The Safari hasn't got much to report but there's one thing about being a wildlife aficionado if you keep your eyes/ears/nose open something will always pop out of the woodwork.
This morning was a perfect example of this. It was just a 'normal' morning as morning's go, nothing much was happening although the sea looked pretty good for blubber spotting. We hadn't got to the office door when our beady eye spotted something odd sticking out of a Sea Lyme grass flower. How many times have we walked past that particular spot and never given that particular plant so much as a second glance???
But the tiniest little thing did catch our eye - years of training of trying to spot the odd-one-out when gulling or trying to find a lone Bee Orchid amongst a myriad of other wildflowers. Nothing spectacular or even colourful just a dark thing where light things should be.
What was it? only one thing to do - get down and have a closer look! Yep we're pretty sure we know what that is, we've seen something just like that or at least very similar before. It's a fungus - Ergot! now given the 'hot' dry summer we've enjoyed Ergot shouldn't be showing should it? It 'should' be associated with cool wet summers shouldn't it? More info about it from our previous finding of it here.
There seems to be at least a couple more fruiting bodies about to sprout forth, we'll have to remember to check tomorrow morning.
And no it wasn't responsible for the 1692 Salem witch trials, a theory postulated but now discounted
Tell you what - we weren't expecting that! Isn't wildlife wonderful, always something to see/find/be intrigued by!
Nothing much on Patch 2 on a very brief visit but watching the family of Common Terns catching Sand-eels and other small fish was good. Other than that only two Gannets made the notebook.
The afternoon was spent with a gang of workers from another company on a 'jolly' doing a beach clean. It's good to report that our beach was almost spotless we really did struggle to find any litter to put in our bags across the whole vast expanse of sand. And then we passed under the pier and into the more touristy beach - what a mess!!! In 100 yards we'd collected more than 10 times the amount of rubbish than we had in the last mile and we only concentrated on the top of the beach as the tide was racing in. Sadly we couldn't get it all and tons (literally) of rubbish would soon be floating out to sea - not good! If you visit us USE THE FECKIN BINS there's plenty of them and even extra temporary ones on the beach/lower prom when it's busy or take your litter home with you. It's not rocket science.
Where to next? A mega-day of family fun tomorrow and we have the not so any more Young Uns AB and JS helping out, so just about anything could be found and some 3-spined Sticklebacks no doubt.
In the meantime let us know what's giving you vivid dreams in your outback
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