Did we mention we were struggling

The Safari mentioned we were struggling to find anything new yesterday and that mention must have put the hex on the struggle because although we got no pics today we have had our moments.

The first came this morning when for some reason or other we had to nip outside fro a couple of minutes and was able to watch a pair of Eristalis Drone Flies mating in mid-air. They whizzed around in tandem before splitting up and going their separate ways for a rest on a nearby leaf and then hooked up again a few seconds later for another tandem fly-past - all very energetic and aerobatic! All the action would have been far too quick for the camera if we had have had it with us.

A lunchtime visit to a rather warm and summery Patch 2 was slightly disappointing in that it was very calm, not quite flat calm but not far off but there was no blubber to be seen anywhere not even a Grey Seal. Other than the rafts of local juvenile gulls there weren't many birds either, just a few very distant white dots  purporting to be terns. Then a large duck flew past at speed low over the ripples heading north, female Red Breasted Merganser, not seen one of those for a while so that'll  do nicely, thank you.

Mid-afternoon a message came through about a couple of Green Sandpipers on their usual flood so that made up our mind to finish as early as possible and take the long way home. A set of temporary traffic lights held us up for three long changes only half a mile from the site, intensely frustrating and annoying - twitchers are a tetchy lot aren't we!

Anyway we arrived at the site got the scope balanced on our rucksack which itself was balanced on the Land Rover's centre console and saw one of the aforementioned Green Sandpipers (158) immediately. We never did see the second but there's  a lot of muddy 'dead ground' it could have been on. The supporting  cast was a nice mix of moulting Mallards, a couple of Teal, Moorhens and a Lapwing.

Also in the message was mention of three returning Wheatears on the large Rabbit warren. Again we were one short just finding two of the three. If the Rabbit warren was flat it would look pretty mint to pull down a passing Stone Curlew...if only...

A Buzzard flopped lazily off a fence post and away across the fields giving us a cue to leave too.

Another wait at a different set of traffic lights give a Swift swooping round over the waiting traffic.

Not a bad day all in all. We've a couple of scoring updates from Patch 2 too for recent days starting with two Common Sandpipers (P2 #65) over the beach during one of our rockpooling sessions and then a flock of ten or so Black Tailed Godwits (P2 #66) going south at high tide a few days ago. don't think we're going to reach our year's target of 200 or our Patch 2 target of 90 - well you never know!

So no activity on the catching up year-listing arch-rival Monika front for ages but at least we've started the claw-back, long way to go yet but we do have a cunning plan for a few week's time. 'Fortunately' almost all of her wildlifing time has been taken up getting amazing pics of Orcas rather than adding to her birding year list. No we're not jealous - much!!!

Where to next? The mothy is set up and raring to go and we have a new mothing technique to try too. Tomorrow we may have a bit of a family butterfly adventure weather permitting.

In the meantime let us know if there's been any autumnal movement in your outback.

Struggling this week

The Safari hasn't been able to get out much today, just like much of yesterday too. We did get out for a few minutes on to Patch 2 at lunchtime. Not a lot doing out there but at least the tide was late enough and the wind dropped enough not to throw waves over us. All we saw were a few Lesser Black Backed Gulls and a single Great Black Backed Gull and that's your lot! Maybe we didn't give it long enough but there wasn't really enough to keep us interested.

A call from LR who was fishing the incoming tide a way up the coast had us darting out as he told us a Raven was passing him although he did say it was sort of heading inland but we were hopeful that it would coast again and come past us. If it did we didn't see it and the local gulls didn't make a peep we thought they might with something a but large and, to them, unusual.

While we were out we looked for something to point the camera at as part of the #100DaysofNature project the @BBCSpringwatch are running. The idea is simple - find something wildlifey every day, photograph it and post it on Twitter with the hashtag for all to see.

Today we took a while to find any sort of subject until we spotted the sun catching a pink flower deep amongst the parched dead brown stems of the surrounding vegetation in our wild garden.

Simple but nice, better than nice it's life amongst the end of season death.

Where to next? More of the little same tomorrow unless something drastic happens

In the meantime if there's plenty of life still in your outback.

There's a new wind a-blowing

The Safari hasn't been able to get out much this week although yesterday we did have a family event. The bug hunting was out due to the weather so we did our best to accommodate everyone round the pond...it was a bit busy!

A most enjoyable hour or so which included a huge back-swimming Waterboatman, caught be the ever present E, and the largest two front swimming Waterboatmen that have ever been caught from the pond by the two lads on the far left and the girl at the far end.

Hurricane Bertha hasn't been very nice to us, the salt laden winds have hammered any vegetation in her path - this is what she did to our beautiful green and leafy Cardoon plant.

The leaves might be withered and shriveled but the flowers are still providing plenty of nectar for the bees, not that there's many bees about in the cool blustery conditions this week.

Bottoms up

Get stuck in!

We tried a Patch 2 watch at lunchtime but the sea was already crashing over the wall and we got a soaking without seeing anything more spectacular than a Gannet.

In other news today is the 12th of August when it really isn't safe to be a 'surplus' Red Grouse. Now we aren't squeamish and we don't mind living things being killed for the right reason, we're not vegetarian or anything like that but killing for fun is an anathema to us even if it is 'legal'. 

Take this scenario for example; a youff has an airgun and gets a bit bored and want's some 'fun', he takes the gun down to the local park and takes a pop at the local family of swans on the lake killing one of the adults. Imagine if you will the headlines in the local paper and the venom of the comments below the article.

Now the other side of the coin is in the national papers today when the 'top' echelons of society and a variety of multimillionaires who made their money (exactly how???) dressed in a 'uniform' of tweed do exactly the same to a flock of Red Grouse but somehow that's acceptable, celebrated even glamorised as somehow 'Glorious'. Some will say that the grouse are 'bred' for it, the habitat/ecosystem is severely managed to provide that surplus at the expense of almost everything else. You could also argue that the popularity of the swans mean that they get excessive amounts of un-natural food from the punters and their population is far in excess of what it should be, but that still doesn't mean the lad should have shot it, so why should the others. OK the lad had no intention of eating the swan and the grouse probably will get eaten, for an extortionate amount no doubt, but it;s the fun of killing that attracts the clientele to the eating, the fee to do the killing is far in excess of the price of the birds will fetch in the fanciest restaurants.

The worst of it is the scorched earth policy of habitat and ecosystem destruction that goes to produce the necessary surplus. Nothing but nothing must get in the way of as many grouse as possible, be that protected birds of prey, generalist avain predators such as crows, small mammalian predators, rare Juniper scrub or any other vegetation for that matter, carbon sequestering blanket bog, people who get water delivered to their taps pay extra to have it cleaned of colour that the drainage of the bogs adds to the water through raised water bills and in extreme rainfall conditions even flooding of downstream towns can result leading to higher insurance premiums for all of us...and they get paid by our taxes to do all this, as if they need it! They're supposed to be the richest people in the land why on earth do they need our money too? And if they're breaking the law shouldn't they be in prison? Oh  that'd be at our expense too.

They will tell you they're good for Curlew, Lapwing and Golden Plover but they sure ain't any good for Whinchats, Stonechats, Snipe, Peregrines, Short Eared Owls, and especially Hen Harriers and that's before you take Adders, Common Lizards, and a whole host of the less mobile invertebrates into consideration.

If you can't run a business without the need to break the law than it surely must be time for a serious change in business plan or an intervention ie a total ban! There must be better less destructive ways of managing our uplands that can be funded with the same public money we're spending now.

Enough is enough!!! Please sign the petition only another 86000 needed to have it raised in parliament. Sounds a lot but you lot can do it.

Where to next? Another dose of pond dipping and bug hunting tomorrow and we might get a dry Patch 2 watch in too.

In the meantime let us know who's blowing the house down in your outback.

Hen Harrier Day

The Safari was out later than usual last night doing a moth and bat night at the local country park on the estuary. A small crowd assembled led by two very enthusiastic children. Dusk started to fall and we turned the moth lamp on but the sky above us was still quite light through the trees and we soon saw a Pipistrelle Bat even before we picked it up on the bat detectors! The bats put on a fine display, so much so we tried the long piece of grass 'trick'. and immediately had a 'hit' then another and another and another. It's been a long time since we had a bat session as interactive and exciting as this one!!!

The moths started as the bat activity died down a bit. Large Yellow Underwings being 'numerous', Flame Shoulders almost as plentiful and a nice selection of other species. The star of the show was the huge Red Underwing which wowed the crowds. As we drew towards finishing time a Common Wasp appeared, that was enough for some. Soon we were packing up and as started to empty the moths from the depths of the box, that flipping wasp tagged us on the side of the finger - Ouch and other less savoury expletives were uttered.

This morning dawned wet after another slightly fraught and sleepless night with Frank downstairs but it was an early start to meet up 30 odd miles away in the hills were driven (Red) Grouse shooting will start on Tuesday.

A protest had been organised to object to the criminal activities of those involved in this 'sport' removing birds that have been legally protected for 60 years. There are fewer Peregrine nests in the huge expanse of the northern Pennines than there are in London! Hen Harriers are repeatedly disposed of and there is no chance of Golden Eagles being able to recolonise  our uplands. Unfortunately it is the Establishment who are the perpetrators of these crimes and have a very 'friendly' government at the mo and it's going to be very hard to change the entrenched attitudes. But enough is enough and despite the weather people fed up with the status quo of  illegalities met up at a variety of locations throughout the land to show their opposition to it and call for change.

TP gave some examples of the disgraceful behaviours he and his colleagues in the North West Raptor Protection Group have witnessed over the years - behaviours which should have died the death not long after the Victorian era!

If we're not careful and no-one stands up for what is right then the children at  last night's moth night will only see Hen Harriers as cardboard cut-outs like these.

About 60 people were present in atrocius conditions, we're sure the weather put many people off but it was a little disappointing not to see any youngsters there - it's their wildlife heritage that's being systematically wiped out. Even Frank was listening to the speeches!

The county's birding elite was present though.

We also won a book in the raffle -well chuffed!

Things have to change - hopefully sooner rather than later. Lets hope we see some of the Hen Harriers currently being watched 24/7 (if they hadn;t been they would have been 'disappeared' by now) later this year on the local marshes, but even then we do wonder how safe they are there, are any of the 'wildfowlers' not what they purport to be and doing in these fantastic birds on their wintering quarters or are we just being a tad cynical?

Don't forget if you're a UK resident you can still sign the e-petition to get driven grouse shooting and it's scorched earth land/wildlife management banned - don't sign the one for the Defra management plan to be released to the public it's basically asking for the status quo to continue. Several hundred new signings today but there must be plenty of birders out there who haven't, a 100,000 signatures should really be achievable to get the government to discuss the issue in Parliament, they already have to give a written response but don't hold your breath it'll be any good or proactive.

Hurricane Bertha has landed and that was the end of our tomatoes!

Where to next? A bad week coming up with little opportunity to get out on Patch 2 to see if Bertha has brought anything of interest with her.

In the meantime let us know whose cheering for what in your outback.

Very brief today

The Safari was relieved to see a dry moth trap for a change when we looked out of the kitchen window this morning.

In it was not a lot of moths but a decent selection of new for the year's

Probably Acleris laterana - dissection needed to confirm ID

Agriphila tristella - a nice dark bronzy one

Rusty Dot Pearl - an immigrant - - don't tell UKIP!

Early Thorn

2 Large Yellow Underwings - showing variation in patterns

Lychnis

Once mothing was done and dusted we went back to bad shattered after a fraught night with Frank who can no longer climb the stairs but has dreadful separation anxiety - never heard him bark  such high pitched yelps before  he's normally a big gruff rumbling barker. We ended up sleeping on the sofa most of the night. This morning was taken up turning the dining room into a makeshift semi-permanent emergency bedroom and a new bed procured.

When we awoke an hour or so later we found to our horror that there'd been a pond filter malfunction and about 200 gallons of water had been pumped through the garage and was sloshing away down the drain - a soggy wet nightmare that needed urgent attention.We pulled the plug and went to 'think about it' while we made some tea and toast!

Turns out a pipe joint had come unstuck.

In the midst of the mayhem we missed a txt from CR which put us on to the Peregrine on the tower, fortunately some four and a bit hours later when we saw the txt  while we were Twitter chatting with young FW it was still there so we got this very poor phonescoped pic of it through the bathroom window for him.

What were we chatting about, well tomorrows big adventure of course #HenHarrierDay. we'll be taking Wifey and Frank to support our local event in the Forest of Bowland AONB whose logo is a Hen Harrier but this year is 'doing well' for them with two pairs...two thirds of the Englich breeding population. hence the need to highlight the huge amount of relentless criminal persecution that is going on driven grouse moors across the land. If you haven't (UK only) please sign the e-petition to Defra. The bad practices of scorched earth upland management doesn't only affect birds like the Hen Harrier and Peregrine, it affects you too in higher insurance premiums due to flooding caused by upland drainage and higher water bills caused by having to remove colour from the water we drink and of course we have a much reduced ecosystem to enjoy too...all in the name of a Red Grouse bloodbath. By getting involved hopefully something will change - starting in particular with a reduction in the criminal persecution...we're on to you!

Frank's not impressed by the criminals either

Where to next? Off to do a moth night in a bit - hope 'Bertha' hangs fire a few more hours, or better still gives us a miss altogether.

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

Family fun days

The Safari visited a brand new site yesterday, a totally urban park totally surrounded by early 20th C homes that used to be used for sports but was never able to be drained properly and couldn't meet modern standards for playing surfaces. We remember learning of an ill-fated try at drainage when hundreds of ancient bog-oaks were ripped out of the ground, amazingly we found a couple of them that had been pushed to one side and left to rot which they hadn't!

The families turned up with their small children, many of them not having ever done a mini-beast safari before and in the main were unnaturally terrified of anything remotely spidery or winged - they soon changed when they started getting in to it.

A Common Blue butterfly landed close to us but couldn't be netted. Young E was with us again and commandeered our 'posh' net and swung it well to catch a Green Veined White - not seen many of those this year...he might have netted it well but butterfingers here let it go before the others have a good look at it.

One young lass had a good eye for ladybirds and found two 7-Spot Ladybirds on her own, the only two seen all day!

Over our heads three Migrant Hawkers buzz about thrilling our little onlookers - aren't they great! The dragonflies not the kids - well OK the kids are great too!

It's really brill to watch mums, dads and kids squealing with delight at their finds. They even found a Frog!

The variety of invertebrates at this site is amazing and a credit to the site managers who have found a great balance between formal and wild with new and older tree plantings thrown in for good measure.

Nursery-web Spider's nest

It's the sort of site that's deffo under watched but could easily turn up a nice selction of scarce birds at migration times.

Four lingering Swifts scythed through the sky while a couple of Swallows sculled low across the field.

At the end of the session one of the Migrant Hawkers was settled high in the tree above our heads but fortunately sunning itself in a bright patch.

Today our group was towards the other end of the age spectrum, from students to retirees all of whom give up their time to help to keep our beaches clear of litter. Today was a fun reward session for them so we were asked to take them rockpooling and have a closer look at all the creatures they're helping protect by removing all the litter from their habitats.

They found loads of interesting stuff including another reasonable sized 5-bearded Rockling, lots of Common Prawns are about now loads of tiny youngsters and a big female still in 'berry'.

One of the 'young men' found a 4-bearded Rockling but was unable to net the little wriggler. A few of the Beadlet Anemones were still wafting their tentacles around as the water hadn't drained from their pool yet while their high and dry companions had blobbed up and gone to sleep until the tide returned.

A Tower Shell caught our eye having much stronger whorls than the ones we normally see.

No Hermit Crab lurking inside this time though.

Our hour was too soon gone and well over-run but yet another fantastic session exploring the amazing wildlife on our doorstep. And we got the minutes of last night's meeting all written up this morning too -  -that's always a big relief.

Where to next? Well the mothy is on so that'll make it rain tonight then!
In the meantime let us know where all the brilliant things are in your outback 

Sometimes you need the big boys

The Safari has had the assistance of the Young Uns AB and JS today and very glad of it we were too.

The day started rather wet which was well disappointing as we had somewhere in the region of 40 young children with their parents or grandparents in tow. It really was a good job the Young Uns had offered to help out!

We split the group into three (hardly rocket science that), JS helped with the pond dipping, AB did the bug hunting while we ruled the roost over the bug hotel improvements. An independent time keeper was employed to swap the groups round so everyone got a turn at each activity.

We had a variety of articles to add to the bug hotel including, bamboo, which we allowed the kiddies to cut up (under supervision of course), to make solitary bee nests, twigs, straw, moss, slabs of roofing slates, pine cones of varying sizes and the piece de resistance Elephant poo - wonder how many other bug hotels have that as an ingredient. Hopefully as it gets damp it will produce some fungi which the mini-beasts will be able to chomp...unless we get some Dung Beetles which decide to roll it away and bury it!

The pod dipping produce yet another 70 or so 3-spined Sticklebacks, just exactly how many are there in there? - these were given a one way ticket to another lake where we hope they'll settle in and be really happy. Best of the rest was a huge back swimming Waterboatman.

AB had a selection of Bumble Bees and a few Cinnabar moth caterpillars, but had to come and ask our advice on a wriggly larva - he'd showed us a hoverfly maggot.

A brief lunchtime Patch 2 visit didn't give the three of us very much at all.

After lunch we had a much more managable group of children out on the beach doing some rockpooling and beachcombing. The rain had long gone and the sun had come out, it really was a lovely afternoon out there.

A family was already down on the beach doing what we were about to get stuck into and they shared their catch with us which included this large, about five inches long, 5-bearded Rockling.

The other 'best' find was actually one of ours, a Scallop covered in Spirorbis worms, don't get too many of those.

The advantage of the Young Uns produced the goods, being of a certain age they are now 'allowed' to look after themselves 'at their own risk' unlike the younger children who are kept under strict supervision. That allows them to venture into areas out of bounds to the others. Today they came across a couple of Common Sand Stars which we've not seen for a few months now.

Everyone wanted to have a hold of one of them.

Here's E enjoying holding the Starfish (Parental permission given)

Kids really do luv em and so they should, and so do their mums n dads - they're great!

What a great day, made all the better by the assistance from the Young Uns - thanks a million guys you're stars!

Where to next? A mini-beast safari at a totally new never explored before 'inner city-ish' site - what will we find?

In the meantime let us know who's been hiding in previously little explored regions in your outback.