just those slashes in the mud.”
“Strange” mused Jim, “Enough of boggarts, let’s see if we can catch you some fish.”
The day was getting hotter and hotter. Peter had given up fishing for tench and changed his bait from sweet corn to a worm and was happily catching small perch. Hannah persevered with the corn and had plenty of bubbles around her float. Bubbles, which Jim explained weren’t the ‘needle’ bubbles tench usually make, but could have been from a carp. Never the less she had no bites all day.
Eventually it was time to pack up and go home.
“Are you staying all night again tonight?” Peter asked.
“Yes, sure, after last night’s fish I’m going to see if I can get a few more, maybe bigger ones. Will you two be here again tomorrow? See if you can get here early, that’s the best time for the tench.”
“We’ll ask Mum” replied Hannah, “and mind the boggart tonight!”
“What’s a boggart?” asked Peter.
Hannah smiled and ‘made like a monster’, “ggrrr”, at Peter.
Mum was very relieved to see how clean they were today. She hoped it was a sign of things to come for the rest of the holiday.
At the dinner table Dad asked how the fishing trip had gone. He heard tales of giant tench, plenty of tiddlers, boggarts and the mystery tracks. None of it really sunk in but he did suggest he get the tent out at the weekend and he would stay with the children overnight to help them catch their big green monsters with the beady red eyes.
“Ah, great, thanks Dad!”
Well that's the end of chapter one - what do you think, any good? If so do you know any good publishers?
Where to next? If Blackpool's amazing wildlife doesn't put on a show again tomorrow you might be saddled with Chapter two!
In the meantime let us know what, if anything, is worth writing about in your outback.
I've nicked some of the pics from Google images. Apologies to all those people who have had the opportunity to take pics of stuff I haven't.
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Clear Skies
The safari experienced a beautiful dawn this morning with ICE! The first week of October isn’t over yet and we get the first frosty morning. Crispy long grass on Patch 1 and an hour later the screen demister on the Land Rover was required. Brrrrr! It’s a long time since I’ve been out and my cheeks and ears have been tingling from the cold. A taste of things to come…
Orion was over the southern horizon, his starry belt twinkling below the waning moon. Venus was shining bright and strong in the east above the distant hills, Beacon Fell, Parlick, Wolf Fell and ‘Mount Fuji’ which were crisply silhouetted in the cold dawn air by the steadily glowing light of the early morning sky. Looking westwards towards the sea the sky was a deep, dark midnight blue – that can’t be right ‘midnight’ at 6 o’clock in the morning!
Having waxed lyrical for a few lines what was the wildlife doing at that time of the morning? Nothing! Far too early for the Robins and Blackbirds, not even the Magpies roosting in Magpie Wood had begun to stir.
All was quiet at Patch 2 too. In total contrast to Saturday’s maelstrom the gently lapping swell was struggling to reach the beach this morning. There were a large number of Common Scoters scattered as far as the eye could see in all directions but nothing else except for a single male Eider winging its way south and a lost and lonely Pink Footed Goose flying north, obviously lost his several thousand chums somehow. Out towards the Lake District there was a weird greenish-yellowy fug hanging over the water - so weird that my work colleague who had been out for a pre-work jog mentioned itasking me if i had been out and seen iit and if so what was it? "Yes and no idea", said I.
Nine bait diggers were on the waterline sucking up Lugworms for fun, these new-fangled siphons/pumps whatever they are making it far easier than back- breaking digging with a spade. But they also mean that far more worms are removed – I wonder how sustainable the ‘predation’ rate is and what about the disturbance, to wading birds in particular, of having humans at wandering about regular intervals in their habitat. The gulls don’t seem so bothered.
Lunchtime at Patch 2 was no better. The Scoters are all still there and the odd one out is still hiding in the pack. 9 Sanderlings dodged the incoming tide before heading off to find a dry roosting site. Quality sighting from Patch 2 was a Sea Slater – ohh it was that good.
Orion was over the southern horizon, his starry belt twinkling below the waning moon. Venus was shining bright and strong in the east above the distant hills, Beacon Fell, Parlick, Wolf Fell and ‘Mount Fuji’ which were crisply silhouetted in the cold dawn air by the steadily glowing light of the early morning sky. Looking westwards towards the sea the sky was a deep, dark midnight blue – that can’t be right ‘midnight’ at 6 o’clock in the morning!
Having waxed lyrical for a few lines what was the wildlife doing at that time of the morning? Nothing! Far too early for the Robins and Blackbirds, not even the Magpies roosting in Magpie Wood had begun to stir.
All was quiet at Patch 2 too. In total contrast to Saturday’s maelstrom the gently lapping swell was struggling to reach the beach this morning. There were a large number of Common Scoters scattered as far as the eye could see in all directions but nothing else except for a single male Eider winging its way south and a lost and lonely Pink Footed Goose flying north, obviously lost his several thousand chums somehow. Out towards the Lake District there was a weird greenish-yellowy fug hanging over the water - so weird that my work colleague who had been out for a pre-work jog mentioned itasking me if i had been out and seen iit and if so what was it? "Yes and no idea", said I.
Nine bait diggers were on the waterline sucking up Lugworms for fun, these new-fangled siphons/pumps whatever they are making it far easier than back- breaking digging with a spade. But they also mean that far more worms are removed – I wonder how sustainable the ‘predation’ rate is and what about the disturbance, to wading birds in particular, of having humans at wandering about regular intervals in their habitat. The gulls don’t seem so bothered.
Lunchtime at Patch 2 was no better. The Scoters are all still there and the odd one out is still hiding in the pack. 9 Sanderlings dodged the incoming tide before heading off to find a dry roosting site. Quality sighting from Patch 2 was a Sea Slater – ohh it was that good.
Picture has been ‘stolen’ from my mate so I hope he doesn’t mind me using it here and don’t any one else be using it please.In the gardens at work was a nice flock of 16 Greenfinches feeding on the Rosa rugosa hips, probably migrants stopping to refuel, 3 Robins ticking at each other with the occasional burst of song and a Dunnock. Yes the garden is exciting today!
Where to next? More of the same tomorrow I’m afraid.
In the meantime as it’s the season of ‘all change’ let us know what’s new in your outback.
Monday, 5 October 2009
The safari was out late last night and enjoyed watching two Fox cubs playing on the little field on Patch 1. That was until Frank went "wooooofffff" and frightened them off in to the thicket.
Nothing of note there at first light. Patch 2 was no better but just missed coming across the tragedy of Saturday night by 10 minutes or so. Rule 1 at the seaside: Never but never play chicken with the sea when its in a fearsome rage.
Lunchtime's five minute visit was better with a not too distant Grey Seal bottling on the calm sea. Closer in a flock of seven Eiders had a sneaky outsider, a Common Scoter, lurking furtively in their midst. Further out the sea was totally dotted with Common Scoters. Overhead was a sneaky bonus, a totally unexpected Rock Pipit and no other migration evident, either visible or audible.
Back out onto Patch 1 camera skills were horrendously lacking when a smart little male Sparrowhawk flew over not once but three times! Got the grand total of one shot off which when reviewed on the camera's screen was very, very poor and deleted, what a waste of a perfect opportunity.
The Shaggy Ink Caps were easier the light was fading but the results are OK. didn't have these for supper as they are in the middle of the field an its impossible to tell how many dogs might have peed on them during the day.
This one would be tasty...mmmmmm
Well I wouldn't be chomping in to it would you?
No chance, not eating that!...can't beat a bit of autolysis!
Where to next? Have a guess...Patch 1, Patch 2...anywhere else? I doubt it, not tomorrow.
In the meantime let us know what's digesting itself in your outback.
Sunday, 4 October 2009
What a difference a day makes
Desolation..that's what the safari feels today, absolute desolation. As mentioned had to be back at base camp just after the high tide yesterday...That's when the Leach's fest started with at least a couple of hundred being seen at various vantage points around the bay. Only the dribs and drabs of the vanguard were seen on the rising tide. Some cracking pictures from the south side. Note that one is flying over a Pod Razor shell - these are generally 160 - 170mm long I know this from the competition we held during the summer. While the droves where winging past my vacated watchpoint I was sat here staring at the 'puter screen watching Crystal Palace put goal after goal in Blackpool's net, 4 - 1 at the final whistle...What a wrist slittingly depressing afternoon!
Went to Patch 1 later in the evening and found a Red Admiral struggling against the wind in the sunshine that remarkably appeared from nowhere.
This morning Patch 1 turned up trumps with two Chiffchaffs. If anyone locally was watching Autumnwatch and has decided to send in the record of a singing Chiffchaff as requested please don't - it was me whistling to see if I could get an answer from either of the birds but both only hooeeeet-ed. On the field there were a number of Shaggy Ink Cap (aka Lawyers Wig) fungi. tried one, tasty is as tasty does but someone must have the misguided impression that they are 'obviously' poisonous cos they don't look like the ones in the shops and has mashed them up...dork! Also seen was a small male Sparrowhawk that attacked a Grey Squirrel that was sitting in the middle of a small lawn. Cautiously creeping round the bushes the Squirrel was still in one piece and the Sprog nowhere to be seen...missed! have seen a female Sprog carrying a full grown Rat in the past but never heard of one attacking a Squirrel.
As soon as Patch 1 was done and dusted it was off to Patch 3 to watch the rising tide, standing in exactly the same place as yesterday. An 8.15 start here and the wind was almost none existent compared to yesterday and the sun was warm and shining over my shoulder - good conditions to see anything relocating out of the bay. Anything is better than being wave washed every few minutes for 2 1/2 hours even if it was a little colder!
The light wind also meant some visible migration was going on, or at least audible migration as I didn't actually see most of the 'Alba' type Wagtails, Grey wagtails or any of the Meadow Pipits that went over.Almost straight away on my first northward scan of the sea I picked up a Bonxie headed west...nice one things are gonna be OK, should get a fair few bits and bobs of good stuff including some of those fabled feathery needle in the watery haystack jobbies.
A big blue boat came in to Heysham around 09.00 must check if they picked up anything following it in.
A Lesser Black Backed Gull found me a male Eider, always handy to follow any gulls that look as if they are on a mission as they could have spotted something and are going for a closer look.Three Sanderling flew south - it was turning out to be not so as exciting as it promised.
By 10.00 I was beginning to struggle.
By 10.00 I was beginning to struggle.
An Auk of some species or other sped south, not heavy enough in the front end to be the disappeared Tufted Puffin. A Red Throated Diver wasn't far behind it and a Kittiwake pitched in amongst a small flock of Common Scoters...improving...hmmm might stay another hour.Plenty of Scoters out there probably around 750 - 1000 although they were very settled and not so many were flying about. Of those none were revealed as the elusive Velvet Scoter. Scoters are tough little cookies sitting it out in the huge seas yesterday and plenty more to come, no doubt, this winter.
Talking of huge seas - someone jumped, fell or was washing in last night. The Police were out looking for the body.
I didn't see any corpses floating past below me, I have in the past. Sometimes people get brave when full of Blackpool spirit and think they are King Knut (not Canute as the Victorians renamed him cos Knut didn't sound English enough for them). But they end up being smashed up on the sea wall in weather like that and body parts get broken off - not pretty. Any way back to Knut - I might have told this before but revision is no bad thing - he didn't try to stop the tide he was proving to his fawning courtiers that he wasn't the demi-god they were making him out to be and he had no power over the sea. All this happened just over the river to the north at Knott-End, allegedly...some think it may have been somewhere on the Wirral but nowhere there sounds as much like Knut as Knott-End does. where ever it was Knut was a top guy. He even gave his name to one of most numerous wading birds; the Knot.On with today's news...they hadn't found him by the time I left. He could have been a her I didn't hear a news bulletin and was getting a secondhand tale from a mate who passed by having a Sunday morning walk.
A Mediterranean Gull is always a good find and very scarce along this bit of the coast. Unfortunately this Pigeon really looks like one when you catch it in the corner of your eye as it flies round the cliffs looking for crumbs. The you go "dooohhhh that bl***dy Pigeon!"
Not much else happened before heading back up and over the hill to Base Camp at 11.30, just half an hour before high tide.
Full - disappointing - listAlba Wagtail - 2
Grey Wagtail - 4 inc one that seemed to come 'in off'
Meadow Pipit - 3
Bonxie - 1
Eider - 2 males
Sanderling - 3
Auk sp - 2
Guillemot - 1
Razorbill - 1
Red Throated Diver - 3
Kittiwake - 1
Common Scoter - c.1000
Dunnock - 1 in the scap of garden on the cliff top.
Mediterranean Pigeon - 1
Could have been so much better. Really hope there'll be another blow soon don't want to have missed the little storm blown waifs for the year.
Where to next next? Back to Patch 2 for a quick look tomorrow morning.
In the meantime let us know what's the best thing in your outback.
Saturday, 3 October 2009
Exhilarating!
Exhilarating and dramatic but no birds! The safari spent nearly 2 1/2 hours over the high tide getting drenched and being deafened by the roar of the wind and surf for very, very little - in fact only a single Oystercatcher and a flocket of 3 Knot...hardly worth the soaking. Pound to a penny when I get to read the blogs and sightings reports later there'll be a field guide full of seabirds seen. Had to leave cos the scope, bins and camera were all covered in slimey salt spray and I was finding it impossible to see through them let alone focus on anything.
The waves were between 3 and 4 metres high (10 - 12 feet) and the troughs between them about 50 feet wide and devoid of birds.
The white specks in the pic below aren't snow they're blobs of sea foam whipping up the cliff face.
Now you see the Cabin...
Now you don't...
The change in sound near the end of the vid is a wave landing over me.
Where to next? Back for more tomorrow, might be able to try a bit earlier in the morning and watch the risng tide.
In the meantime let us know what's fast and furious in your outback.
Edit - Knew I'd miss it all...had to be back for dog-sitting duties by 12.30 anyway...c'est la vie!
Friday, 2 October 2009
Too dark to see
The safari visited Patch 1 well before first light this morning, in fact we were back for breakfast before sunrise. Nothing doing in the dark just a couple of half hearted twitterings from the Robins and two early rising Blackbirds hopping about on the lawn hoping the rain had brought some tasty worms to the surface, two Wrens were also noted singing in the predawn gloom.
A quick shuffy over a roughening sea before work on Patch 2 revealed large numbers of Common Scoters, mostly scattered about in small flocklets. A few were close enough in bobbing about on the waves behind the surf to be able to tell the males from the females. The Velvet Scoter that’s somewhere out there still eludes me... got until late March to bag it! A gull heading out to sea in the middle distance added a few beats per minute to the heart rate but no, nothing over exciting – a Black Headed Gull, but where was it going as we don’t often see them that far out. Two others were below the seawall indulging in a courtship display on the last vestige of sand before the tide covered the beach. No other birds were seen. By high tide, a couple of hours or so later, the wind had picked up even more, the rain was lashing down and the sea was getting pretty wild, still not really properly light yet though.
A quick shuffy over a roughening sea before work on Patch 2 revealed large numbers of Common Scoters, mostly scattered about in small flocklets. A few were close enough in bobbing about on the waves behind the surf to be able to tell the males from the females. The Velvet Scoter that’s somewhere out there still eludes me... got until late March to bag it! A gull heading out to sea in the middle distance added a few beats per minute to the heart rate but no, nothing over exciting – a Black Headed Gull, but where was it going as we don’t often see them that far out. Two others were below the seawall indulging in a courtship display on the last vestige of sand before the tide covered the beach. No other birds were seen. By high tide, a couple of hours or so later, the wind had picked up even more, the rain was lashing down and the sea was getting pretty wild, still not really properly light yet though.
The glorious sea views are taken looking south, west and finally north across Patch 2 at 11.00am (BST).
Regarding recent sightings, along with the safari and Fleetwood Birder , Walney Observatory – almost visible across the bay – got a Ringed Plover yesterday too, so some movement around the area of this species is evident, should be a decent number in a week or two zipping about on the sands.
Where to next? The winds are forecast to reach 60mph (95kph) at the weekend so somewhere along the Prom is a must. The time of the high tides is not ideal being in the middle of the day but you can’t have everything. Then for a little bit of shelter the two Great White Egrets could be twitched coming in to roost up north a ways.
In the meantime let us know what you’ve been seeing in your blustery outback.
Edit - excellent Fox after Autumn Watch and fortunately Frank didn't smell it due to the strong wind blowing its scent away nor did he spot it, maybe my night vision is better than his.
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