A pleasant potter around Stanley Park

The Safari spotted some sunshine the other day and without further ado was picked up by CR for a photographic jaunt in Stanley Park. Well why wouldn't you after all the dull and wind and rain we've endured recently a bit of sunshine wasn't to be wasted.

A check of the rail in the lake proved fruitless for Mediterranean Gulls but there were a couple of Black Headed Gulls sporting rings and one of those also had a Darvik ring - White 4FC - a Danish ringed bird reported about annually in the park during the winter since 2013, except 2016 - was it somewhere else or just not reported?

A short walk to the other side of the lake saw us peering up at the old Great Spotted Woodpecker hole where a pair of Ring Necked Parakeets have taken up residence, one was high up in the tree top the other nowhere to be seen until it emerged from the depths of the hole.

The light was catching the Cormorants sat on the rail that partitions off the Conservation Area very nicely.

Lovin those emerald green eyes!

A Great Crested Grebe (102, PYBC #71) came quite close and in full breeding regalia too. It dived frequently but didn't come up with any fish.

From there we moved round to the Heron Island where about 10 birds were sat in or near their nests. There wasn't much nesting activity just a bit of pair bonding and a little stick rearranging, it'll all kick off in earnest in the next week or so, but we got a few snaps in poor light - the sun had gone back in! - to put Heron on our PYBC at #72. We might well go back on a properly sunny day and get some breeding behaviour 'action' shots before the leaves come out and obscure the view.

Always amazes us how those huge feet to stop them sinking in sloppy mud are also dexterous enough to grip the most slender of twigs.

Home for the foreseeable future

The Great Crested Grebe had followed us round to this side too. And while we attempting to get duff shots of Herons in trees C managed to get a quick capture of it in the process of swallowing a Roach. 

Retracing our steps we heard the Ring Necked Parakeets again, and this time they were at a different nest hole at the top of the lake.

Back on the rail a cluster of Black Headed Gulls had a different ringed bird, this on White VLJ, another Danish ringed bird and a winter regular first reported here in February 2009 and our last previous report of it to the ringing scheme was back in December 2013.

White VLJ - already an adult when first ringed near Copenhagen in March 2008

Returning to the Ring Necked Parakeets original tree the two birds were out of the hole and engaging a bit of lovey-dovey. The posse of parakeetazi stood beneath the tree told us they'd been watching them for about 10 minutes, now in that time we hadn't seen or heard (and they are noisy beggars when they take flight) fly past us from the 'northern' hole so we're pretty confident there were two pairs...interesting and awaiting confirmation.

The following day we'd arranged to take a group of families out on the beach to see what the recent storms had washed up. It wasn't long before tubs, trays and buckets were full of all manner of interesting flotsam and jetsam. One of the buckets contained the leg of a Spider Crab something we've never seen on this coast before - that always happens - someone finds something we've never seen before in nearly 20 years of looking - just shows you what's out there. Although to the children the Dead Man's Fingers sponge was probably a better story!

Spider Crab leg bottom left by the Oyster - should have got a close-up!

We also had a look at the huge selection of pebbles to be found on the beach. All have fascinating stories, from Limestone full of fossils to bits of old house brick, lumps of coal and granite from ancient exploding volcanoes...and most of it courtesy of the Ice Age...fantastic!

We ended the session with half an hour looking for crabs in the boating lake. It took a while to catch anything but then some rather large Brown Shrimps were brought to the surface.

Moving down to the other end by the bridge proved more successful wit ha bunch of Periwinkles found and lined up in the tray by the children for the inaugural Fleetwood Periwinkle Grand National.

A clear winner is emerging - literally!

More Brown Shrimps found their way in to the buckets and then a Common Prawn was found so we could examine the differences between these two similar species.

The crabbing wasn't going too well, it was more like fishing for bacon as the bait was all that was being hauled up time after time. 

But with minutes to go before the end of the session the cry of "I've got one!" went up. The lad came running over to show the rest of the group his catch and there sure enough was a Green Shore Crab tucking in to a rasher of best smoked streaky.

A bit of wrangling soon had it out of the net for a closer look.

The lad put it back and then returned a few minutes later with an even bigger one - job done as time was up!

In other news a Fox has been heard at Base Camp in the small hours a couple of times so we've put the stealth cam up in the back garden - fingers crossed. House Sparrows (P1 #20) have been heard early morning in the recently butchered (=Tidied) garden across the street which is a relief as we expected the work to have been so severe as to have rendered the shrubs useless for the sparrows and the patch's first Chaffinch of the year was heard then seen flying over (P1 #21).

In the garden we've added Long Tailed Tit (Garden #13), just a single - or did we not spot the others?

A sunny afternoon walk along the cliffs with Monty saw us actually take the bins for once and immediately we pointed them seawards we saw an enormous flock of Common Scoters (103) - really helps when you take your optics!

Conversely we almost didn't need optics on a sunny morning's walk around Marton Mere as there was very little to see, nice sunshine but the strong bitingly cold wind was keeping everything well tucked away. A few yards from the car this Carrion Crow watched Monty warily as he went giddy splashing in and out of the pond and puddle we really should have prevented him from going in by putting him on his lead much earlier.

After yesterday evening's txt from PT saying she'd seen a group of four Roe Deer very close to Wifey's work and only about 1 1/2 miles from Base Camp we took the opportunity to have a look this morning - nothing but brilliant to know such an awesome creature has been seen so close to home!

So you're all up to date now folks.

Where to next? Not sure yet, we've got a lot of family duties this coming week so might not be able to get out on safari much.

In the meantime let us know who's taking over all the holes in your outback.

And another one bites the dust

The Safari had a quieter day on Patch 2 today, nothing much other than a few Sandwich Terns were fishing offshore and a few small Common Scoter flocks flew by in the shimmery distance.

We had to get our wellies from the Land Rover mid morning and as soon as we left the building a Sparrowhawk (P2 #59) shot along the side of the Land Rover behind the front wheel under the engine and nailed an unfortunate juvenile House Sparrow that was on the grass right infront of the car. We froze still some 20 yards away but the Sparrowhawk had seen us come through the door and it too froze clinging to its  prey. It was like a Mexican stand-off as we stared at each other, us wishing we had a camera, it probably wondering if we were going to come closer. After about 30 seconds it flew off to enjoy its meal in peace. Being the first we've seen here this year we wonder if was a dispersing youngster or a migrant coming down the coast. But what a sighting for the year's first on the Patch using our Land Rover as cover for its attack - awesome!

Our lunchtime look at the sea was pretty duff too. The tide had dropped and there was some excitement in the form of a decent number of dark spots against the sun to the south on the tide line, at least 100 mixed Dunlin and Sanderlings.

After lunch we had a kid's group on the beach laying waste to the rockpools. Lots of great creatures were found, mostly Common Prawns and Brown Shrimps and a fair few tiny Green Shore Crabs, the large adult crabs were very few aand far between.

The nets also pulled out plenty of tiny juvenile Blennies and the higher pots (out of bounds to the youngsters) did hold a good number of adults but these were far too quick for us today.

Common Prawns - big eyes sticking out sideways on stalks

Brown Shrimps - small pair of eyes pointing forwards

With the recent calm(ish) weather there were few shells on the beach but what little strandline there was gave 'Catch of the day' to one of the young lads who found a nice Thornback Ray mermaid's purse.

Going back to Hen Harrier Day news has broken - rather late! - of ANOTHER satellite tagged bird being shot. Appealing for witnesses/information three months after the event might seem a bit silly but it is the start of the driven grouse slaughter tomorrow - not that the slaughterers will care one jot. Of course the estate denies all knowledge and tells us how good at conservation they are but then someone unknown to them has been wandering around on their land with a gun, isn't that armed trespass? And out of season for any gane so that would be poaching - we thought all these landed types believed poaching 'their' game (aka our wildlife) as one of the most heinous crimes on the statute books??? Something stinks like a rotting Hen Harrrier left out in the sun.

At the Derbyshire Hen Harrier Day a young man spoke very eloquently of their plight and what might be done about the rather dire situation. He's not a bad lad despite getting a plum job at the BBC we applied for in the mid 80s and being born on the same day as our younger brother.

If you haven't heard it yet or don't know what all the fuss is about its well worth 15 minutes of your life to find out. The nonsense has to stop and we will win!
If you haven't done so already it's time to sign your life away and get driven grouse shooting/slaughtering banned once and for all.

Where to next? Exciting times tomorrow - pond dipping in the morning then off to a park we haven't been to since this time last year for a mini-beast safari.

In the meantime let us know who;s dropped their purse in your outback.

Greens, grass n sand

The Safari has been otherwise engaged of late and hasn't had a lot of time to put fingers to keyboard for you. Last night we had another gaggle of brownies on the beach and they had a good session rummaging in the pools and scouring the beach for shells. 

As with the previous evening's group they couldn't catch any of the extremely quick Sand Gobies but we managed to catch them a baby Dab, more by luck than skill and between us we caught what we think might have a been a Sand Smelt, not sure how variable they are but the general consensus is that that they are pale olive green on the back and ours was decidedly darker than that. No photo as the Brownie who found t was ever so possessive of it and wouldn't let us anywhere near it with the camera, wouldn't even allow us to transfer it from here castle shaped blue bucket into one of our larger white ones for a better look at it.

A crab they picked up caught our eye too having great big flat paddles on its rearmost legs, obviously a swimming crab of some sort but with a broad carapace not the 'usual' Pennant's Swimming Crab we find occasionally.

Not the best pics and we're not sure if the blue is true or an artifact of the camera or reflection from the net handle. A species in the genus Liocarcinus seems favourite at the moment.

Now identified as Liocarcinus holsatus

Whatever it is it's the first of its kind we've seen here! Well done the Brownies!

Today we were able to have a little much round the gardens seeing as Patch 2 was pretty quiet. just a Grey Seal and some very hazy Gannets and gulls at a distant bait ball.

The sun wasn't strong but with hazy cloud the light was good so we concentrated on the front lawn where the scent from the White Clover is heady.

We wandered round the back to the patch of Meadow Cranesbill were the bees were busy, busy, busy.

Bombus terrestris

Male Early Bee - note the yellowy facial hairs

Tree Bee

In our wild garden we spotted a hoverfly doing a good job at  mimicing the Tree Bees

Mooching back round to the front there was what seemed to be a fairly freshly emerged female Common Blue butterfly.

After work we went back onto the beach to watch the tide drop and see if we could find the swimming crab and the dark backed fish again. Neither were findable but there were several whole Sea Potatoes, the smaller ones remarkably still had their hairs, yes for Sea Urchins they are a bit unusual in that they are hairy and not spiky, and our first jelly fish of the summer, a Moon Jelly. 

A walk along the runnel gave us several sightings of the goboes but not of the (?)smelt. We did manage to catch one of the smaller Sand Gobies, took some doing and again was more by luck than judgement.

Lots of Brown Shrimps were netted but numbers were paltry compared to the hordes lifted by the Brownies yesterday.

Not a bad day in the 'field' at all, really enjoyable!
Where to next? The weekend is upon us and the moth trap is out!
In the meantime let us know what was captured at the eleventh hour in your outback.

The real Blackpool Airshow dog fight

The Safari has had an eventful weekend since we were last on here. In sort of a reverse order it ended with a garden tick for the year, one the Red Arrows flew directly over our airspace here at Base Camp this arvo as the formation was leaving town after their impressive display...what a racket! But their display of aerobatics paled into insignificance compared to the three Arctic Skuas that were harrying in the terns out in the mouth of the river - now that IS what we call flying skill!!! Never sen a Sandwich Tern so high up, 3-400 feet, trying unsuccessfully to avoid detection. Wonder how many 'g's a skua pulls in a high speed vertical climb with an instant stall and plummet to catch a disgorged meal? All very impressive and exhilarating to watch far better than the man-made noise machines.

Before lunch we'd been on the beach with a family group and they'd only gone and found a couple of thing s we'd never seen before!

A lump of Sabellaria reef had been broken off by the heavy weather ind in it were some worms still alive. We broke open the honeycomb structure that gives the worms their English name. We've never actually seen the little devils out in the open before and didn't realise they were only about an inch or so long and they are truly weird, far more weird than anything we've seen on Doctor Who over the years.

Shrimps are always popular with the little ones

The other strange creature was this blog of jelly. Please tell us what it is.

Heard from marine guru Maya Plass via Twitter - she doesn't know what it is either!!! Have to find it again tomorrow and do a more in depth examination

It was about three times the length of the 1cm spherical blob when it was fully extended. We saw no tentacles and when gently prodded it squirted a pair of jets of water about three or four inches. It's stuck to a broken piece of Sabellaria reef. It could be a Sea Squirt (no idea what colour to do these in as they aren't invertebrates but are they vertebrates?).

We do know what a Green Leaf Worm is even though we don't see them that often.

 We have no problem IDing Beadlet Anemones either.

What a fantastic beach we have - shame far too many of the visitors who obviously like or otherwise they wouldn't come don't respect  it.

First thing this morning we joined some of our colleagues on the monthly staff volunteer beach clean up. Seems to be the same stalwarts every time - come on guys where are the rest of you????

Prior to that we'd woken upto the realisation it was the very ingloious 12th - the day Red Grouse live to die for. Now don't get us wrong we aren't against the sensible sustainable harvesting of wild species for food and there is alot ofd good quality free range food out there be it for humans or pets - EAT THE ALIENS! what we do have a serious problem with is driven grouse shooting which almost demands the destruction of native habitats and species. Moorland is an important international habitat found in few places outside the British Isles but grouse moorland bears little resemblance to natural moorland and the destruction of wildlife that goes with it is not only criminal but morally corrupt - like the government ministers who condone it or at least lean on the authorities to ignore it...if Vicariously Liability does ever reach the statute book then Benyon would be my first choice of arrest with his not outlawing the possession of the banned poison carbofuran when he had the chance and there's plenty more who should have done and hasn't, not just hasn't but has domne the opposite of what the environment expects of him - well he is supposed to be minister for it not against it. Talk about vested interests! The man's a sham 
Hen Harrier Day today shame the weather of the last two seasons has done the gamekeepers' final dirtywork for them and every last one in England has turned it's toes up.
We had a busy weekend with the North Blackpool Pond Trail bioblitz folled by a National Moth Night event in a park we've never been to before. It took a while before the moths decided to put in an appearance but one of them was one we've never seen before...Iron Prominent

Ruby Tigers are always good value spawning the park's newsletter headline 'Tigers on the loose in the Park'.

The bioblitz found well over the target of 500 species and that includes us not being able to find any remnants of the Bee Orchids! While sweep netting a small caterpillar in a larval case made of seed pods was found, a bit like a terrestrial caddisfly larva. It's still to be confirmed but it looks like it's probably Coleophora trifolii.

We'll be back with more bioblitz and marine news tomorrow.

Where to next? More mariney stuff with another family group and no doubt more Patch 2 action to report on hopefully.

In the meantime let us know who's murdering what they shouldn't be in your outback.