Little about at the mo

The Safari thought more of you might have had a stab at our picture quiz and we're a bit shocked that the two 'expert' respondents didn't get them both right. The first one was correctly IDd as a Dunnock but the second was our Wren.

We've not had a great lot of time to do much watching of late. A Devil's Coach Horse beetle giving us lip on the path early one morning, all tail up 'come on if you think your hard enough!' at us and Frank combined weight a billion times the little fellas at least.

Yesterday the sea was pretty much D-E-D dead, a Great Crested Grebe was a returning bird and four either Curlews or Whimbrels flying straight out to sea in to the teeth of the gale were unusual.

Today was little better, a couple of Gannets and a few terns, a couple of Commons and four Sandwich, but only passing by, no fishing activity at all. There was a  fishing match going on and the general topic of conversation was the total lack of fish and the persistent easterly winds - rubbish for fishing apparently.
Our Great Crested Newt licence came today so we're able to molest the little chaps for another year, not that we've found many at all this year and not a single egg so far!

Back at Base Camp we spotted a Ruby Tailed Wasp on a neighbours gate-post but by the time we'd parked the car and got Frank out it had done a bunk. Little beauties they are, can never get enough pics of them.

This Spleenwort growing out of another neighbour's wall has been waiting to have its photo taken for ages.

Where to next? No update tomorrow where doing workshops at the Blackpool Celebrating Science Conference for schools, lots of schools - gonna be hard work but a fun day is guaranteed.

In the meantime let us know if anything's happening in your outback.