A few short safaris around the garden

The Safari is laid up after another hand operation at the mo so we've not been able to get out into the wider world and we've only just about been able to manhandle the small macro lens. For much of the time we've been incapacitated the weather has been pants, more like the middle of March than the end of June...and yes our heating came on early morning on 2nd and 3rd of July - that shouldn't happen, it's supposed to be summer!!! But for a few short days the sun shone and the wind didn't blow too hard.

A couple of days before going into hospital we were up early and spotted two Coal Tits on the feeders, an adult and a juvenile, where had they come from they don't nest nearby, and were the first of the year here and only our fourth record at our new Base Camp. They left to the south and we weren't expecting to see them again but a couple of hours later the juvenile returned on its own.

After all the bad weather the warm sunny days brought out a multitude of insects in the garden. Solitary bees have been very few and far between this year, indeed our 'bee hotel' has no occupants at all, so it was good to see a tiny Furrow Bee, one of the Lasioglossum morio group of very similar species that need more than 'normal' macro photos to identify them to species level. This one is in a Common Catsear flower.

Another one resting on the nearby fruit bushes had alraedy been busy collecting pollen. It's having a drink of something too, nectar?

Also on the fruit bushes was a black and orange blob which on closet insection turned out to be a ladybird, of unknown species as it hadn't yet aquired any spots, which had just emerged from its nymphal skin - we've never seen that before

Also nearby were several froghoppers were secreted in the base of the leaves, probably Common Froghoppers.

When we say nearby we do mean very close by as the vegetated part of garden is only about 40 feet long and twenty wide. At the back of the garden there are some overhanging twigs and small branches from our rear neighbours garden which we are very thankful for as they provide landing sites for 'our' House Sparrows; and Coal Tits - see above! Our neighbours to the left have 'inherited' that awful plastic grass and have no living stuff at all, our neighbours to the right have a well vegetated garden but we are separted by the thickness of two garages. An unknown neighbour feeds the local Grey Squirrels all manner of good things which they bring to our lawn and flower boarders to cache for later.

As much as we don't like Grey Squirrels and would much rather there was a local population of Red Squirrels, which is never going to happen, we do prefer them to next door's (left) plethora of flamin cats, they've got a sh*t load of them...and most of them do their sh*t in our garden digging up our cornfield annual meadow in the process - we hate them and so does the Mutt.

Moths have been in very short supply this year, we've only had the trap out twice and caught precicely nowt. Now that we're incapacitated it's not likely to come out for some time so we've tried wine ropes for a change - this plan has gone awry as an mothds they atrract will be on the wing long after we've gone to bed seeing as how it's mid-summer, we'll keep them refreshed and as the days shorten see if anything is attracted to them. Mothing is no restricted to finding dayflying species or chancing upon roosting ones. Our dayfliers include the tiny but lovely Mint Moth, shame they aren't the same size as a Red Admiral butterfly.

Our other dayflier is a much more specialised species and is listed as Nationally Scarce, the Currant Clearwing.Despie the bad weather most of the year we found our first one on exactly the same day as last year - allowing for the 29th of February - how mad is that. We usually see just one or two basking on the Blackcurrant bush's leaves.

But this time found one sucking nectar from the adjacent Blackberrry flowers. We weren't sure if they were one of those species who's adults have no mouthparts and can't feed - obviously not!

We even found a pair mating - it's amazing what you can see if you lurk around the shrubbery for long enough!

Still taking random pics of whatever settled long enough to focus on w got a Broad Centurion, one of the Soldierflies. There mere many more of these in and around our little mini-meadow than in the shrubbery.

There are very few large hoverflies about and  we were pleased to get a shot of Myathropa florea, the ammusingly nicknamed 'Batman' Hoverfly.

Bumble bees do our head in, we never seem to be able to get a good pic, is it because they never stay still and their eyes are so black and lacking contrast with the rest of their head you often don't get a highlight in them...and then theres the identification nightmare of some very similar species. This one is Buff Tailed Bumble Bee.

While concentrating on this bee something much smaller under a leaf beneath the flowers caught our eye

It looks like an aphid crossed with some other type of true bug. We only got this one shot and can't tell if those thick black things are part of its forelegs or antennae. It's obviously actively moving, it moved quite quickly, normally aphids sit fairly still...any ideas anyone? 

Just a bit too high up in our Apple tree we found an old favourite Pimpla rufipes on the hunt for moth caterpillars to parasitise.

Meanwhile back lower down we saw another ladybird emerging from its nyphal skin

The Bramble flowers were pulling in most of the insects including this Common Yellow Faced Bee, you can just about see a bit of the yellow face in the top pic. They are miniscule compared to the nearby bumble bees, only 5mm long at most.

The Bramble and Blackcurrant  bushes' broad leaves make idea look out perches for a variety of flies including the very numerous Greenbottle, Lucilia sericata

And another similar species we don't know the name of which is a stunning bronze colour. We don't recall seeing this one last summer.

Could they be male and female? If so why have we never seen the bronze ones before??? The do have a greeny sheen in some lights but in dull conditions they are definitely bronze.

As alluded to earlier most of the hoverflies were seeing are the smaller species and even then not that many of them. We think this one is Syritta pipiens...about 8mm long.

Out on the hunt for hoverflies was a species of predatory wasp Ectemnius cavifrons with it's distinctively weird antennae

Another predatory wasp we came across turned out to be the Nationally Scarce Gorytes laticinctus.

Look at those eyes! What and how do they see compared to our eyes, we're sure we wouldn't recognise the seen in front of us if we could see through their eyes.

It's munching an unfortunate victim

Thi species has apparently been expanding its range northwards this century and we've added a dot to the most up-to-date map, the second most northerly so far and the most northerly on the western side of the country, the most northery being on the other side of the pennines somewhere around the York area. We're sure they're overlooked and there are many more to be found well to the north of us - eyes peeled folks!

What a fantastic couple of days on safari no more than 50 feet from the back door. Look after the little things and they'll look after the bigger things. And we all need to start looking after the little things, there's an Insect Apocalypse underway and if they go down they'll take us with them. Something many of us can do is as easy as not mowing some of your lawn. Take part in #NoMowMay, follow it with #letitbloom injune and then our new hashtag #HelptheBeesflyinJuly. We keep a mown edge around our wildflower area so you can tell it's managed and supposed to be like that. With the aid of a paper bag we go out in the local parks and countyside areas and collect wildflower seed to sow once we've cut the meadow at the end of the summer making sure we let  the hay dry and any seeds fall to the ground before raking it up and composting it. The more different species you have the better as some will flower in some years and not others, a wider diversity will mean it won't look the same two summers running and that's part of the excitement - what's going to come up this summer?

Yellow Rattle, being a hemi-parasite, is good for reducing the vigour of the grasses and we would recommend getting some in your meadow.

Those few days were the end of summer, it's now back to unseasonally cold, sometimes wet and very very windy the latter being very damaging to the garden. Please can we have some warm calm days back please...the sooner the better.

Where to next? Our hand is recovering from the operation nicely so we might be able to get a bit further afield next week - physiotherapy appointments permitting.

In the meantime let us know who you've discovered hiding in plain sight in your outback

Down, up, around and back - Part 3

The Safari arrived in Lerwick harbour and watched the deckhands getting the tenders ready for the shore excursions, this time we weren't berthed at a quayside but anchored some way off shore. With plenty of official excursions for the guests it was going to be some time before we'd get the chance to get ashore as 'just' a foot passenger. It did give us time to scan the surroundings for whatever might be about which would hopefully include an Otter or two seeing as how Shetland is very much a hotspot for them.

Eventually we got ashore and the whole OWE team decided on a wander up to Clickimin Loch with its Iron Age broch on the shoreline. As we approached the loch the large Tesco supermarket lured us in while the others went on ahead. Bad move on our part as they had a male Hen Harrier cruise along the fellside beyond the lake. At the broch the Starlings were magnificently irridescent in the sunshine.

Others picked through the tufty Lichens gowing on the ancient walls

The structure was immense and impressive, especially the stonework - although it has been rebuilt in the not too distant past.

The lough gave us good views of Common Terns coming and going with small number of Arctic Terns too. Redshank and Common Sandpiper were seen and a Greenshank heard. Our circumnavigation of the lough gave us Willow Warbler, Great Tit and Chiffchaff in the gardens and recently planted wooded areas along with plenty of Meadow Pipits and Skylarks on the open hillside above. While scanning for the return of the Hen Harrier we noticed something odd about the dry stone wallrunning along the ridge; we're attracted to all things dry stone wall but don't ask us to build one, we'll be at it for ever and then it'll probably fall down. This one was unusual in that the stones in much of it had been laid vertically with just a couple, of presumed repaired, short stretches having horizontal courses.

Getting hungry we headed back into town aand the harbour area where Common Terns rather than gulls were on the look out for chips!

While waiting for our tender ride back to Borealis and its more than copious amounts of good grub

we watched a Black Guillemot fishing close to the jetty

After yet another substantial lunch we chilled out on the outdoor lounge area at the stern of the ship enjoying the view and having a good old chin wag with some of the guests.

Being of Viking/Norse heritage (and currently incapaciated due to one of their bad genes)

it was good to see a replica Longship being moored up in the harbour.

Our search for Otters was unsuccessful but there were two Great Northern Divers and a single Black Throated Diver in the harbour area. A Snow Goose may or may not have been a genuine wild bird but either way its gone on our year list. 

As we sailed out of Lerwick for an evening cruise past Sumburgh Head one thing we hadn't expected to get in Shetland was sunburnt! What a cracking day it had been but we could feel where our arms and cheekbones had caught the sun.

Guests who had been on the coach excursion to Sumburgh Head told us they'd seen five Risso's Dolphins so as we headed south all eyes were well and truly peeled. Sadly they'd disappeared, in fact so had all other marine mammals, for such a productive patch of coastline we'd have expected to have seen some blubber before bedtime. The best we could muster between the Gannets, Guillemots and Kittiwakes was a Great Skua.

The next morning MK did the guest commentary for the scenic cruise by Troup Head on the NE corner of Aberdeenshire, an RSPB reserve home to Scotland's largest mainland Gannet colony.

From the ship the Gannets made the cliff face look like it was covered in snow. Some of them were diving for fish but too far for pics  others were collecting seaweed for their nests.

and as usual it was difficult to get some guests onto the Puffins that were sat on the water or flying past.
By this stage of the trip most guests who wanted to see Puffins, and my are they popular!, had done so and some who'd been on shore excursions had seen them by their burrows but there were still a few folks who'd not yet connected. But why did it prove so difficult to get folk onto them? We've come to the conclusion that several factors are at play...a) many folk don't realise how small they are, only like two tennis balls stuck together, we get the impression they expect something the size of an Emperor Penguin b) when looking down from the ship on them they are really really small and the colourful bill hard to see unless the light is good, even from Deck 3 they're going to be at least 100 feet way and from Deck 6 twice that and more, c) in flight they're fast little suckers and that combined with d) generally poor quality bins and e) inexperience of using said bins means folk don't get onto them when we point them out. Their excitement is infectious when folk do see one for their first time though
 

From Troup Head we sailed SE out into the North Sea. after a while our radio crackled and so did SB's - "what was that message?" we asked, SB asked us the same - nothing, so we put it down to atmospheric activity perhaps related to the recent sunspots. We tried to confirm if it was a radio message fro IH or MK but got no response...atmospheric interference it was then. But it wasn't - a loud shout of “dolphins!”, when we were somewhere NE of Fraserburgh, alerted guests and MK, at the rear of Deck 3, to the presence of a small group of Orca, probably five or six of them passing behind the ship, then a few tail slaps later they vanished into the mist.  A couple of the guests managed to get reasonable photos and we were incredibly grateful that they shared them to use in the OWE blog...and we've nicked for here...hope Norman and Nigel don't mind.

Once they'd gone a very excited MK came round to our watch position to tell us what we'd missed...the third of our Bucket List...dohhhhhh if only we'd been watching from the (uncomfortably breezy) other side of the ship, even then we may not have seen them although would have got the radio message...on inherent weakness of our kit - the radios don't work diagonally through all the steelwork of the ship. Investigations by OWE colleagues back home revealed them to be part of a pod that's been in that area of the North Sea for a few weeks.

The rest of the day was breezy with a choppy sea, but hundreds of Guillemots and Kittiwakes kept our attention focused firmly on the sea while a Woodpigeon and a Swallow joined us for the ride.
When day broke on our final sea day we were well E of Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast so no  surprises that Gannets and Kittiwakes  Bempton Cliffs RSPB reservewere the majority of the birds seen in the first few hours. We did an ‘Introduction to the Identification of North Atlantic Gulls’ talk in the theatrebut outside there was a different wildlife focus on Deck 3 with moths and hoverflies being attracted to the ship as they migrated across the North Sea, many people don't realise that huge insect migrations go on largely unseen except in unusual circumstances like these today. There were hundreds of these small Dipteran flies

a couple of Silver Y moths

and an Angle Shades moth who's dead leaf camouflage was worse than useless on the brilliant white paint of the ship's superstructure.

Hoverflies were represented by several Drone Flies, Eristalis pertinax, a couple of Marmalade Hoverflies, and this one on IH's cap we at first thought was a Marmalade Hoverfly but on downloading the pic back at Base Camp is obviously something else.

As expected travelling closer too land past the Essex coast down to the Straits of Dover proved to be productive with over half a dozen Harbour Seals being spotted and six Harbour Porpoises, kept company by flocks of Kittiwakes, Guillemots and by Gannets. A great end to a fabulous week - early the following morning we would be back on dry land saying fond farewells to SB and MK, we're sure our paths will cross again before too long, and be heading up the motorway back to Base Camp for a well earned rest.

Where to next? Due to our current debilitated condition our safaris will have to be no further than the back garden.

In the meantime let us know who's making a splash in your outback.