A few more added to the various birding lists

The Safari hasn't seen too much of late and we've not had chance to get the camera out of its bag but that's not to say we've not seen nothing.

Actually it was Wifey who added to her list first with several Rooks (Wifey #50) seen along the side of the motorway on her business trip to London recently. She's also probably seen more Red Kites than we've had hot dinners this year too.

We've been out on Patch 2 for a few minutes most mornings and lunchtimes seeing nothing out of the ordinary apart from three Curlews (P2 #41) a couple of mornings ago. other than those excitement out to sea has been confined to a reasonable count of 159 Sanderlings today and a loose flock of 11 Kittiwakes heading north yesterday, followed by the impressive sight of over 1000 Common Scoters in flight as a flock of them was disturbed by a small boat.

Mornings have been frosty but it's been well worth getting out for the blue skies alone. The snow on the Lake District fells was still there this morning.

Best and deffo the most unexpected sighting of the week was left until this morning. Leaving the front door as usual there didn't seem to be anything amiss, all was as quiet as it gets - too quiet even it's getting far too close to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring round here. But then we heard a cheeky chirruping we rarely hear close to Base Camp, in the small trees. Wow at least three dark shapes, House Sparrows! Great to have them so close to Base Camp...and then one, a handsome male, flew and perched on the gutter on the corner of the house right above us. And we'd just put the camera on the back seat of the car and closed the door dohhhhhhhh. But still House Sparrow (Garden #22) on the garden list is a great addition, we normal only get one or two visits a year and they're in June so we're well chuffed. The one on the gutter disappeared round the back of the house possibly towards the feeders - did it see the House Sparrow nesting terrace on the way??? We didn't see if the others followed it or not. We really hope they come back tomorrow morning!

At work we've set up a small tank with some Frog spawn from the pond at Base Camp for the children to study.

It's only been there 36 hours and already the eggs have grown some shape into miniature tadpoles, it's a lot warmer inside the heated building than in the pond so they're going to develop much faster than their cousins. Once they've metamorphosed almost into Froglets we'll return them. There's plenty more spawn in our pond but the fish will more than likely end up eating it so these will be the survivors.

Where to next? It's the weekend, there's big high tides and we have a cunning plan that involves the estuary.

In the meantime let us know who made a most unexpected and very welcome visit to your outback.