Monday 11 September 2017

Did we peak too soon?

The Safari hasn't had many opportunities to get out other than an early morning sprint round Patch 1 with Monty.
The Peregrine has been on its usual ledge a couple of times and we see at least one of the local Sparrowhawk family almost daily. Ever hopeful of an exotic migrant we scour the trees and shrubs taking a zigzag route through the park for the best coverage possible for spotting a Redstart or a flycatcher or something even more exciting but so far we've only come across the local Coal tits, Goldcrests, Wrens and Robins. On morning we had a good count of Robins but that might have been down to the improved weather conditions that morning rather than a bit of a fall of migrant Robins. Yesterday we had two early morning Red Admirals both flying strongly south in conditions you wouldn't normally expect to see butterflies on the wing in...cold wet and windy! They were undoubtedly migrants on a mission.
At the end of the week we attended a small conference hosted by JW about eco tourism and the future of the Fylde, very interesting if slightly commandeered by the anti-fracking protesters. To be fair there won't be much tourism of any kind round here if we're turned into a huge gas field. Immediately following that event was another we were invited to. Thhis one was insitgated by our local MP to recognise all those people who have helped keep our town Cleaner and Greener' over tthe year. We were invited on to the judging panel - probably in 'revenge' for asking GM to be a judge in our schools' R-U-a-Sculpture Vulture competitions of several years ago. We were happy to oblige but weren't expecting to be nominated for an award too. Unfortunately we were allowed to vote for ourselves as a judge! Who'd have thunk it!!!Any way we didn't win the award but all nominees wwould have been worthy winners so were given a certificate in recognition of the work they'd done. GM and ES from the Civic Trust said some very nice and humbling words about our 27 years in the job we've just finished.
Yours truly with Gordon Marsden MP - pic stolen from his Facebook page
The following morning the Fylde Future team had organised a marine wildlife event. We'd offered to do bit of rockpooling before the tide came in and the serious seawatching started. It wasn't the best of mornings! There was a strong wind driving in heavy squalls and longer spells of torrential rain which meant we didn't get the number of participants we were hoping for, people opting to stay in bed instead.
There's a bit of rain coming our way




But ever the optimists we set up anyway. On the beach before the others arrived we'd seen about 50 Sandwich Terns, a very flighty bunch. One time after they'd upped and landed back down with them they'd collected a smaller darker bird but were a bit too far out to get any detail on it with the bins - we hadn't brought our scope out by that time, concentrating on getting all the rockpool kit set up.
By the time the others (and the sunshine) turned up it had drifted off away from the terns not to be seen again. From what wee got on it grounded and in flight it can only have been a 1st winter Little Gull (171, P2 #57).
Look at that sunshine - not half an hour after the squall pic
The tide allowed us a good half hour's perusal of the rockpools and a tidy selection of marine life found its way in to our tray.
Juvenile Common Starfish and Beadlet Anemones
Common Prawns, Necklace Shell, juvenile Green Shore Crab and a Blennie
Another slightly larger Blennie
 Yesterday was still windy and squally and with the sustained winds in the right quarter it was time to go to look for  Leach's Petrels. We did about 45 minutes either side of high tide seeing just 3 Arctic Skuas, one Kittiwake and a Gannet before we had to leave. Probably the best bird of the watch was a female Common Scoter that flew past only about 50 yards off the wall - they don't normally get seen anything like this close to the land here. It was challenging watching at times with visibility in the torrential squalls down to only some hundreds of yards.
Juts left of centre at the top of the column you can see a Herring Gull. It sat there almost the whole time we were watching so we tried a few phone-scoped pics - we don't have an adapter so they're a bit dodgy.
You lookin at me?
We left too early it transpired as the first Leach's Petrels started to be reported about half an hour after we'd left...grrrrrrrr
This morning we got news that there were decent numbers passing by but couldn't get out until the tide was well down. We arrived at our watch point meeting JS who'd seen about a dozen already - an hour later and not a single one had passed us and we missed the Fulmar. All we had for our effort was a 1st winter Kittiwake. Very disappointing...we do like the tiny waifs that are Leach's Petrels.
Where to next? We'll try again tomorrow morning but the wind has veered round to the wrong quarter so we might well be out of luck again. We've a rockpooling session in the gloom of late evening - that could be fun!
In the meantime let us know who's passing you by in your outback





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