A few more added to the various birding lists

The Safari hasn't seen too much of late and we've not had chance to get the camera out of its bag but that's not to say we've not seen nothing.

Actually it was Wifey who added to her list first with several Rooks (Wifey #50) seen along the side of the motorway on her business trip to London recently. She's also probably seen more Red Kites than we've had hot dinners this year too.

We've been out on Patch 2 for a few minutes most mornings and lunchtimes seeing nothing out of the ordinary apart from three Curlews (P2 #41) a couple of mornings ago. other than those excitement out to sea has been confined to a reasonable count of 159 Sanderlings today and a loose flock of 11 Kittiwakes heading north yesterday, followed by the impressive sight of over 1000 Common Scoters in flight as a flock of them was disturbed by a small boat.

Mornings have been frosty but it's been well worth getting out for the blue skies alone. The snow on the Lake District fells was still there this morning.

Best and deffo the most unexpected sighting of the week was left until this morning. Leaving the front door as usual there didn't seem to be anything amiss, all was as quiet as it gets - too quiet even it's getting far too close to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring round here. But then we heard a cheeky chirruping we rarely hear close to Base Camp, in the small trees. Wow at least three dark shapes, House Sparrows! Great to have them so close to Base Camp...and then one, a handsome male, flew and perched on the gutter on the corner of the house right above us. And we'd just put the camera on the back seat of the car and closed the door dohhhhhhhh. But still House Sparrow (Garden #22) on the garden list is a great addition, we normal only get one or two visits a year and they're in June so we're well chuffed. The one on the gutter disappeared round the back of the house possibly towards the feeders - did it see the House Sparrow nesting terrace on the way??? We didn't see if the others followed it or not. We really hope they come back tomorrow morning!

At work we've set up a small tank with some Frog spawn from the pond at Base Camp for the children to study.

It's only been there 36 hours and already the eggs have grown some shape into miniature tadpoles, it's a lot warmer inside the heated building than in the pond so they're going to develop much faster than their cousins. Once they've metamorphosed almost into Froglets we'll return them. There's plenty more spawn in our pond but the fish will more than likely end up eating it so these will be the survivors.

Where to next? It's the weekend, there's big high tides and we have a cunning plan that involves the estuary.

In the meantime let us know who made a most unexpected and very welcome visit to your outback.

Wot a lot of knot we got

The Safari was reading Dean’s escapades last night which included his first Frog of the year. He’s in the middle of the country and at high altitude so his success prompted us to head out to the garden to see if any were hopping around the edge of the pond – it was absolutely lashing it down so we didn’t get past the threshold of the back door!

Our routine was back to normal this morning, even if our coat was still sopping wet from taking Frank out not long after the ill-fated Frog hunt, and on leaving Base Camp in the cold (10C in the rain last night - 2C with frost settling on the grass at 06.00) pre-dawn we immediately heard the Song Thrush’s song being carried from the Golden Triangle on the gentle but chilly morning breeze.

Round the corner one of the Peregrines was still pushing out the zeds (zees for any American readers) on its ledge There were Robins aplenty singing from all points (must make a proper effort to count them soon) and a couple of Blackbirds were approaching full song.

Visibility on Patch 2 was excellent for a change. Out on the horizon there was a beautiful rainbow and we wrangled the little camera from our soggy pocket...it pulled a focussing hissy-fit so no pics for you to enjoy :-(  not sure what went wrong but it didn’t seem to want to focus on ‘infinity’, or more likely didn’t ‘know’ what distance the object we were pointing it at was. Beneath the rainbow we reckon there were between 1000 – 1250 Common Scoters and a single Red Throated Diver were seen.

The sea was still a bit too lumpy to be able to pick out any Harbour Porpoises; we’d hoped to get one for the mammal year list before we came across the much more numerous, and far easier to spot, Grey Squirrel but it wasn’t to be as we saw one of the latter in the big park on Monday.

On the beach we noted three Knot feeding with the Oystercatchers at the side of the outfall pipe. Something made us look over to the other side of the pipe and we saw a fair few more. We started counting at the left-hand end of the flock and got to the mid 80s when something spooked them and far more than we were expecting got up and flew – at a guess over 500 all together...a good sized flock. A few Sanderlings were with them and as they all flew southwards past us the Sanderlings dropped on to the beach in front of us but the Knot kept going well past our southern border.

A scan through the 100 or so gulls kicking about didn’t give us anything out of the ordinary.

The wind had swung round and strengthened by lunchtime and now was coming at us off the sea bringing heavy wintery squalls. There was a plethora of white horses and some big rollers out towards the horizon. Out there too was a large swarm of diving gulls indicating a big bait ball but once again the sea conditions were such that we were never going to be able to see any cetaceans that might have been in attendance.

Several Red Throated Divers were seen, the most for a while, one was pretty close in but prolonged observation was impossible as it spent most of the time frustratingly hidden in the troughs.

Nothing of note was found with the vigorously bobbing Common Scoters and as a particularly large and dark squall sped towards us ominously whipping up the sea as it approached we turned and fled just reaching the office door before the heavens opened.

On the way home the light was phenomenal between the squalls with vibrant colours etched against the dark foreboding sky not seen it so crisp for a long time - shame we couldn't get  any wildlifey shots.

Taken through the rain/hail splattered windscreen - not whilst driving, we'd pulled over!

Where to next? More of the chilly same with even more wind...for a change...NOT..we want calm; we want calm!!!

In the meantime let us know what's hopping out of hibernation in your outback.