Struggling

The Safari is struggling to put finger to keyboard at the moment. It's not that we've had nowt to tell you about as we've been doing loads but we've also had serious family issues taking up a lot of our time.

For a quick catch-up we've moved our birds year list up to 166, the last one added being some Bearded Tits at Leighton Moss last weekend on a visit with our Southside mates.

Our Photo Year List Challenge has come on a bit as well, as would be expected in May with many new migrants fresh in from their winter sojourn. Moving our tally up to 144

Tree Pipit

Siskin

 The two above were found on an early morning visit to Beacon Fell near Preston

A better Siskin taken at a private nature reserve in the southern part of the Lake District

Rook taken at the well worth a visit Kelpies at Falkirk in central Scotland

 A visit to the tern colony at Preston Dock with CR gave us some superb photo opportunites

Arctic Tern in one of the nest boxes

Common Tern

And in flight too

For more pics from our morning please have a blimp at our Flickr site linked on the right-hand margin

The safari up to the private reserve was a brilliant day out which started with being shown a trio of (Barred) Grass Snakes, our first in Britain for far too long.

The blue in the eye shows it's about to moult

Redstart

Spotted Flycatcher refusing to sit out in the open

A couple of days later we were with our long-time mates from the Southside at Leighton Moss which also gave us a few more pics for the Challenge.

Scaup

Reed Warbler - by eck this one took some getting!

Osprey - a last minute fluke after waiting for one to turn up all day!

Mediterranean Gull - Top left and superbly picked out by 'young' IH after we'd totally missed it

Great Spotted Woodpecker - down the road in Stanley Park

We've had a bit of joy with dragonflies and damselflies and other winged things too.

4-Spotted Chaser

Beautiful Demoiselle

4-Spotted Chaser again

Broad Bodied Chaser

Large Red Damselfly

Broad Bodied Chaser

Giant Cranefly

A Scorpion Fly

The visit to Leighton Moss gave us this Avocet with an uncomfortable looking broken but healed leg. It doesn't look good but the bird was moving around alright and putting weight on it but still just looking at it again is making us squeamish.

Across the road the local Bee Orchids numbered only one this year.

At the zoo the other day we were shown the Dune Helleborines that were found growing among the Dinosaurs last year.

We'll have to go back next week when the flowers are fully formed just to conform they are actually Dune Helleborines and not something else although that is a little unlikely.

That's about it for now. As the warm dry weather continues we've been trying to get some invertebrate snaps from the garden at Base Camp and although still very poor the moth trap is at last picking up a bit. We can tell you about our finds, successes and failures in our next blog...and Dolphin season is upon us now and we have a Sea Watch coming up at Rossall Tower...Bring on the blubber, last month we had eight Harbour Porpoises but can we better that this week?

Where to next? Tales from the coast if we get a chance as we're waiting seriously bad news from the family.

In the meantime let us know who's been slithering around your outback.