Migration begins with a trickle

The Safari took a group out onto the the beach to explore the rockpools last week - by eck it was chilly but a good time was had by all as we were all wrapped up. We made the (deliberate) mistake of putting our arm in to the freezing water to pull out a Beadlet Anemone to show the youngsters - now that was seriously cold! The things we do for science/education eh!

We put it in one of our trays but sadly it hadn't opened its tentacles out before it was time to leave. 

A good time was had by all!

Searching the runnels

Here's a few of the shells they found in the runnels and on the beach

Later in the week we went back around Herons' Reach and managed a very fleeting glimpse of the Kingfisher and had great views of the two Water Rails on the defrosting pond. We nearly got a pic of them together but a a couple of loose dogs put paid to that; as we were holding on to Monty (to stop him getting near the pond) they rushed towards him he dodged out of their way and we went down like a sack of spuds lucky not to break a collar bone or land on the camera and damage that, thankfully neither us nor the camera came up worse for wear other than covered in mud but not an apology or an 'are you alright?' from the woman with the dogs who saw the whole thing unfold just an 'oh they're friendly they're only having fun'. Fun it certainly wasn't and expensive it could have been! And the Water Rails were flushed deep in to cover not to come out in the 10 more minutes or so we waited for them - Feckin dog walkers

The following day a bit of an improvement in the weather saw us visit Marton Mere for the first time in a while. The sun had brought Song Thrushes out in to song and a little later we watched one listening for worms in the grass.

There was a reasonable number of gulls on the water but no sign of the local Iceland Gull amongst them, has it discovered somewhere else to bathe, a flooded field perhaps?

The 'fritillary meadow' was scrutinised and we found a couple of Cowslips in flower but there didn't seem to be as many as in previous years. We also spotted the first shoots of the Snakeshead Fritillaries and one clump even had a small flowerbud beginning to form - spring won't long now folks. The team there need to get the fence fixed before a football gets kicked over the meadow and the plants get squished by said ball or booted feet retrieving it.

The rest of our visit was fairly quiet. The volunteers were working on the island and we had hoped they might flush a Bittern or a Jack Snipe, neither appeared as the dragged the last of the cut reeds out of the scrape to prepare it for the spring  wader passage. 

A Buzzard soared high to the north east over the fields and lifted three pairs of Lapwings up to see it on its way. Hope they have a good season in those fields this year but it so much depends on what farming activities are going to happen and the timing of them, all to often the eggs and or chicks get rolled, mown or ploughed and only a tiny handful survive and even any predation sees the remainder off as there aren;t enough adults left on territory to help with the defence. When we first started birding there were three times as many in the fields as there are now - a sad loss and very much a part of that thing that is the reduction in Bioadundance rather than Biodiversity.

The scrub areas were quiet but a sudden movement in the 'Paddock' had us look closely to see what it was - a nightmarishly back lit Stonechat 

Signs of the first bits of migration, we've not seen one on the reserve since the start of the winter and this part of the reserve isn't normally favoured by them, in fact we've not seen one here for at least 20 years!

Later, getting towards the car the Buzzard or another appeared overhead.

This time it was pursued relentlessly by a small number of crows who pushed it off their patch and out to the south east over town.

Back at Base camp a Coal Tit (Garden #17) as a new visitor to the feeders for the year. Possibly a refugee from the recently 'tidied' (= ecologically devastated) park on Patch 1. We really hope the White Letter Hairstreaks will be OK and the extensive tree felling hasn't included any Elms nor altered the micro-climate unfavourably for the overwintering eggs or opened up the canopy to enable any passing Elm Bark Beetles to find the trees and kill them. We'll have to wait until the summer to find out what if any the consequences have been for our favourite colony of rare butterflies. Fingers crossed it might actually have enhanced it...we're not holding our breath though.

Short but very important family business south of the river was order of the day yesterday but it did give us the opportunity to take CR on a bit a twitch and a run around Memory Lane.

We started off hurtling down the motorway network to a peviously unheard of Country Park on the outskirts of Liverpool with a most un-scouse sounding name, Stadt Moers CP. Here a couple of Hawfinches have been fairly regularly seen in the SE corner of the park. After our Sizergh Castle debacle last time out we were hopeful although the most recent news we had of them was almost a week old and it had snowed heavily since them, never the less we were feeling optimistic and the weather was mild, no need for a hat!

The locals were extremely friendly and helpful setting us off on the right paths and once on the bottom field a birder was already there - good stuff. He told us he'd not seen 'anything yet' but warned there were a lot of Greenfinches in the area and indeed there were. We don't think we've seen so many of them on one place for a long time. 

Two hours later and almost all the other finches in the book spotted including a pair of unphotographable Lesser Redpolls (115) but not a Hawfinch in sight.

The supporting cast included plenty of Great Tits, Blue Tits, Robins, Dunnocks and Song Thrushes, a flock of about 10 Redwings, a flock of Long Tailed Tits, a Jay and a soaring Buzzard or two. 

This area was the first place we saw Buzzards once the persecution of them had waned enough for them to spread for their core areas in the mountains. We used to look forward to a drive down the much less busy then motorway with our birding mates hoping we might see one way back when. 

We even saw the 'double-decker' Airbus A300-600 Super Transporter (nicknamed the Beluga, and everyone’s favorite, ridiculous, aircraft) approaching Liverpool airport - now why didn't we take a pic?

From there were headed to our old birding stomping ground at the coast at Crosby. Black Headed Gulls and Carrion Crows came to bread thrown copiously in the car park and Skylarks sang above us in the dunes, one even landed close by and posed very nicely for us (YLPC #93).

Out on the beach the tide was on the way in but still a fairly long way out but was beginning to push the waders from the further mudflats closer inshore, including a nice Grey Plover (116. YLPC #94).

CR saw a flit in the grass and this time it wasn't a Skylark but a grounded Meadow Pipit (YLPC #95).

We saw several Stonechats but couldn't approach them closely enough for a pic but there was no sign of any of the secretly hoped for early Wheatears, other birders we spoke to also hadn't come across any although like us they thought they might given the mild conditions and the wind direction. 

The tide inexorably kept coming in as it does forcing the waders ever closer but still not quite close enough, lots of Dunlin and Redshank but only one Ringed Plover and a fair few of the star of the show, the Bar Tailed Godwits, some getting into their brick red summer plumage (117, YLPC #96).

Making our way back tot the car park we came across a couple of Stonechats close to the path, one of which was very confiding at last.

We finished the afternoon at the usually excellent Lunt Meadows but it had far too much water on it today and was rather quiet. We looked for Grey Partridge on the fields as we got close, none but a day-flying Woodcock was a good spot, shame it wasn't still flying when we reached the reserve.The selection of waterfowl was less than usual and the numbers of each of the species much reduced too. There was no sign of the regularish Red Kite just a couple of Buzzards. The fields on the far side of the river held masses of Lapwings and a few lingering Pink Footed Geese along with huge numbers of Common Gulls.

The earlier sunshine had now gone and ever thickening cloud was rolling in dropping the light intensity so we were hopeful for the appearance of the Short Eared Owls. Other birders with big cameras began to arrive but by now we had to leave so if they did come out we missed them.  While we waited in vain for them we heard a Cetti's Warbler briefly and saw yet more Stonechats, there does seem to be a lot of them about this last week or so, we even had one on Chat Alley when out with Monty the other day.
A quick peak in the barn round the corner didn't give us the Little Owl before we hit the motorway and headed back to Base Camp after a good a day in the field.

This morning while out with Monty it was Meadow Pipits all the way, deffo the best day of migration so far for them. At least 10 were seen including one coming in off the sea and a flock of four going north along the cliff edge, and others being only heard...it's getting closer folks!

Where to next? we have a secret plan for early next week, lets hope the weather is good enough for us to carry it out and there's success rather than our seemingly interminable Hawfinch-like failure.

In the meantime let us know who's on the move in your outback.

A summer's day on the sands

The Safari wasn't short of an idea for the #30DaysWild project today, we had a family event on the beach at the north end of town. Before we went up town we had a few minutes on Patch 2 immediately found a year bird. As we approached the wall we could see a flock of geese going north, were they Canada Geese or Grey Lag Geese? Either would be a patch tick if not particularly over exciting. They turned out to be about 40 Canada Geese (P2 #56). Checking our records later we discovered they'd been omitted from the spreadsheet since early January so become year bird number #170 and Nature Reserve bird #91. A Grey Seal miles out was soon found on the carpet-calm sea and we heard the screaming of Swifts (#57) for the first time on the patch. Looking up we watched the male chase the female in a real test of speed until she let him mate with her tumbling down through the air until the deed was done and they broke apart before they hit the ground. A short but productive session.

We drove up the Prom and the families arrived at the appointed hour and we were soon down on the sand with our nets and buckets.

After the cold and windy weekend today's weather was real tonic, it actually felt like summer had arrived at last which always makes an enjoyable hour or so on the beach much more fun.

The tubs began to fill up with different shaped and sized shells, Pod Razors and Mussels being the most common. The Masked Crab population seemed to have taken a bit of hit in the stormy weather last week, there were lots of dead ones in various states of dismemberment and almost all that could be sexed were males. A couple of the children were brave enough to have a small Green Shore Crab crawl across their hands.

Finder extraordinaire was our colleague from Children's Services RK. First she called us over to show us a jellyfish which turned out to be a small Compass Jellyfish and was still alive - the children loved seeing in pulsating as it swam round their tub. Shortly afterwards she came running over with something unidentified in her net - a Sea Gooseberry, and once that first one was found everybody started noticing them all over the place.

The kids' favourites were the large Edible Whelk shells that they could hear the sea in.

Don't think he'll be successful with one with a hole in it. but he'll have fun trying.

RK had an ace up her sleeve, or at least in her net, a baby Flounder or Plaice she'd spotted scuttling across the sand minutes before we started packing up. Always nice to get a fish in the tub for the kids to see...and it's a tick in the box on our Beach Bingo sheet.

Where to next? More sandy shenanigans tomorrow hopefully.
In the meantime let us know who's been leaping into the buckets in your outback.

First look in the rockpools of the year

The Safari has a couple of updates from yesterday for you. Yesterday we had two visitors to the office both required us to leave the office and go outside. Lucky for us as we had a Grey Wagtail ((P2 #30) on the first visit and a Robin (P2 #31) poking around the shrubbery on our second jaunt outside.

This morning we resolved to count the gulls, it was too murky out to sea to see much anyway. We also counted the Oystercatchers as they are about the same size ass the gulls. The dropping tide gave us about 60 of each slightly more Oycs than gulls - gulls counted generically not to species - a Bar Tailed Godwit (P2 #32) was with the Oycs away to the south.

We did it again this at lunchtime and the result was the other way round with about 65 of each but slightly more gulls than Oycs. Still hardly a big count - where are the big flocks of gulls? We want some Yellow Legged Gulls and argentatus Herring Gulls to gawp at...a lost Laughing Gull having a 25 mile wander from it's 'pontoon' on the lake would be more than welcome to put in an appearance.

The Bar Tailed Godwit had done a bunk but there were just a measly four Sanderlings and eleven Redshanks out there.

Mid-afternoon we were able to get out on the beach with our marine biologist friend DB to look at the proposed works to the outfall pipe this coming summer. The one and only Limpet on our length of coast is right in the firing line of the demolition gang -  a rescue plan is needed and we were sussing out somewhere safe to relocate it to.

From ARKive

Common limpets begin their life as males, becoming sexually mature at around 9 months of age. Most individuals undergo a sex change, typically becoming female at 2 or 3 years of age, although some remain as males. Spawning takes place once a year, usually from October to December, although the timing varies around the British Isles. Fertilisation occurs externally; the larvae spend their first few days of life in the water column, after which time they settle on the shore. Life-span varies, but is between 10 and 20 years.

Also lurking in the rockpools were a good number of Beadlet Anemones waiting for the tide to return. Some tiny little baby ones clinging on there too and a Common Periwinkle.

One of the pools had a fairly fresh Native Oyster washed in to it.

Probably the most unusual sighting was a very small blob of Edible Whelks eggs stuck to the side of one of the pots. We see much larger egg masses all the time rolling around on the beach but we've never seen them stuck to the side of a pot before. DB said that there's been quite a few Whelks on the beach recently.

The shell below the eggs looks to have a very square end rather than a more randomly broken end which would make it Sand or Blunt Gaper and not Common Otter Shell.

Good to be out on the sands again and not too cold sheltered as we were by the wall from the south easterly wind.

Where to next? Back on the nature reserve at some time tomorrow - there's a Bullfinch to get a pic of you know.

 In the meantime let us know who's been stuck to the wall in your outback

Not the day to be something edible

The Safari peered over the wall this morning and was taken aback by the number of gulls on the beach, it was Larid heaven on a stick! There were thousands of them and a similar number of Oystercatchers too. All were walking down the dropping tide waiting for tasty morsels to appear. The strand-lines were large and strangely dark. It was one of those mornings when we really could have done with not being at work and having the real scope not the work's one. Still we made the best of it and stayed out as long as we dared. Somehow we failed to find a dodgy gull or any hint of a white-winger, just a few 'argentatus' type Herring Gulls. There may have been anything further down past our southern border as there were at least twice as many down that way - prodigious numbers! 

Despite the 'lack' of quality gulls the waders didn't disappoint. Like we said thousands of Oystercatchers, and well over 100 Sanderlings too. A few Dunlins were mixed in with the Sanderlings but 'better' were the roughly 50 Knot (104, P2 #37).

Also lurking out there were a couple each of Bar Tailed Godwits and Curlews. So good was the beach that we didn't have time to look at the sea...how mad's that?!

At lunchtime we didn't take the scope but donned the wellies and camera and went down on the beach. The dark strand-line quickly gave up its mystery - masses of terrestrial leaves. By now the huge expanse of beach had spread out the gulls and they were not really accessible anymore. We spent our time looking in the pools left as the tide dropped. It's amazing how much sand has been washed off the beach, shingle layers that are never usually seen are everywhere, literally millions of tons of sand must be somewhere else.

The pools were full of interest. We don't often find live shellfish and this Prickly Cockle is very lucky given the numbers of birds on the beach earlier. Sorry about the quality there was a bit of wind rippling the surface of the pool.

The end of the pool was a mass of shells, but a close look will show there's only a few species represented, wonder if they've been 'sorted' by the waves/currents, could well be as the only coal we found was here and there was a fair amount of it.

A closer inspection of said shells had us delving up to our elbow in to the cold water for this enormous Edible Whelk, it's undoubtedly the largest we've ever seen being almost half as big again as the 'normally' large one next to it. A real humdinger!

We had two target species, one of which is really scarce down here and we've not seen it for ages and 'need' a specimen for our box of tricks for the children to have a look at, the other is much more commonly found but we haven't seen one for a while for some reason.

We were lucky there was one, sadly deceased but it was there none-the-less, a Sea Mouse - crackin creatures and Britain's largest worm.

Just why do they need those super iridescent hairs for if they normally live deep in the mud out of the light...oh we do love a mystery and there's plenty in the natural world even right on our own doorstep...and someone out there is going to be the brain-box who works them out. No matter what the answer to the mystery is they're still great animals.

Where to next? Winter thrushes weather permitting in the morning.

In the meantime let us know who's bigger than they're supposed to be in your outback.

Rubbish wind

The Safari had too much wind from the wrong direction today, consequently Patch 2 was pretty much rubbish with barely a bird or anything else seen.

Later in the morning we were able to get down onto the beach and have a look at what the tide had brought in. Disappointingly little after yesterday's good strand-line.

We prodded the largest clump of Bladderwrack with  our welly and saw there were several Idotea balticas lurking in its midst, including some small ones which we think may be juveniles but don't quote us on that!

A little further along we came across something we never like to see, a small but very dead Lesser Spotted Catshark, it will be scavenged and won't totally go to waste.

A lump of 'stuff' caught our eye but what type of stuff is it exactly - not totally sure but Sea Chervil, a Bryozoan colonial animal is what we think it is and quite a big colony at that.

Walking back to the office along the foot of the wall we looked for Grey Top Shells, a really scarce shell here - naturally we didn't find one; if anyone does find one would they be so kind as to keep it for us to put in our schools specimens box please.

Instead while we were looking for small things we found this little chap which we weren't positive about.

 We hoped it was something a bit exciting but DB told us it was 'just' a very tiny Edible Whelk.

As we were leaving work different DB popped by to show us some interesting finds from his recent trip to South Wales. First out of his bag a bird's beak, hmmm not sure about that one - a Manx Shearwater, thought they were shorter than that! Next out we recognised Harbour Porpoise vertebrae, then a real whopper of a vertebra - we mis-identified it as a small whale, Pilot Whale? - wrong - a bit bigger from a Minke Whale - impressive piece of bonery!

While we were chatter a flash of white caught our attention over on the big pergola thingy. A small brown bird was sat up on the top and through his bins DB was able to confirm its identity as a Wheatear. How rare are they in the works garden! Usually there's far too many dog walkers and we don't ever see them.

It hopped back down onto the ground out of sight and gave us the opportunity to sneak up on it with the camera.

All told a poor day turned out all right in the end - isn't wildlife wonderful!

Where to next? More Patch 2 stuff and with a change in the wind anything (or nothing) might be out there.

In the meantime let us know what's flashing its white bits in your outback.

Right, we're off now - small matter of an England match to watch.

Oh happy day!

The Safari was looking at a fairly empty but flat calm sea this morning until four drake Eiders flew south followed very closely by two dozen Canada Geese (P2 #65) with another drake Eider in their midst.

Way out in the distance a Gannet plunged vertically from a spectacular height indicating fish at depth. Within minutes it was joined by several others, a few Manx Shearwaters and some white dots which could have been Kittiwakes or other gulls, some could have been Sandwich Terns but all the action was a long way offshore in the wibbly-wobbly haze.

A wander round the grounds with our landscape tidying team leader gave us a male Pied Wagtail with a gob full of food - wonder where the nest is.

Lunchtime saw us out on the seawall again but the sea was almost devoid of life other than a distant Grey Seal away to the south. Then it was time to take our group out on the beach with their pots and nets again. Just how many Necklace Shell egg ribbons can one group collect? Indeed if there were so many egg ribbons where were all the adults - we didn't find a single one!

Tower Shells, very apt for Blackpool, were found today which we didn't see yesterday although in general diversity of finds was a little lower today but there were more and larger Brown Shrimps and Common Prawns. Best find was probably a Green Shore Crab that was in the process of shedding its old skin and the new carapace could be seen beneath along the line of the split - we shoulda taken a pic but today's group seemed to have a knack of getting the water in their pots exceptionally muddy!

A few Dahlia Anemones were found but only very small specimens.

After the group had left on their coaches we got a tet from our mate saying he'd just been watching Springwatch in the Afternoon and seen one of our pics! On a piece about beachcombing - which is what we'd just finished doing!!! We had a look on iPlayer when we got home and had to wait a couple of hours for Episode 8 to appear on the menu. And there it was...

To say we're chuffed is a bit of an understatement....occasionally we see pics on the show from people we are 'friends' with on F/B or Twitter or a local name we recognise but whose face is a mystery, but to have them pick one of ours is a bit of an honour. They must have been short of beachy type pics cos this one was taken in early spring last year.

Before tea we took Frank for a little walk along the first part of the North Blackpool Pond Trail to check on the progress of the Bee Orchids. The first two we found had been trampled on and broken so they wont flower. But we did find a couple already to go, only a couple of days behind schedule.

Bring them on!
Where to next? No groups to take on the beach tomorrow but no doubt we'll be having a good look at the sea.
In the meantime let us know what's about to burst forth in your outback.