We've seen more wildlife...

The Safari is wondering if you're wondering if that means we haven't seen much wildlife today or we've seen an additional amount. We have to tell you it's the former, we've seen more life in tramp's vest. But the little we have seen today has been of a decent quality.

We started with a low tide look over Patch 2 this morning and found not a lot apart from about 20 Sandwich Terns fishing with some roosting up on the outfall pipe (who's days are now seriously numbered, the first of the works containers has been delivered) and some on the beach. 36 Oystercatchers were strewn along the water's edge on our counting length. A single Swallow (P2 #47) jinked northwards well out to sea.

Mid morning we had to go have a break and a bit of a hand rest from typing up the minutes from our evening meeting last week, crikey were they were aching! What a good decision it turned out to be. Instead of heading straight for the kettle as is the norm the sun was shining good and warm and in our butty bag we had a packet of bee friendly seeds Wifey had found in the cupboard over the weekend so we went to explore the wild garden to see if there were any spaces where they could be sown. 

There were Daisies, Dandelions and Coltsfoot aplenty in flower but we saw only one Drone Fly. so far this year we've only had a just one brief glimpse of a bumble bee here. Wandering further along to the end towards the Bug Hotel a dark movement from a Dandelion flower caught our eye and then the wee beastie landed on another close by. A Tawny Mining Bee, hot on the heels of the first one we've ever seen locally at the weekend we now have our second and first for the work's garden - what's going on? Are they spreading? CR gets them in his garden only 400 yards from Base Camp!

A check on the NBN Gateway map told us they have been recorded in our area in both 10k squares but there wasn't any info on smaller areas so they really could have been almost anywhere along the coastal plain. Well they have two points with an eight figure grid reference now. Happy days, what other marvels will the garden provide for the nosy investigators this season?

Lunchtime came round quickly and off we went to watch the high tide. Not a lot again but a distant Grey Seal was a good find in the heat haze. About 20 Sandwich Terns fished, the only place to rest up now was a huge lump of driftwood well out to see, it had a covering of white which we assumed were Sandwich Terns as odd ones were flying round close by but some could have been gulls and a dark lump at one end could have been a Cormorant. Another half a dozen Swallows fizzed northwards well out to sea but other than that all was quiet out there - with the almost carpet like conditions we had hoped to find a Harbour Porpoise but they weren't for showing themselves today.

On a rather topical note the Safari's younger brother in Italy is making some sort of film about Solitary Bees and released this rather splendid trailer yesterday

- if that's a snippet we can't wait for the full shebang!

Going back to last week's Caspian Gull we had news from CB that he thought our description of its plumage and behaviour sounded very much like one but unfortunately some time ago the records committee decided they'll only accept records of this still locally scarce and somewhat tricky gull with an accompanying photograph. We're over 95% confident it was one but is that enough to add it to our year list challenge with Monika? What do you lot think should we or shouldn't we???

So some days you don't see much and it's not that exciting, some days you don't see much and there's plenty of interest and some days you see loads, nothing's guaranteed - what is guaranteed is that if you don't look you won't see nowt!

Where to next? What will we find on Patch 2 tomorrow?

In the meantime let us know who's popping up here, there and everywhere in your outback

Sorry no pics today we were in such a rush to get typing those minutes we forgot to pick up our phones and the camera...sheeeeee