Thursday 21 July 2011

Seals ahoy

The Safari had a Peregrine-fest on Patch 1 this morning. The male left its roost on our way in, heading towards the town centre and then on the way back the female set off due east seriously upsetting the gulls which nest and roost on the nearby office roofs.
The Coal Tit was heard but not seen.
Yesterday’s small plant with the tiny pink flowers has been identified by those clever iSpotters as a Deptford Pink! Holy shamoley; a Schedule 8 protected plant, UK BAP Priority Species and Red Listed as Endangered...where’d that come from...someone’s garden or a seed that has lying latent in the seed bank for a long, long time? It was found in one of our raised flower beds which was dug over and planted last year and not been touched since. The soil used to fill the raised bed came from the grounds after we were rebuilt so local soil rather than imported. Exactly just how wild is it and who would have such a tiny little thing as a garden plant, if it’s an escape, anyway???

The wasp thingy was identified as a female Amblyteles armatorius, an apparently easy to identify Ichneumon Wasp...one of the few!
Patch 2 this morning gave us three Grey Seals out on a flat calm sea. Also fishing over the sea were eight Sandwich Terns. A lone male Common Scoter bobbed about in more or less the same place as it was in yesterday.
Two Curlews called from the beach to the south and eventually flew past, a bit of mimicry whistling had then circling directly overhead for a minute or two – always like it when they respond like that – feel connected (or is it mean to prevent them going where they need to be?); autumn is definitely getting closer if it hasn’t already started!
At lunchtime we had another 10 minutes and found the same three Grey Seals. Sandwich Tern numbers had increased to 15 roosting on the beach with at least another six fishing, successfully, up and down just offshore. Whilst watching them we noted that the Common Scoter was still present – not moved more than a few yards in 24 hours! About another 50 were seen in small flocks out over the horizon.
Other than that the superb viewing conditions didn’t give us anything else of note.
Where to next? More of the same tomorrow., hopefully the mothy will be able to put in appearance over the weekend.
In the meantime let us know how the seasons are progressing in your outback.

1 comment:

cliff said...

Great result re. the wildflower Dave, what a find that was!