The Safari didn't get much on our early morning Patch 2 look apart from the very welcome feeling of warm sun on our ear, just one of them the other, in the shade, was a lot cooler! There was some haze and the flock of Common Scoters were well out on the low tide so no chance of seeing if anything was mixed in with them.
At lunchtime we were out again and this time it was warm enough not to need our coat zipped up. The tide was now well up but the scoters were still out of range. Better was the Red Throated Diver we was in the middle distance, where have they been we've not seen any for ages apart from the 'tame' one on the nearby marine lake. Even better was the brief view of a Harbour Porpoise that surfaced a hundred yards or so in front of it. We had one more brief view before it disappeared - excellent stuff.
Wandering down the corridor to the printer mid-afternoon something blue caught our eye, we're sure it wasn't there yesterday. A small Borage plant in full bloom - bring on the bees!
After work we didn't want to waste the glorious sunshine so we headed to the nature reserve to have a shuffy at what the lads have been up to, Rumor had it they'd started on the Sand Martin nesting bank - and they had; almost up to the height where the holes start going in, need a metre above water level to prevent access from predators like Mink, Stoats and such like.
Looking good, there's still some vegetation to scrape off the top of plateau to encourage the local Lapwings and Oystercatchers and maybe a Little Ringed Plover or two, OK now we're just getting carried away.
A Chiffchaff (MMLNR #74) sang from the bushes to our left as did a Cetti's Warbler while a nice male Reed Bunting graced the reeds to our right.
From our limited vantage point we couldn't see much on the water apart from Coots, three Gadwall, three Teal a few Cormorants on the old bund and four Lapwings there too.
All good stuff.Where to next? What will Patch 2 produce tomorrow?
In the meantime let us know who put in the briefest of appearances in your outback.
2 comments:
Davyman, it must be a nice feeling to know when the reserve is finished you can start a fresh species list of the creatures that visit :-)
That Borage photo is excellent, you get lots of depth of field with your camera, I'd have to stack my macro shots to get this result. What smart looking flowers they are, I used to have some in the garden but it seems to have disappeared.
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