More butterflies and a safari south of the river

The Safari had an errand to run at the beginning of last week down past the dunes, once it was over we took Monty for a scamper on the beach and on the way back to the car found this huge Sea Rocket tucked safely behind the fence.

Sadly without the fence there's no way they can grow like this, they either get trampled by people and their mutts or scraped up by the mechanical beach cleaner. Long live the fence and may many more early successional dune plants flourish! 

In other news we've been enjoying the heatwave even if Monty hasn't. It's not often you see our sea this calm and this blue and the sand looking this bright golden but weeks of calm weather have settled all the discolouring silt we normally see out of the water column and lo and behold our few square miles of the Irish Sea now look (and feel) like the Caribbean

All the tiny dots on the beach are a small proportion of the countless stranded jellyfish we saw that day, mostly Compass Jellyfish.

In between boughts of household chores, dog walking and trying to get to the back of the garage for the first time in years we've had the macro lens out in the garden at Base Camp and taken a few snaps.

Holly Blue - a rare visitor to Base Camp

 Honey Bee mimicking hoverfly, possibly Eristalis nemorum

A hoverfly Helophilus pendula

Red Tailed Bumble Bee

Before the sun has become too hot in the mornings we've been taking Monty to the Rock Gardens to have a wander round the two fields to count butterflies for the Big Butterfly Count with some success.

Common Blue

Other insects also caught our attention from time to time.

Meadow Grasshopper

Small Copper and Common Blue

Small Copper and Small Skipper

Small Copper

One morning on the walk back to Base Camp we spotted a visitor we've hardly seen at all this year. Maybe it's a different individual to the two that used to be around regularly because on the odd occasion we've seen it it's been sitting in places on the same building it/they never used to. We had the butterfly lens with us rather than the big dobber for bird photography.

Peregrine (PYLC #148)

And back to the Rock Gardens on another morning

Common Blue

Female Common Blue

Male Common Blue

 There have been a lot of Meadow Browns but when this one first caught our eye we weren't quite sure what is was, after a bit of chasing around and sneaking up we eventually got a good view and a few pics to see that it was indeed 'just' another Meadow Brown but a leucisitic one at that.

Small Copper again - we never tire of seeing these little beauties

 The next brood of Speckled Woods started to emerge and they are looking really good, a very common butterfly in our area now but it's not that long ago they were unheard of, only 25 years or so

As we said earlier other insects were apt to catch our eye and this one certainly did, we think it's some kind of Ichneumon Wasp, it disappeared under a the thatch of dead grass at the base of the vegetation maybe it had sniffed out a pupating moth chrysalis.

Back at Base Camp while having a cold drink on the patio on a sweltering afternoon we watched a Garden Cross Spider going about its business - yes folks it's autumn now!

Mid week saw us take a trip to the southside with CR and meet up with JG for a wander round the fabulous Lunt Meadows reserve. Avocets with well grown chicks refused to be photographed but who'd have thunk it years ago that less than 10 miles from Liverpool city centre and only a mile and a half from our childhood front door these exotic rarities would be breeding one day - certainly not us, Avocets were the birds of dreams and hoped for holidays down in Norfolk where even there they weren't THAT numerous back then. Two Black Tailed Godwits were more photogenic and again who'd have thunk it way back when...will they be nesting here next year?

The rest of the reserve was fairly quiet with snoozing waterfowl and resting Lapwings being the main interest, the most noise was coming from hidden Reed and Sedge Warblers. We did manage to add to our Photo Year List Challenge in the form of a distant heat-hazy Greenshank (#149)

Then it was lunchtime and time to say ta-ta to JG and wish her luck in her quest for some Purple Hairstreaks, a new species for her in yet another thought to be new location. LATE UPDATE - she was successful, great news!

We headed back north a little way to another Lancashire Wildlife Trust Reserve - they do have some real crackers - Mere Sands Wood.

Star of the show here was a juvenile Common Tern occaionally being fed by its parents - we didn't realise they had pontoons out for the terns and that a few pairs were using them

At the back of the pool the heatwave had evaporated much of the water and left a long sandy spit which was full of loafing Mallards mostly. Something spooked everything, we'd been told to look out for a passing Osprey, and one of the spookeess was a Green Sandpiper (PYLC #150) which unfortunately didn't really come close enough for a decent pic.

While we were failing miserably with the heat and distance with the Green Sandpiper CR called out he'd found a female Mandarin Duck a little closer tucked in behind some Lapwings. Again there was a little flush by something unseen and it swam out in to better view though still quite a long way off (PYLC #151).

Not the best pic but a bit of an unexpected bonus so we're certainly not going to complain!

One of the resons for visiting was the woodland as it would be cooled and shadier for a hot dog. It was good to see the plantations of Hazel coming along nicely and still very lush and verdant despite the drought conditions. A vast improvement on the impenetrable thickets of tangled gnarly old Rhododendron we helped start getting rid of in the very early 80s...still plenty more to go at too!!!

Down at the viewing platform overlooking one of the smaller pools we were quite disappointed to see it wasn't creaming with dragonflies and damselflies, only a couple of Brown Hawkers patrolled the far bank. It was nice to watch a young family of Moorhens being gently tended by their doting parents though.

A few feet away two well grown juvenile Shelducks looked as though they'd been abandoned to their fate by their doting parents - big and ugly enough to look after themselves now.

Round at the far side of the reserve the water levels were similarly low with lots of lake bed exposed. There were lots of lumps sticking put of the mud and closer inspection showed them to be the shells of hundreds of deceased Swan Mussels.

Click the pic to see them better

We'd seen the Kingfisher zooming low across the water at a couple of places earlier in the afternoon. The perches set up for photographers were high and dry with no water and hence no fish obviously. So we were a bit fortunate to find the little connecting ditch still had a bit of water in it and then as if by magic the Kingfisher appeared. Bit only for us, from where C was sitting it was obscured by too much vegetation. But we had a little window through the shrubbery giving us a half a shout at a pic.

Result!!!

All this was followed by the start of National Whale and Dolphin Watch. It started well with us getting a msg about two Bottlenose Dolphins coming our way and luckily we got on to them, our first of the year. Unfortunately this was about three hours before the start of our official Watch and the weather, after being hot, sunny and flat calm for nigh on three months was deteriorating rapidly.

Right at the start, chatting to some of the volunteers - pic courtesy of PW

The storm coming in from the left landed soon after and our four hour watch was abandoned after only 90 minutes with nothing other than a handful of Manx Shearwaters seen.

Where to next? Hopefully no more getting wet during National Whale and Dolphin Watch

In the meantime let us know who's doing all the dazzling in your outback.