The Safari spotted some sunshine the other day and without further ado was picked up by CR for a photographic jaunt in Stanley Park. Well why wouldn't you after all the dull and wind and rain we've endured recently a bit of sunshine wasn't to be wasted.
A check of the rail in the lake proved fruitless for Mediterranean Gulls but there were a couple of Black Headed Gulls sporting rings and one of those also had a Darvik ring - White 4FC - a Danish ringed bird reported about annually in the park during the winter since 2013, except 2016 - was it somewhere else or just not reported?
A short walk to the other side of the lake saw us peering up at the old Great Spotted Woodpecker hole where a pair of Ring Necked Parakeets have taken up residence, one was high up in the tree top the other nowhere to be seen until it emerged from the depths of the hole.
The light was catching the Cormorants sat on the rail that partitions off the Conservation Area very nicely.
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| Lovin those emerald green eyes! |
A Great Crested Grebe (102, PYBC #71) came quite close and in full breeding regalia too. It dived frequently but didn't come up with any fish.
From there we moved round to the Heron Island where about 10 birds were sat in or near their nests. There wasn't much nesting activity just a bit of pair bonding and a little stick rearranging, it'll all kick off in earnest in the next week or so, but we got a few snaps in poor light - the sun had gone back in! - to put Heron on our PYBC at #72. We might well go back on a properly sunny day and get some breeding behaviour 'action' shots before the leaves come out and obscure the view.
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| Always amazes us how those huge feet to stop them sinking in sloppy mud are also dexterous enough to grip the most slender of twigs. |
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| Home for the foreseeable future |
The Great Crested Grebe had followed us round to this side too. And while we attempting to get duff shots of Herons in trees C managed to get a quick capture of it in the process of swallowing a Roach.
Retracing our steps we heard the Ring Necked Parakeets again, and this time they were at a different nest hole at the top of the lake.
Back on the rail a cluster of Black Headed Gulls had a different ringed bird, this on White VLJ, another Danish ringed bird and a winter regular first reported here in February 2009 and our last previous report of it to the ringing scheme was back in December 2013.
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| White VLJ - already an adult when first ringed near Copenhagen in March 2008 |
Returning to the Ring Necked Parakeets original tree the two birds were out of the hole and engaging a bit of lovey-dovey. The posse of parakeetazi stood beneath the tree told us they'd been watching them for about 10 minutes, now in that time we hadn't seen or heard (and they are noisy beggars when they take flight) fly past us from the 'northern' hole so we're pretty confident there were two pairs...interesting and awaiting confirmation.
The following day we'd arranged to take a group of families out on the beach to see what the recent storms had washed up. It wasn't long before tubs, trays and buckets were full of all manner of interesting flotsam and jetsam. One of the buckets contained the leg of a Spider Crab something we've never seen on this coast before - that always happens - someone finds something we've never seen before in nearly 20 years of looking - just shows you what's out there. Although to the children the Dead Man's Fingers sponge was probably a better story!
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| Spider Crab leg bottom left by the Oyster - should have got a close-up! |
We also had a look at the huge selection of pebbles to be found on the beach. All have fascinating stories, from Limestone full of fossils to bits of old house brick, lumps of coal and granite from ancient exploding volcanoes...and most of it courtesy of the Ice Age...fantastic!
We ended the session with half an hour looking for crabs in the boating lake. It took a while to catch anything but then some rather large Brown Shrimps were brought to the surface.
Moving down to the other end by the bridge proved more successful wit ha bunch of Periwinkles found and lined up in the tray by the children for the inaugural Fleetwood Periwinkle Grand National.
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| A clear winner is emerging - literally! |
More Brown Shrimps found their way in to the buckets and then a Common Prawn was found so we could examine the differences between these two similar species.
The crabbing wasn't going too well, it was more like fishing for bacon as the bait was all that was being hauled up time after time.
But with minutes to go before the end of the session the cry of "I've got one!" went up. The lad came running over to show the rest of the group his catch and there sure enough was a Green Shore Crab tucking in to a rasher of best smoked streaky.
The lad put it back and then returned a few minutes later with an even bigger one - job done as time was up!
In other news a Fox has been heard at Base Camp in the small hours a couple of times so we've put the stealth cam up in the back garden - fingers crossed. House Sparrows (P1 #20) have been heard early morning in the recently butchered (=Tidied) garden across the street which is a relief as we expected the work to have been so severe as to have rendered the shrubs useless for the sparrows and the patch's first Chaffinch of the year was heard then seen flying over (P1 #21).
In the garden we've added Long Tailed Tit (Garden #13), just a single - or did we not spot the others?
A sunny afternoon walk along the cliffs with Monty saw us actually take the bins for once and immediately we pointed them seawards we saw an enormous flock of Common Scoters (103) - really helps when you take your optics!
Conversely we almost didn't need optics on a sunny morning's walk around Marton Mere as there was very little to see, nice sunshine but the strong bitingly cold wind was keeping everything well tucked away. A few yards from the car this Carrion Crow watched Monty warily as he went giddy splashing in and out of the pond and puddle we really should have prevented him from going in by putting him on his lead much earlier.
After yesterday evening's txt from PT saying she'd seen a group of four Roe Deer very close to Wifey's work and only about 1 1/2 miles from Base Camp we took the opportunity to have a look this morning - nothing but brilliant to know such an awesome creature has been seen so close to home!
So you're all up to date now folks.
Where to next? Not sure yet, we've got a lot of family duties this coming week so might not be able to get out on safari much.
In the meantime let us know who's taking over all the holes in your outback.
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