Wednesday 13 June 2012

Martin saves the day

The Safari hasn't seen much at all today. R'ouzel Puddle was devoid of life and Patch 2 nearly so. Three Grey Seals were found and several Common Terns fished not far offshore occasionally indulging in a bit of courtship feeding, the males presenting their Sand Eel catch to his female waiting sat on the water with her beak open and red gape showing.
Three Gannets cruised past without thinking about fishing and away to the south a pair of Great Crested Grebes did very little.
At lunchtime even less was happening although two House Martins (P2 #75) with a lone Swallow were a patch first - how late is that?!? At sea only the three seals remained...very very quiet.
Last night a Hedgehog was snuffling around in a neighbour's  garden much to the annoyance of Frank who wanted to give it a good old sniffing but couldn't get to it. This morning the same neighbour appears to have a House Sparrow's nest under the corner of her roof - stopping the Land Rover to watch where they duck in proved they do still nest in our street - but only just, it could also be argued the nest is on the main road - it's close though but will they venture on to our feeders? If they are going to it's the week or so after fledging they normally appear, never to be seen again until the same time the following year.
Where to next? More of the quiet same or will something explode on to the scene with a bang?
In the meantime let us know how quiet, or otherwise, it is in your outback.

Late Edit:- Frank dragged us round to Patch 1 this evening for a pleasant surprise. A Blackcap was singing at the Golden Triangle and a Robin took advantage of some kindly soul's scattering of bird seed fending off a couple of Woodpigeons.
The park gave us singing Chiffchaff and Coal Tit but we forgot to have a look at the Sparrowhawk's nest - if it can still be seen through the vegetation now.
The top pond is covered with Duckweed so we couldn't see anything in it but the almost empty bottom pond had a decent number of tadpoles, probably Toads...good job we've had so much rain recently otherwise they'd be lost for sure.
At Magpie Wood the mower had spared an increasing patch of Figwort, seems much larger area than last year...and the Peregrine was on the 'wrong side' of the tower - - not a bad evening hour out!

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