The Safari saw a Grey Seal on Patch 2 yesterday but not a great lot else. This morning was a little better with calmer conditions but no blubber just a fairly close Guillemot, a distant Red Throated Diver and some passing Meadow Pipits - still no Wheatear for us!
At the end of the day we took advantage of the dry conditions and had a visit to one of our more difficult to access sites for the first time this year. The vegetation is still in winter mode but the tripsy Brambles were still out to get us. We couldn't see anything that would specifically tell us that the Water Voles had been active, a little grazing lawn on the little island (centre left on pic below) looked to be most suspicious but the grass was nibbled straight across rather than at the 45 degree angle more diagnostic of Water Vole feeding activity.
We walked the circumference of the pond without seeing any thing of note. The land based refugia held no reptiles or amphibians but we did find two too speedy Short Tailed Field Voles. One of the slabs in the water had a large Frog underneath but upto then we'd not seen any spawn. There were no pond plants large enough for Great Crested Newts to lay their eggs on. An unusual 'thing' caught our eye, no idea what it was it looked like something you might find in the deep sea rather than a pond, didn't get a good look but it appeared to be transparent with a few symmetrical bio-luminescence spots...no we weren't dreaming there was something there - honest
Almost all the way round we found this pondweed, any ideas we're not good with aquatic vegetation.
It wasn't until we 'd got all the way round before we found any Frog spawn but when we did there was a little more than plenty.
In the meantime let us know what the mystery creature was in your outback - ohh if it was a mystery you won't know...
1 comment:
Looks a great site Dave, wouldn't mind joining you for a visit sometime. That huge splodge of frogspawn is excellent.
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