Two trips to the Southside

The Safari has been enjoying the many superb pics of the recent Leach's Petrels along our coast - this one by young EM is a real humdinger! And what about these - awesome and a clever trick to get them. Unfortunately the wind didn't stay strong enough long enough or from the right direction for us a to get a pic of the little mites, yes we are a bit disappointed not to add Leach's Petrel to our Year Bird Challenge tally! 

We had to go down to the Southside on family duties on Thursday and to tire Monty out a little before we went visiting we had an hour's mooch around the excellent Lunt Meadows reserve. We say it's excellent but today it was rather quiet. The drive down had got our hopes up for a good morning's birding with a Jay flying over the car and both Buzzard and Kestrel seen close to the roadside in quick succession.

At the first screen the cattle were close by, Monty couldn't see them but he could sure smell them and was rather 'interested'! There is a small herd of Redpoll that undertake conservation grazing to create hummocky grassland for breeding waders and mud wallows for the birds to feed in.

We're not sure what species of Mayweed it is but the 'field' looked really beautiful and the cattle contrasted very nicely against it. with this fellow so close we weren't going to hop over the fence to investigate either and it's probably a good job he couldn't see Monty behind the screen too.

At the back behine the distant cows a small hint of movement caught our eye. A Brown Hare had poked it's head up out of a bit of a ditch for a look-around - our first of the year.

Something spooked it and it shot off at a slow gallop for a hare but a bit quick for us and the camera.

Bird-wise there was only a small flock of Lapwings on the pool and they were soon flushed by something unseen and flew over to the far pool - nothing for it but to follow them. 

We passed a couple of Red Admirals and a Small White butterfly on the way.

The sun came out at the next screen and nicely lit up the Lapwings which had now joined a larger flock.

With all the strong winds we expected there might have been a more exotic wader from more northern latitudes or even North America in the Lapwing flock or at least a Ruff, but no there were just a handful of Snipe secreted around the marginal vegetation.

There were a few gulls loafing in the shallows and snoozing on the small muddy island. Mostly Herring Gulls,  a couple of Lesser Black Backs and four Black Headed Gulls, but with the Black Heads was an obvious odd-man-out - a first winter Mediterranean Gull...Result!

A Water Rail was far too quick for us as it legged it across the mud below the screen, that was about the best of the rest and with time getting near to visiting time we legged it too.

We had one trick up our sleeve, close to the reserve is a barn which holds a pair of Little Owls. It's always worth the two minute detour even if we'd done it unsuccessfully a few times before - today was our lucky day! There in the dark recesses of the barn was a Little Owl (174, YBC #148) sitting on a beam and fortunately against the pale timber so a pic was possible for our Year Bird Challenge. Good to see one as we totally dipped out on this species in 2014 and 2016.

Now time was pressing but there are two roads you can go by but in the short run we chose to retrace our steps right rather than continue left. A good choice, turning off the 'main' road down the lane we used to call Ratty Road when we were birding round here on our bike many years ago a family of Grey Partridges (175) flew almost over our bonnet. Now had we been on our bike we could have just stopped but in the car we had to drive nearly half a mile to find somewhere to turn round and hope they'd still be in view. Only one was but maybe fortunately it was one of the adults, the well grown chicks were nowhere to be seen in the recently harvested field, they must have gone into the ditch at the side of the little wood. But how annoying it should stand behind the only remaining stalk of stubble in the whole field! (YBC #149).

Such exquisitely marked birds it's a real shame they are now so rare and generally hard to come by when in our youth we practically used to trip over them in these same fields. 

All too soon it followed the rest of the family into the ditch with a last look over its shoulder.

The following day we were taken by CR to the big reserve Martin Mere (there we've said it - we normally refer to it as the reserve we don't mention by name due to the similarity with 'our' reserve Marton Mere)

With a gentle wind just west of north this was going to be a Pink Footed Goose day and so it transpired as we saw a couple of flocks at height heading that way when we dropped Monty off at his minders. More were seen on the drive down.

The wink-wink sound of Pink Footed Geese wafted down from on high as small flocks began to arrive

Landing gear down - for the first time in 750 miles?

More and more arrived in larger and larger flocks too...spectacular!

They were landing out of sight in one of the reserve's fields away from the hide we were in so we had a little walk.

The next hide we stopped in overlooks a small pool which had a couple of Black Headed Gulls that were fishing for 3-Spined Sticklebacks with some success.

They were joined by a Heron which was successful too, many times! It all seemed a bit too easy and not good if you were a Stickleback!

Look at that - it must have somehow caught two at once but ended up dropping one - lucky fish!

Also on the pool briefly were a pair of Gadwall 

and a couple of Coot.

We didn't get a pic of the lovely Moorhen and totally missed the very brief visit by the Kingfisher.

Moving down to the farthest hide we searched through the scattered flock of Lapwings 

for a Ruff and eventually found one, a long way off. So far away this pic is enlarged by 200%

At long last Ruff (176) goes on the year list, how come it's taken until mid-September to come across one of these? And it just about qualifies for inclusion on our Year Bird Challenge bringing up our 150 species photographed. hopefully we'll be able to get a much better replacement pic before the year end - won't we?

Another Kingfisher zipped past along the dyke but didn't stop, while in the the dyke that joins this one an injured over-summering Whooper Swan won't have long for its mates to arrive from Iceland, they're usually not too far behind the Pink footed Geese.

The wander round the rest of the reserve didn't give us much more of note so we decided to cut our losses and head to Mere Sands Wood, a cracking little reserve we often helped out at during its formative years in the early 80s.

The main feeding station was quiet except for a couple of Chaffinches and a family of Dunnocks so we didn't stay long and anyway our main 'target' was away across the far side of the reserve. On the way we came across a nice Nuthatch (didn't get those here in the 80s) and a recently fledged still mostly spotty Robin at the woodland feeding station, no sight nor sound of the recent Willow Tit, the first here for a number of years although they were regular in the 80s.

A flock of Long Tailed Tits entertained us briefly at the first hide down this end of the lake but it was the next hide we wanted to be at. It was already full of eager photographers who told us the Kingfisher had been about but not showing at all well. Several perches have been positioned over the water to enable photographers to get 'the' shot...providing the bird behaves...which it wasn't today.

We waited a while hearing Jays shrieking in the distance until someone gave the call 'Kingfisher'...it landed on the most distant perch almost totally obscured by the tall heads of Willowherb from our seat. No good - it had gone by the time we'd managed to get the camera to focus on the perch rather than the intervening vegetation - it wouldn't have been 'the' shot either - too distant. There'll be more opportunities later in the year when the vegetation has either been cut or died back for the winter.

Leaving the gang of photographers to their wait we continued round the reserve which being mid-afternoon was pretty quiet. We settled in the empty hide overlooking the other large lake and tried to get some dragonfly pics without success - using our phone as they were too close for the long lens! We'd got a Common Darter on the bridge at the reserve entrance but that was settled on the handrail.

This time we were after flight shots - yes with the phone! - as the dragons flew back and forth around the vegetation just outside the window.

We only managed a couple of very blurry shots one of which might have been OK if the dragon had been within the depth of field - how annoying.

Heading back for a last blast at the Kingfishers we passed an interesting looking fungus - the reserve has a superb variety of fungi but they are a group we know little about so if anyone out there can identify this one we'd be grateful. We don't even possess a field guide for fungi - we did have one but it seems to have disappeared off our bookshelf sometine in the distant past.

A Raven 'cronking' overhead was another species we wouldn't have dreamed of finding here in the 80s - had to go a long way to the nearest ones at that time. 

No further Kingfisher action was reported by the photographers and we missed the opportunity for a great Jay-in-flight shot as it flew across the lake but didn't land in the nearby tree as it had apparently done earlier. The only bird about was a moulting drake Shoveler which has a face a little bit like a Yankee Blue Winged Teal. It was preening like mad and like a dog chasing its tail it spun round and round rather comically trying to nibble those hard to reach parts.

A funny looking sheet rainbow heralded the downpour that would soak us on the way back to the car - should have got a phone pic of that it was a bit weird, never seen anything like it before. Despite the short sharp shower, missing an Osprey and only seeing one of the four Marsh Harriers in the morning it was a great day out on safari.
Where to next? It's the weekend so anything could happen anywhere!
In the meantime let us know who's reaching those hard to reach places in your outback.

A little bit of dipping

The Safari has been a bit busy of late and not had a lot of time to get out n about. When we have been out we haven't seen owt. Worst of all a holy Grail bird went past the office window unseen yesterday when the gang of regular watchers who stand at the shelter to the south of our watch-point only went and had a Storm Petrel. The last one here must have been at least five and maybe as many as ten years ago. We just knew yesterday's blowy weather was going to produce something but we didn't have enough time to watch properly.

In the affternoon we ran a family bug hunt but the cold wind and drizzle turning to rain didn't help. One little girl did successfully catch a Speckled Wood butterfly in her fishing net. we saw several of these but little else other than slugs and a rather stout ground beetle under the ancient pieces of Bog Oak.

Last night we were chatting to our Extreme Photographer on the phone outside so as not to disturb Wifey's TV viewing, when an Oystercatcher (Garden #28) was heard flying over. Despite being so numerous on the coast only a mile away and frequenting playing fields in other areas of town they seem to give us a miss which is strange seeing as how there's a huge school playing field only a hundred yards away. The last one we had over the garden was in 2014 and prior to that 2012 and 2011; so far from an annual occurence.

This morning the wind had dropped a bit but there was nothing of note out to sea. In the afternoon we had another family event this time pond dipping at work. Here's a selection of what the youngsters found

3-Spined Sticklebacks - there's far too many of them in the pond

Stickleback and Wandering Snail

Greater Pond Snail

Water Boatman

All great fun for an hour or so.

Where to next? More Patch 2 stuff tomorrow if we get a chance away from front desk duty we've been 'volunteered' for.

In the meantime let us know who's dipping for what in your outback.

Gotcha you sneaky bush sneaker

The Safari has been trying to keep an eye on the Blackbird that has been collecting worms. Not easy through the office window which has a rather limited view. Today we had a bit more time available for serious 'outside' looking. We'd been over to Patch 2 but abandoned ship as the waves started to splash over the wall well before high tide, so we swapped scope for camera and took a slow stroll round the gardens. It was no good, we could see the Blackbirds and watched them carrying worms back to the scrub but they never stayed out in the open long because of the constant stream of dog walkers. We ran out of lunchtime and had to prepare for our school group who were due in an hour or so. Luckily once we'd got all their kit out and prepped up the dog walking circus died down and the Blackbirds were staying out longer...

They were very wary and wouldn't allow a particularly close approach if they had any food collected.

We watched him back to the densest part of the hedgerow where we had no chance of seeing how many youngsters were being fed. Behind us we saw the female also collecting worms and she disappeared under the nearby Tamarisk shrub bed which was much more open underneath. As she went in another movement was seen, it was the/another youngster!

It's certainly an unusual sight but not totally unprecedented Blackbirds have been known to nest in every month of the year but January's probably not their favourite. We don't recall ever seeing a fledgling Blackbird in January in our nearly 50 years of wildlife watching. Lets hope there's not a serious cold snap around the corner.

Our school group arrived on time and after a few preliminaries started their observations, first off was the temperature - a globally warmed plus two degrees above the long term January average 9.3C on the field and 'in the shade' too, it was totally cloudy and despite the high temperature the wind felt really this arvo. 

Once the science was completed it was time to find if anything could be found in the crystal clear 6.3C water. 

It didn't take long for the first creatures to be brought to the surface, not surprisingly 3-spined Sticklebacks were captured first.

The were soon joined by front swimming Water Boatmen of varying sizes.

And they were joined by a multitude of snails including the empty shell of a large Ramshorn Snail.

A couple of back swimming Water Boatmen were also netted, they're hard enough to find in the summer here!

What a great gang of kids and hardly a moan about the cold.

Where to next? Hopefully Patch 2 will be come back into play tomorrow and the wind might just have brought something interesting within reach of our scope.

In the meantime let us know who's got themselves out of of seasonal synch in your outback.

Beaten by butterflies

The Safari has been doing some sums after the Red Arrows whizzed over Base Camp at the weekend. From what we can gather their 20 minute display of nine planes (and one present on the ground in reserve) along with coming from and returning to their home airfield the team uses enough fuel to keep our Land Rover rolling along for about 15 years! All worked out at our current rate of mileage of course.

We noticed a few bees out today on a variety of plants but the Marjoram was probably the most popular.

The works garden still has a Teasel in flower, or at least most if the head still has some flowers on it.

A look at Patch 2 was disappointing with little out there on a carpet-flat sea, can't believe there wasn't a Harbour Porpoise to be seen, just a distant Grey Seal.

The back green briefly played host to another Wheatear, another couple this autumn and that be more than all previous records put together.

Then our group turned up to have a look at the pond. It didn't take them long to start pulling out lots of Greater Pond Snails and 3-spined Sticklebacks.

When they stopped for their lunch we promised to find and bring them a butterfly or two as we'd seen some Large Whites flying around the gardens. The very warm sun meant they were far too quick for our net.

A Meadow Brown settled for a while but that was after we'd put the net away!

Too busy in the afternoon to spend anything more than a few seconds outside.

Where to next? More pond devastation and we'll go to the park we thought we were going to this afternoon but got our days muxed ip.

In the meantime let us know who's been to quick for whom in your outback.

Never seen that before in 40 years of looking

The Safari started the annual National Whale and Dolphin Watch on Monday and within five minutes of the start we'd had a couple of distant Bottlenose Dolphins - not bad at all! Prior to the watch a couple of regular visitors and occasional wildlife reporters told us they' seen a Weasel in the car park - what on earth was that doing there, certainly one to look out for we've not seen a Weasel since 2010, that's far too long!

The Tuesday watch was dire, the weather had taken a turn for the worse, isn't that always the case with National Whale and Dolphin Watch. AB came to help out and he had a Grey Seal close in that disappeared soon after and we found a Fulmar close inshore, possibly the closest we've seen off here...and then the rain started. We did see the seal again but it had drifted much further towards town.

After the wet watch AB helped with some wildlife gardening to get the area back to some semblance of order. A 7-spot Ladybird was seen but no moths were disturbed today. Behind us the giant Cardoon plant was being thrown around in the strong wind but that didn't deter a small number of Bumble Bees. In just ones and twos they looked lost on the giant flowers. Our record is 13 bees on one flower they are that big!!

We couldn't find the Deptford Pink that has come up at this time of year.

A de-3-spined Stickleback-ing session saw us remove about 150 from the pond but we had no sign of the Goldfish. We knew we hadn't got them all but we must have got most of them.

Today's Whale and Dolphin Watch was even worse, windier but at least drier and not too chilly. The only thing of note was five Manx Shearwaters going south then one going north about ten minutes later. SMcC may have had a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins on her watch right at the north end of the coast but alas it was too choppy for her group to get confirmation.

Once our watch was finished we had to get the pond dipping kit out for a Family Day event and how good where the dozen or more kids that turned up.

They were soon netting Common Pond Snails and front swimming Water Boatmen and what for it - - - 3-spined Sticklebacks! Ohh no!!!

Then one of the children asked 'what's this?' A tiny tiny Blue Tailed Damselfly nymph. Another child called out too, his find was a just a bit bigger, a Chaser dragonfly nymph. 

It was quite happy in the tray, and then a Waterboatman swam past...bang!

D'yer know we've been watching wildlife and pond dipping and stuff for over 40 years and we've only ever seen dragonfly nymph predation on the telly before.

The Waterboatman survived, or at least was released severely depleted of internal fluids but it did swim off.

A different species of diving beetle to the one we had in the moth trap at Base Camp was also netted. That one those clever i-Spotters identified as Colymbetes fuscus for us. We hope they'll be able to help with this one too.

Just how many 3-spined Sticklebacks did the youngsters find?

This many!

Count them if you like.
Great stuff and loads more children's events coming up next week.

Where to next? Back to Patch 2 for those pesky dolphins, fortunately the weather should be improving again.

In the meantime let us know what's lurking in prodigious numbers in your outback