The Safari was out on Patch 2 for the first day of National Whale and Dolphin Watch. We had plenty of volunteers today, including a young lass who'd traveled by train from Derby! and DB chair of the Lancashire Mammal Group among their number, but the wind had whipped up a bit after yesterday's calm and it was a tad to choppy for seeing any cetaceans.
We did find a Grey Seal quite close in early on and managed to get a few of the passing punters on to it. Then another turned up a short way to the south of our watch point.
There wasn't too much else to get excited about, there were hardly any sea birds out there and not so many on the beach either - must have all been in town ripping terriers to shreds and carrying off babies. Three juvenile Kittiwakes and a juvenile Gannet were pick if the bunch.
We'll be out again tomorrow morning but sadly the weather forecast is looking very promising at all.
Once back at Base Camp we had to venture outside to hang some laundry and saw that these two very scary looking reprobates were lurking furtively on the roof looking down on us licking their beaks in anticipation of a meal of warm, fresh and dripping human flesh.
Not long after Wifey had to go to her sister's on an errand - we had to make sure the coast was clear - it wasn't the 'sea'gulls had set up sentries on the look out for victims on several nearby roofs.
She made a dash for it from the front door all of 10 paces to her car using the garden shrubbery as cover - Oh no! She was spotted..one swooped in for the kill it's menacing eye locked onto the top of poor Wifey's head.
It's getting seriously dangerous out there - Help us Mr Ca-moron pleeeeaseeee before we all DIEEEE
Really though all this biophobic ecocidal nonsense has to stop, is it part of the complete disconnect with the natural world that has been called Nature Deficit Disorder?
We learned this arvo that some half-wits had killed five large mature trees by drilling large holes in them and packing them with poison - what is the world coming to?
The Safari implores anyone with any knowledge of natural history to get busy and promote it as a wonderful thing to everyone else especially those that don't want to know - there are none so blind as those who won't see, keep plugging away sharing those wondrous moments and fuzzy out of focus pics without being too evangelical. A local community inter-web forum here has a huge long thread about the 'need' to get rid of 'sea'gulls, why you ask...the over-riding consensus is they make a noise early in the morning and sh*t on peoples' cars. They've even written to their MP (Tory) demanding action...this is a seaside town what do they expect? If they don't like gulls they should move to Coventry or some other such well inland place! Roof nesting has been going on for years here so why they haven't got used to it by now is beyond us. We suspect it's because the attitude of 'normal' people is to be far more intolerant of wildlife than in the past especially brought about by a government and (pocket) media demonising just about everything that moves and those same general Jo Publics just keep on lapping it up along with all the other cr*p the corporate moguls shovel at them.
Where to next? We'll be back on the coast but you can bet your bottom dollar we'll be keeping a watchful eye out for those pesky seagulls.
In the meantime let us know who's been carrying away all the babies in your outback.
3 comments:
The hysteria about gulls seems to be really getting out of hand, did you see the one that ate a Starling t'other day described as being 'psychotic' - unbelievable.
Super Gull shots. I recently became the target of some Herring Gulls who were protecing their nest and was on the receiving end of some of their dive bombing tactics. I must say it was actually a scary experience but I survived to tell the tale.
Yikes - glad you lived to tell the tale Ian
Cheers
D
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