Duck broken?

The Safari had a Green Sandpiper (P1 #63) go over last night as we went to check if the Peregrine was roosting on the tower - it was.

The mothy had to be taken in after not too long as the unforecast rain came down in sheets. Totaliser in the morning reached the grand heights of three Large Yellow Underwings and a single Marbled Beauty - big wow!

At 2 o'clock we were on the cliffs on the final afternoon of the National Whale and Dolphin Watch with our fingers very crossed - while we've still got some to cross.

Very little was happening, about 300 Common Scoters were in the distance and a pair was found close behind the surf, as was a Grey Seal, right in front of us again.

Once again we were told of dead juvenile Harbour Porpoise, too far to investigate today but not the same one as yesterday as this one was apparently well decomposed - seem to be losing a lot recently - - why???

With absolutely nothing happening at sea the annual Blackpool Air Show featuring the Red Arrows was a welcome distraction.

These four were so low it looks from the pic we were flying behind them.

Have to admit despite them using enough fuel to keep the Land Rover on the road for about 100 years they are pretty impressive!

Eventually some action happened - 3 3/4 hours into the four hour watch two Oystercatchers flew past - don't think we've ever had to wait that lomg to see an Oystercatcher on this coast before - EVER! When a Common Gull went by we could hardly contain ourselves!

Add to that a tantalising glimpse of a roll from a mammal just before 'time's up'. What was it - dunno! Grey Seal or a Harbour Porpoise - the jury will be out for a long time as we just don't know - never saw whatever it was again.
Where to next? Back to the Patches and Frank may be fit enough to get round the whole of Patch 1 in the morning.

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

Duck broken - sort of.

The Safari shot had a short spin round Patch 1 at lunchtime and once again the Peregrine on the tower.

Then it was off to the central beach. we arrived in good time and set up our NWDW 'shop'. As you can see conditions were superb - no sun and, more importantly, no waves. A Grey Seal popped up a few times just behind the Donkeys. The coastguard is warning the punters that the tide has come in behid them and they should get a shimmy on before they can't get back to the safety of the wall...happens all the time...some don't make it and need rescuing...or worse...

Aboutr 1000 Common Scoters went north along the horizon. A single Dunlin then four more whizzed past to a roost somewhere in the estuary to the south. Two Swallows went north well out to sea.

The wind changed, the temperature fell like a stone and then the rain started and before long we were the only one on the promenade as everyone else ran for cover.

After an hour or so the rain eased and the punters reappeared. Several stopped for a chat and almost all told us there were no Whales or Dolphins to be seen off Blackpool - the water is too cold or too dirty...little do they know.
One family came and told us of a dead Dolphin washed up not far down the beach. A good excuse for a warming walk and have a blimp. sure enough we came a cross a gaggle of tourists staring unbelievingly and somewhat sadly at the corpse of a juvenile Harbour Porpoise. it was extemely fresh and was probably brought in on the previous tide, there was no obvious cause of death and had it been found yesterday could have been taken off the beach and fridged ready for collection by the Strandings people at the Natural History Museum for a post mortem.

Plenty of gulls were lurking around hoping to grab an unfortunate victim's chips

Like last year one of them was a Yellow Legged Gull.

Half way through the last hour the tide started to drop and a few Black Headed Gulls dropped in right in front us...but a quick bin through them revealed one was in fact a juvenile Mediterranean Gull! Who needs cetaceans now!!!

After the watch Wifey picked us up and we took a a still poorlyish but recuperating Frank to the beach to the south where we found a small Octopus Jellyfish. Also there was an empty ie hatched Mermai;s Purse ie Spotted Dogfish (= Catshark) eggcase.

Where to next? The mothy is on as we type.

In the meantime let us know which was the best gull in your outback.

A bit of other news - was at the hossy yesterday and the internationally renowned consultant said we've got the worst case of our condition he's ever seen and will be having a seriously big op in mid September...skin grafts and everything so will be out of action for the peak of autumn migration. He must be serious as he had us signing the consent form there and then..jumped the waiting lists!!! Is that good or not???

National Whale & Dolphin Watch Day 1

The Safari noticed that the Peregrine was back on the tower late last night.
After days of flat calm seas it was inevitable that a westerly wind would stike up. It did and gave us a heavily chopped sea making it almost impossible to spot any Harbour Porpoises (one on the South-Side yesterday...grrr) that may be cruising around.
Ten Common Scoters were bobbing along close in and a couple of Cormorants flew by. Lots of blobs of 'intersting looking' ( for a second or two but no more) seaweed.

No cloud cover made looking at the glistening sea for lengthy periods quite hard, add to that a good bit of heat haze and basically we were up the proverbial creek.

A steady procession of nothing went by for most of the afternooon.

For the last hour the choppy seas subsided as the tide ebbed and bit of cloud cover made viewing a lot more comfortable and we soon found a distant Grey Seal...so distant it was almost on the South-side.

Just before our four hours were up we watched a spectacular display of diving from a height by a Sandwich Tern.

Where to next? More NWDW tomorrow - will we get a cetacean or not at our town centre watch point?

In the meantime let us know what the lifting haze revealed in your outback

National Marine Week event

The Safari was out on the beach for an hour with a few other beachcombers for the second of our National Marine Week events. This time we were under the pier in the central part of the beach - a place we very rarely venture to.

Plenty of Barnacle encrusted Mussels are growing on the pier legs, great formation on this one...we were hoping to find Cuttlefish eggs by rummaging around under here.

Some of the rubbish swept in on the tides has been there a long time as shown by the large Mussels growing on this lost fishing net. Must be the most colourful rubbish we've ever seen!
A decent selection of shells despite the tide sweeping the beach fairly clean of unbroken ones.

1. a selection of Telins 2. the appropriately named Tower Shell 3. the smaller Razor Shells 4. Striped Venus shells 5. Banded Wedge shells 6. Rayed Trough shells that have lost their rays and look like they could be something else - sneaky! 7. Common (left) and Prickly (right) Cockles.

The tiny hole is evidence of predation by one of the species of Necklace shells.

After our recent seaweed masterclass ;) we have another one for you - this one grows as an epiphyte on the stipe of others

It has a well branched, feathery form

Not many bits of broken crab were found so we must have been quite lucky to find a dead but complete Pennant's Swimming Crab especially as there were a stack of gulls on the beach looking for bits and pieces to scoff.

And once again we found, we reckon it's ubiquitous, the one and only Speckled Sea Louse...but no Iphinoe or Idotea for you...maybe next week.

Immediately after the event we got a call that a seal was on the beach - a rare event - and might be struggling. We went to investigate and found a juvenile Common Seal surrounded by people and dogs but really unwilling to go back in the water.

Doesn't look at all well and is very thin...well it has swum from either the west coast of Scotland or Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland - the nearest breeding colonies.

A call to the British Divers Marine Life Rescue had them arrive as soon as the tide started to drop and the poor wee mite has been taken into care in Scarborough...the nearest seal sanctuary. Hopefully after receiving excellent care there it'll make a full recovery and be released back in to the Irish Sea.

Where to next? National Whale and Dolphin watch starts tomorrow (2pm at the Mirror Ball if you can join us) so be prepared for tales of lashing rain and mountainous seas...the weather always turns against us for that event!

In the meantime let us know what's needed to be rescued from your outback.

Why is the beach wet? Because the sea weed ;)

The Safari is still unable to get round Patch 1 but the shortest of varients this morning produced a very early rising Brown Hawker hawking for victims around a neighbour's Privet flowers.

Patch 2 was useless, a distant Grey Seal and although the Common Scoters were still out to the north west we could only make out about 2,500 in the very shimmery hazy conditions.

Later in the morning we went out on the beach for our National Marine Week event.

The usual numbers of Brown Shrimps (top two - eyes close together) and Common Prawn (bottom - eyes out on sidwards pointing stalks) made it into the trays.

A bit of a seaweed masterclass coming up...a trawl of the rockpools came up with the following selection

1. Sea Oak 2. Hornwort - not actually a seaweed but a colonial animal 3. Purple Laver 4. Sea Lettuce 5. Gut Weed 6. Spiral Wrack 7. Bladder Wrack 8. Knotted Wrack
This is just about all the common seaweeds there are on the coast here and are easy to find.

At last a few Sand Gobies were netted.

As was a Common Sand Star

Pride of place goes to the last two pics - what on earth are they???

The first was found in the rock pools and whizzed around like a Whirling Dervish - absolutely non-stop. Very luck to get such a crisp pic of it and with the naked eye never thought it would look like that.

The other is obviously very closely related but this was netted from the surf as the tide rose. It did the Whirlking Dervish thing for brief moments when disturbed but soon went back to ploughing its furrow.

If anyone has any inkling of what they might be - are they Isopods, Amphipods or something else? - please give us a clue...
Where to next? More National Marine Week stuff tomorrow but this time on Central Beach - somwhere we don't get to explore all that often.

In the meantime let us know what unknown weird stuff is lurking in your outback.

Just how many?

The Safari can report that the Peregrine was on the tower this morning, seen through the lashing rain from the bedroom window rather than the pavement below...thank goodness; that rain was heavy!!!
By the time we’d got to patch 2 the rain had stopped and conditions for viewing were perfect. Grey sky, good light and a mirror calm sea with no swell what so ever.
The tide was well out and the fishermen were out in force denuding the beach of its Lugworms. Beyond them two Grey Seals bobbed about very close together, it’s not often we see them associating with one another. A third was way out.
The calm sea revealed the huge amount of litter floating about out there – a disgrace – amongst the carrier bags and pop bottles were a large number of variously sized pieces of driftwood. One looked a bit like a swimming Red Deer stag and another rather Loch Ness Monstery, this one had a tern perched on each of its two humps.
Not far off the end of the outfall pipe a flock of six Eiders dived in unison but the main interest lay to the north west and out towards the horizon. A long line of Common Scoters was noted and concentrating on them it was evident that there were a lot – this line stretched seemingly for miles! We set about counting them and soon got to 3000 and a quick scan along the rest of the line suggested we were only half way through the flock. So we continued and came up with a conservative estimate of 7,500; the tail end of the flock disappeared into the murky dark grey gloom on the horizon. Further to the left sat another flock of about 300. We wouldn’t be surprised if there were over 10,000 in total...that’s a lot of birds and probably our biggest count ever.
Oh, and our solitary male was still sat in his usual place just offshore...7,801 - a real Billy No Mates if ever there was one.
By lunchtime there were very few to be seen. Very few of anything apart from gulls and even more marine litter – it was everywhere and looking like everything under the sun. The three Grey Seals were still present and another chunk of driftwood was adorned by a resting tern.
One of the fishermen caught a Lesser Weaver while we were there; a sneaky sharp spined little fish that buries itself in the sand and waits for you to stand on it. Not only are the spines sharp but they are poisonous too...one for our groups to be aware of when out rockpooling.
A few Sandwich Terns flew by as did an unseen Curlew, we tried the whistling trick but it didn't respond.
Today’s rockpooling group found all the usual suspects including some very sizeable Common Prawns. Their favourite was the Common Starfish we found in a higher pool for them.

Where to next? Bck on the beach tomorrow with the first of our National Marine Week events.

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

What a load of rubbish!

The Safari's Patch 1 visits are still being severely curtailed du to poorly Frank not being able to get that far, he is on the mend thankfully but he's still coughing and not up for much excercise. This morning we didn't get as far as the tower so don't know if the Peregrine was about or not.

This is what greeted us at Patch 2, nice grey sky and a flat calm sea - ideal viewing conditions...

But take a closer look...what a pile of crap...why can't the tossweeds us the bins, there's one only a few yards away. The amount of litter on the streets this morning was an absolute disgrace and our back garden at work looked as if a paper and bottle bomb had gone off...what is it about the great unwashed...bin it ot take it home - we don't want it!!!!!!!
On a lighter note a visiting group prevented us doing a Patch 2 safari at lunchtime but they did come armed and dangerous to ransack the pond.
Lots of these small snails which we might have been mis-identifying for the last 30+ years - twell us what they are someone...put us out of our misery.

A rather snazzy diving beetle was 'new in' or at least avoided capture by last week's group. Again name away if you know what it is.

Three damselfly nymphs were netted, two green and one brown but we'd hazard a guess that they are all Blue Tailed Damselflies as an adult was flitting around the reed stems.

Of note, and we don't know why we didn't get pics, were two male Sticklebacks in full breeding regalia - do they have two broods?

Where to next? On the beach with a gang tomorrow morning...anything could happen!
In the meantime let us know who can't seem to use the bins in your outback.