Mid summer moth madness and some other stuff

The Safari apologises once again for not keeping you up-to-date with the goings-on in Safari-land. We've been busy and up to all sorts of wildlife malarkey but not had a lot of time to put finger to keyboard for you.

We completed the National Whale and Dolphin Watch with lots of people coming along and joining in, many more than we've ever had for previous years' watches - a big thank you to all of them. Unfortunately we didn't see any cetaceans, the only ones that turned up were the two Bottlenose Dolphins mentioned in our previous blog-post and a Harbour Porpoise that we saw a couple of hours after the mid-week Watch had ended when we went back to the coast with Wifey and her sister to give Monty a walk on along the beach and the morning of the second Sunday Watch five Bottlenose Dolphins turned up off Starr Gate but didn't hang around for the afternoon tide when we were watching...how annoying! We did have some blubbery luck in the form of a few Grey Seals but they were all nearly halfway to the Isle of Man and even in the telescope racked up to full power not much more than a black dot. At least the weather turned out nice again

Shorts! It must have been summer that day!!!

Don't often get cetacean spotting conditions like this along our coast

Thanks to Debs Woods for the pics

 In between all the watching we've still had to take Monty for his walks and on one of them we found a recently deceased and washed up Guillemot. Still not had decent views of a live one and certainly had no chance of getting a pic of one for our Photo Year List Challenge.

In other news we turned up for the Discovery Walk at Marton Mere last week and ended up almost co-leading it. It was a bit coll and windy so we didn't find any butterflies or dragonflies but the group all managed to find exciting wildlife life for themselves - mostly Blackberries - yum yum and here we are showing everyone a Grasshopper that one of the Eagle-eyed children had spotted on the track.

Maybe our best find was a huge Robin's Pin Cushion Gall, made on a Dog Rose by tiny sawfly wasps.

We've also helped out with the Living Seas NW team's rockpooling event which was really well attended. It's great to see so many youngsters coming along to all these events and learning about their local wildlife and environment.

We're not about to thump some one, there's a couple of Brown Shrimps being saved for comparison with the Common Prawns caught earlier

Back at Base camp - which Wifey informs us might be being packed up and moved - the moth trap has been interesting when not full of Common Wasps and Large Yellow Underwings.

Ancylis badianna

Gold Spot

Latticed Heath

Ruby Tiger

Setaceous Hebrew Character

Spilonota ocellana

Swammerdammia pyrella - as told by the coppery end to the wings

Turnip moth

Broad bordered yellow underwing

Lychnis

Pebble Prominent

And a Yellow Orphion Ichneumon wasp which didn't manage to hit the SD card and a Forest (aka Red Legged) Shieldbug which did, although it was a bit dark when we got round to getting a pic.

We had a real shock when doing the washing up at the kitchen sink the other day when a small butterfly fluttered past the window, looking out of the side window we saw that it had landed on the duvet cover drying on the washing line...so expecting it to be a Common or Holly Blue we grabbed a pot with the intention of putting in the fridge for a couple hours to cool it down so we could get some open wing shots later - certainly wasn't expecting it to be a Purple Hairstreak!!! We could never imagined when we moved to Base Camp 14 years ago we'd get this on our garden list in a million years! Just goes to show how much they're moving around (spreading? - will they stick?) this summer.

We've had a couple of safaris out with CR too, one to the east for some riverside walks hich gave us a few butterflies

But no Grey Wagtails, still not photographed one for our Challenge.

The other safari was up to the private reserve in south Cumbria again. This time we saw no snakes and only had a fleeting glimpse of a juvenile Common Lizard but the dragonflies were good.

Black Darter

Black Darter

Common Darter

Common Darter

Common Darters

Emerald Damselfly

Southern Hawker

A hoverfly (possibly Xylota xanthocnema according to CR who knows a lot more about these beasties than we do) and 7-Spot Ladybird

Southern Hawker

Nice to see Painted Ladies there too.

We also got a pic of the Bog Hoverfly, a right big dobber, that we missed on the riverside wander the previous week.

The local Ospreys didn't disappoint either but were always a bit distant and heat hazy for proper pics.

Underfoot out on the Raised Bog there were loads of Sundews, predatory plants, their sticky leaves waiting to entrap any passing insects.

And to cap it all the reserve has recently been extended to include a couple of hay meadows and just look at the ditch they've dug, what a superb profile, if only all farm ditches looked like this the amount and variation of extra habitat would be phenomenal.

Yesterday we were on the dunes looking for butterflies with our regular family group. It wasn't the best of weather for butterflies but with lots of eyes searching, eager netting and some exceptional tracking by some of the parents we soon were able to pot some up to show the youngsters.

Narrow Bordered 5-Spot Burnet Moth

Common Blue in flight - video grab!

Common Blue

Devils Coach Horse - looking a bit worse for wear

Grasshopper

Grey Damsel Bug - we've never seen one of these before

And neither have we seen a bee like this before either, turns out to be either Red Thighed or Black Thighed Epeolus, apparently variable and hard to tell apart without a microscope and no we'd never heard of them before either...

The day also gave us our best pic of the blog - just look at the expression on the young lass's face, concentration, wonder, engagement - priceless - - that's what it's all about

Many thanks to the Group Organiser and parents of the children for allowing the Safari to use their photos

Where to next? There's the small matter of a Bat and Moth Night coming up - should be fun

In the meantime let us know what's priceless in your outback