Avoiding the cold and windy local patch

The Safari is getting fed up with the grim weather, there just seems to be no respite from it...Noah only had to put up with 40 days and 40 nights of rain, we've had six flamin months of the stuff!!! And the wind...did Noah have to suffer howling gales week in week out? Our wildlife garden is beyond battered and bruised as well as mostly underwater, we really hope it recovers.

When news broke of a Common Scoter on Stanley Park lake it gave us the opportunity to get away from the promenade and the worst of the weather, at least there's a bit of shelter in the park. As it happened we bumped into a couple of our neighbours also walking their dog here to escape the weather. T'mutt and old Paddy had a sniff around while we pointed out the Ring Necked Parakeets and Nuthatches to our friends. At the lake we quickly found the Common Scoter but it was a long way off, against the light and asleep, so perhaps not the best thing to show newby wildlifers, it was just a dot in the distance, although a much bigger dot than we normally see through our scope from the prom, and wouldn't have meant much to them - brighty coloured parakeets and Blue Tits crossed with woodpeckers were much more easily appreciated. We left them to their walk while we went to try to get a closer look, or at least a further look but in slightly better light, from the bridges. Still not the best view and it hadn't woken up as you can see.

Good to see a bonus Common Sandpiper too. It was swimming around whilst sleeping and drifted to the front corner of the island so was a little nearer.

We strolled on anticipating it would have woken up by the time we'd done a circuit of the lake. As we crossed the bridge a pair of Great Tits scolded us loudly, they must have had a nest somewhere close by. The roadside path wasn't producing anything much and as we said in our last missive we're not going to take any more shots of Tufted Ducks unless they're engaged in some unusual behaviour, which they weren't today. We hoped to find the Great Crested Grebes engaged in thir weed ddance display but only one was out on thevwater and that was right in the middle. It did catch a decent sized fish but 'processed' and swallowed it facing away from us so no photo...Rude! Passing Heron Island we saw the wind-felled tree and the nest with two youngsters thankfully OK and doing well after the calamity.

Every day out on safari has a soundtrack and today's was Wrens, they were everywhere blasting out their happy little ditty.

Robins, Willow Warblers, Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps provided the accompaniment although all remained unseen or seen only very briefly. The fallen tree in the top corner of the lake held an acrobatic Moorhen - we do like a Moorhen up a tree they just seem so incongruous and ungainly clambering about in the twiggery.

Not jumping just unbalanced, the twigs are too small for its huge feet!

Nearly down now and at least it can grip this thicker branch.

You've got to ask why? It climbed up from the lake shore to about 10 feet then seemed to get vertigo and clambered down as quick as maybe. But what made it go up in the first place, it definitely wasn't looking for food while it was up there - more concentrating on not falling out of the tree. They must just like to go up from time to time to get a different persperctive on their world. 

Continuing further round the lakeside path we came across another showy Wren, most of them were singing from deep cover.

On the remains of the barrier across the lake separating the Conservation Area from the main lake stood two more Common Sandpipers.

Eventually we made our way round the north lake and saw the Common Scoter again at least now it was awake and in abit better light although back on the far side of the island.

Off we went round to the south bank for, hopefully, a better view. On the way we heard a Nuthatch calling loudly from behind the boathouse and went to investigate. We soon saw one go into a hole in a tree and waited for it to come out.

We waited round for it to return which it did a couple of times before coming back once more with a massive bit of stick which, after a good look around to make sure no -one was watching, it took inside.

As for the Common Scoter, yes it was a bit nearer and yes it was awake but the light was still dire.

The following day we decided to avoid the prom again and with some bright sunshine hoped to get better pics of the Common Scoter. We found it straight away, tucked under the overhanging branches fringing the island fast asleep - no chance of a pic! A Cormorant made a nice silhouette against the early morning sunshine.

And today the Great Crested Grebe was a little easier to get a pic of zthough still not perfect nor doig the dance thingy.

We had another look at the Heron chicks in their water-side nest but waited for a pic of one off the adults stood calmly at the water's edge ignoring photographers, dog walkers, joggers etc passing close by.

Today's soundtrack was Blackcaps but they refused to be photographed as we walked along the lakeside to go and have another look at the Nuthatch nest. We stood there for the best part of 20 minutes but not a sniff of a Nuthatch today. The best thing we noticed was a Horse Chestnut sapling growing out of a hole on the truck of a neighbouring Plane tree. We wonder how that's going to turn out in the future.

Wandering on past the boating jetty we noticed a couple of Cormorants enjoying a bit of sunbathing, and why not - the sun has been a rare commodity in recent weeks if not months.

We love the green eye and scaly patern on these prehistoric looking beasts.

Especially when they get a bit closer.

And are very striking in their full breeding attire, the white head feathers we usued to think of as representing the continental subspecies 'sinensis' but this one is difinately 'just' a 'regular' north Atlantic 'carbo'.

As for the Common Scoter? It didn't come out from under the foliage.

With the weather being so bad we've spent quite a bit of time garden watching and had a few unusual sightings to report. First up a Blue Tit on our feeders is a real rarity, no doubt an inordinately common sight in many of our readers' gardens but here not so. Last year we only had 39 sightings of Blue Tits in the garden, that's less than one a week, and normally they're too afraid of the three dozen rumbustuous House Sparrows to go anywhere near the feeders.

An unknown neighbour feeds the local Grey Squirrels a mixture of Hazel nuts, Walnuts and monkey nuts. These get eaten or more often than not stached for later. We've got a couple of Hazel seedlings growing in our borders and one near neighbour has them growing among her pot plants. We regularly get craters dug in the lawn where a Walnut has been buried. We like seeing the squirrels carrying these around - a nut as big as their head!

Over our back fence ther's a pair of Blackbirds nesting and they regularly visit our lawn to forage...too many local lawns are made of lifeless plastic and totally useless to the Blackbirds or indeed anything else. If you're on X (formerly Twitter) have a follow of @ShitLawns. The Blackbirds find worms and sonmetimes what look like leatherjackets (Cranefly larvae) from our lawn but this time the male has found a large slug and spent several minutes wiping across the grass to deslime it, fascinating to watch.

Those three pics were taken through salt-encrusted double glazing so apologies for the lack of quality.

Yesterday we joined the volunteers at Marton Mere again. They were getting a pond ready for a pond dipping event coming up soon so we had our wellies on ready for work.We got stuck in forking pulled reeds and rushes into the wheelbarrow for disposal...it felt like being a teenager on the farm shoveling horse do-doos again...until our back had a little ping and we knew it's been a very long time since we were a teenager! With a big excting safari coming up soon we had to stop work, can't rick a bad back for that. Instead we had a gentle stroll around the reserve to see what we could see and then meet up with the group of volunteers working further on. At first we didn't see much but our ears heard plenty. Our first Reed Warblers of the year, a singing Reed Bunting trying to make itself heard against the strong wind, soundtrack of the day were the numerous Cetti's Warblers and best of all a Grasshopper Warbler which we caught a couple of brief snatches of in the distance when we were sheltered from the wind. In a more sheltered and sunny spot wec saw our second butterfly of the year, a Peacock.

From the scrub came the songs of Chaffinch, Blackcap, Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler. A single Greenfinch sang too.

No Sedge Warblers, Whitethroats or Lesser Whitethroats yet though. Passing the Paddock, looking good after a bit of winter management, we saw our second butterfly of the day another Peacock and then our third, a Small Tortoiseshell. It's great what a bit of warm sunshine can do, but sadly we didn't see many bees or hoverflies on the multitude of Dandelions. 

The gulls began a commotion, but it was 'only' a Buzzard upsetting them not the hoped for Osprey. After having a chat with the other volunteers we continued on our way and out of the reserve and back towards the car. A pair of Linnets by the reserve gate were good to see. Then another species of butterfly, a Speckled Wood which wouldn't settle for a pic. Not far beyond that we heard a Bullfinch call close by and looked up to see a female high in a Willow tree joined by a male a minute later.

The female left while the male flitted about among the twigs but never really showed himself to best advantage.

Ah if only he'd faced the front!

The rest of meander back to the car was uneventful apart from a minor detour to have a look at a couple of ponds - big mistake...t'mutt was in and now stinks of foul pond bottom! 

Another sunny morning saw us back at Stanley park where we bumped into FB who, like us, was on the fingers crossed hunt for Redstarts, Pied Flycatchers and all things migratory and scarce. He hadn't had any joy. He hadn't seen the Common Scoter since yesterday morning either. We aimed for the bridges anyway and thence the roadside of the lake where we hoped the Great Crested Grebes might be performing. At the bridges a couple of Moorhens were squaring up to each other tails aloft and we got thee impression it was going to excalate. We scurried across the bridge hoping to get down the bank where the light would be over our shoulder and the birds more eye-level with us but they couldn't care a jot about our photographic wishes and kicked off big style before we'd crossed the bridge.

Far more serene were the pair of Gadwall at the top end of the lake.

The Great Crested Grebe was out again, right out in the middle of the lake as usual, and the Heron chicks were tucked up deep in the cover on their water level nest so no pics of either of those.

For once we got up close and personal with one of the many Robins. Most camera wielding visitors to the park get excellent Robin shots but for some reason the seem to shy away from us.

We'd not seen any of the Red Eared Terrapins this year until today when we found four. A bigish one, two medium sized ones and this one a real monster about the size of a dinner plate!

With nothing happening at the Nuthatch nest again it was time to head back to base camp and a well earned cuppa.

That's all folks...sure we've heard that somewhere before

 

Where to next? We've got a more distant safari coming up soon.

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