June arrives and so does the rain

The Safari has been mostly in the garden at Base Camp this week but we have been around a couple of local sites too.

We've had a little success with the moth trap but nothing to really get the pulse racing. To be fair the best catches this week have been non-moths like this tiny Caenis mayfly of which there were two on Monday morning.

When the sun has shone, which hasn't been as often as we'd like this week, we've been down to the bottom of the garden where it's a bit wilder (Wifey says too wild!). Up there we came across the first 2-Spot Ladybird we've seen this year, not seen many ladybirds of any description yet, this one was a very small individual.

With not much happening we took ourselves back indoors for a brew where we found this crane fly bouncing around the kitchen window trying to smash the panes of glass to get out. Once it had come to rest we saw that it wasn't one of your 'normal' types of Crane Fly but from the family of Fold Winged Flies, Ptychopteridae.

Later in the afternoon another Mint Moth was hanging round the pot plants..

The following morning we had a 'click & collect' grocery shop to pick up from the store. The van from which your shopping is parked at the top end of the car park and this morning there was a queue of cars waiting their turn so naturally we joined the end of it hoping it wouldn't be a long wait. We turned the engine off and wound the window down. There's not much in the way of vegetation anywhere near the store but the car park does have a few bushes which attract the local House Sparrow flock so we were listening to them chirruping away in the dense cover when we heard another call which sounded like a Coal Tit. We heard it again and it still sounded like a Coal Tit, can't be there's not a tree for miles and even further to the nearest conifers. Then a Coal Tit appeared in a little gap in the side of the line of bushes and hopped off only to be followed by a second - how mad is that - what a great shop car park tick. The Swift, or was there more than one, tazzing round the eaves of the terraced houses backing on to the car park was great to watch too. 

After the shopping as safely stashed away at Base Camp we set off with the mutt for a wander round Woodland Gardens and Heron's Reach. As soon as we entered the wood this huge fungus caught our eye. Must be the best part of a metre from end to end.

We're useless at fungi so if anyone can put a name to it let us know. The rest of the walk was mainly Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs but we did hear a Ring Necked Parakeet high above the old military pill-box  in the wood, could they have a nest somewhere up there we were there again today and heard one calling from the same place on the way out and the way back.

Mammals were represented by both Lion and Tiger but no Elephants as we peered over the zoo fence. The mutt's nose tells him there's something interesting on the other side of the fence but he hasn't a clue what as he's not tall enough to see over - probably just as well! What we didn't expect to see was a Rabbit a little further along the path and this side of the fence, can't remember the last time we saw one of those round there, if indeed we ever have.

We had a look under the usual amphibian refugia finding just a few Toads and nothing that we 'wanted' - the ground was very dry even under cover.

Back on the path a movement low in the undergrowth on the far side alerted our attention. Another Rabbit and a young one at that. Certainly wasn't expecting to see a second round there and this one was a good 200 metres from the first so almost definitely from another family.

Some sunshine brought out a few insects like this Speckled Wood butterfly but far fewer than we would have expected especially bees of which there were hardly any.

Wednesday saw the first appreciable rain for several weeks although despite it being prolonged and quite heavy it still hasn't done any more than dampen the ground.

In an attempt to attract the over-flying families of Starlings into the garden we've been putting mealworms out. Not a Starling in sight, they've even stopped flying over. But as soon as we put any mealworms out now the local Magpies and this individual Herring Gull are right on them, the gull having to do a precarious balancing act to get its beak in the tub..

Also seen in the garden on a wet Wednesday were a second family of Greenfinches and the Great Tits are feeding young in our House Sparrow terrace - very late starting this year, they'd fledged by now this time last year.

Thursday finally gave us some moths and not Heart & Darts.

Angle Shades

Treble Lines

Setaceous Hebrew Character

Also in the trap were a couple of Caddis Flies, this larger one is a Limnopphilus sp

A much smaller one is as yet unidentified.

After breakfast we were down on the beach with the mutt. A few Moon Jellyfish had been washed up. No other species of jellyfish though although in recent days others have been reporting lots of Sea Gooseberries.

We also found a smallish Common Starfish alive and well and cruising slowly round one of the puddles left by the tide very close to the seawall. Also found nearby was this deceased Thornback Ray, another angling victim no doubt.. Juts look at the shadow of the spines along its tail - fearsome!

Along the cliffs we came across our first juvenile Pied Wagtail, waiting around a while we saw both the parents but no other youngsters.

Around the garden in the afternoon we concentrated on watching the bees

Early Bumble Bee

But also found some other little things like this Running Spider, Philodromus sp, and by eck could it run it was well wick even over the vertical surface of a pane of window glass!!!

and this tiny green true bug just a few millimetres long.

The bee we hoped to find didn't turn up. An apparently all black one that won't keep still.

We did finally catch up with it at the weekend - do we still have weekends? A Leaf  Cutting Bee, probably Megachile centuncularis.

Being photo-bombed by a Tree Bee

We've seen both the male and the female but haven't seen the female carrying leaves yet although in the bottom pic it's collecting pollen. 

On Sunday we had an early morning wander round the Rock Gardens seeing a pair of Whitethroats feeding young and another male singing from the opposite end of the field.

Back at the bottom of the garden we came across this small black wasp. It's believed to be one of the five (or six - depending on which taxonomist you read) Pemphredon species although a profile pic would have been useful to rule out other genera but it didn't hang around long enough for that and we haven't seen it since.

If it is one of those none of them have been recorded in the Fylde before.

As dusk fell we had our first House Sparrow on the new millet feeder in the back garden. Probably the same male that came a couple of times when the feeder dispensed suet pellets but hasn't been seen since. All we need now is for it to come back during the day to have his photo taken, and we'd be quite happy for him to bring his family along too - we need them - - we jumped in with both feet and got 17kg of red millet delivered.

All in all a pretty action packed week on safari.

Where to next? With lockdown being eased even further  we're going to be a bit more adventurous and have some further flung safaris planned.

In the meantime let us know who's Been visiting your outback.

Remember to stay safe and socially distant while enjoying the wildlife round your way.

Targets missed but there's always something else to see

The Safari didn't get much on Patch 2 yesterday, the cold wind had too much north in it but we were hopeful for a Fulmar and/or some Little Gulls, no such luck, a Grey Seal was easily the best sighting.

Later in the evening we were out on the North Blackpool Pond Trail surveying for newts with the gang again. We arrived at the appointed place at the appointed hour only for a humungous sleety hailstorm to empty its venom on us so back in the Land Rover we jumped to avoid the worst of it. Good rainbows though.

Eventually the rain eased and we all got out and the team headed off, armed with our high powered torches, nets, bucket and notepad, to the first pond.

The first couple of ponds didn't give us much and there was more damage from fishermen destroying aquatic vegetation and smashing trees to get better access to their quarry. On one of the Biological Heritage Sites some numpty has broken through their back fence and started a flipping garden planting all sorts of unwanted shrubs, built a path to the pond and put out rabbit hutches - they'll have to go! Apparently its all OK as they 'like wildlife' and have put up a nest box.

Overturning an old pallet dumped in the water we came across a load of Caddis Fly larvae attached to its underside. On closer inspection the cases were all made out of tiny shells.

Not the best pic as it was pitch black but you can see a shell at the bottom end

A few Pipistrelle bats were good to see, not had many so far this year. More rummaging around in the dark gave us a couple of Frogs and at least two Water Scorpions, great beasts - breath through their arse you know! A dumped old mattress had no fewer than eight Toads underneath it but still we couldn't find a newt. The next pond a short distance away was scanned with the lamps and quite unexpectedly a Water Rail swam from the middle of the water to the overhanging bushes to get out of the light. A migrant stuck by the bad weather or a sneaky resident - one was seen not too far from where we were only a week or so back...same one???

Eventually a Smooth Newt was found but not by us, we can't climb the fences too well these days and this pond was behind the only fence. Our 'bob-on' Great Crested Newt pond failed to produce but that was probably down to the recent cold weather and the horrendous cold rainstorm. We found hardly any Smooth Newt eggs, we'd have expected many more by now but there's still not much vegetation for them to lay on.

Today on Patch 2 the easterly wind the sea was flat calm and viewing conditions a lot better but there still wasn't much to see. The (or another) Grey Seal was about and we had a small number of Red Throated Divers including one in summer plumage reasonably close in. A group of Sandwich Terns passed by fishing as they went catching tiddlers of a too-far-away-to-tell species.

A look at the FBC website mid-afternoon showed us that Young Un AB had seen a Whinchat and Wheatear on the reserve just down the road from work. So as soon as the 'bell went' we were out of work and on the road. A quick look round gave us the impression we'd missed them and they'd moved on which was a shame as we didn't have much time for a prolonged search. But then we had a bit of luck when we saw a movement on the fence-line alongside the railway that was the Wheatear, they hadn't gone. Turning round we saw a similar movement - the Whinchat (150). We cautiously walked closer but it was very skittish, eventually we got the best pic we were going to get.

Where to next? We've got a couple of irons in the safari's camp-fire for the holiday weekend.

In the meantime let us know who's been gracing your outback with their presence today.

It's that time of year again

The Safari wasn't sure what today. First up was a trip up the garden to empty the moth trap. It had cooled down a bit overnight but not enough to put the moths off entirely. 

There were a few nice ones in there including our first Scalloped Oak of the year and a nice visitor we don't see that often 

 Single Dotted Wave

Luckily we weren't over-run with Large Yellow Underwings but neither did we have any of the hawkmoths we were hoping for.

A bonny Caddisfly needs the help of those very clever iSpotters.

The garden had some nice light too so we had a bit of an arty moment

We weren't able to get out until lunchtime as usual, we'd watched the weather and it was fine but a little too windy for what we were thinking of, a trip to Chat Alley to look for cetaceans and sea-birds. We needed an alternative so seeing as it was sunny we decided to bob down to Patch 1. OK we had an inkling that something might be happening in the sunshine as the old social media had been reporting White Letter Hairstreaks appearing at the start of last week at the other end of the motorway and we're usually about a week behind them. No chance of them emerging in the all day rain on Friday but yesterday finished quite warm and pleasant finishing with a quickly warming morning we were just a little bit optimistic.

We hoped Frank would be able to make the walk, we didn't fancy driving just round the corner, but we needn't have worried he seemed up for it today and once past his usual faltering places seemed to realise where he was going and off he went at (for him) breakneck speed eager to get there. We had to stop him as a Kestrel was resting up on the Peregrine's ledge, first of the year on Patch 1!

Once in Patch 1 we heard Long Tailed Tits and a Blackcap singing, the same one we'd heard at Base Camp while we were emptying the moth trap?

A Brown Hawker patrolled the hot almost still interior of the glade. It was hot in there, as is usual. Frank found his favourite and only little bit of shade.

He looks a bit glum cos we'd just whacked a well bedded in Clegg drinking copious amounts of blood from the near end of his snout. We'd just about bathed in insect repellent before leaving Base Camp and had sprayed him all over where he couldn't lick but still one got him! Horrors they are!!!

Meadow Browns, Large Skippers were all over as were bees, at least half of all bees were Tree Bees, the sound track was the chirping of grasshoppers, almost no human noise down here at all - bliss!

It only took us a matter of minutes to come across our main quarry. A couple of flits up in the top of the Sycamore told us that the White Letter Hairstreaks had indeed emerged as we'd deduced (= hoped).

Eventually our patience was rewarded by one coming down to nectar on the Brambles - isn't that the old saying 'everything comes to he who waits'?

 We were joined by a real entomologist, BB, on his hoverfly mission he braved the depths of the  'habitat'.

The White Letter Hairstreaks continued to show on and off (more off than on) to the patient wait-er and eventually we got a pic of one with our phone.

Happy, happy days.

We were there a good three hours and by now it was getting close to Frank's tea-time. Time to think about heading back to Base Camp but not before we'd heard a Chiffchaff and seen a family of Dunnocks and Wrens.

Where to next? Back to Patch 2 buit not until lunchtime tomorrow.

In the meantime let us know who's hunch paid off in your outback.

Bioblitzed

The Safari was invited to help out are the Zoo's first ever Bioblitz under the banner 'find the natives that live among the exotics'. 

The event was organised by the Zoo's education officer LS in two parts an evening of invited guests to tour the zoo at night flollowed by an early morning then opening the events up to the public when the zoo was open for business. 

We arrived at 21.00 and put up the moth trap before heading off armed with nets buckets and bat detectors. Bats, amphibians and nocturnal invertebrates were searched out. Amphibians were hard to come by apart from a small Smooth Newt, bats were a bit better with several hits on the detector from Noctules, not a species we find often in town. Pipistrelles were all over the place and Daubenton's Bats hawked insects over the moat around Gorilla Island.

A wander over to the Dinosaur safari gave us no amphibians in a likely looking pool but the ornamental rock arches gave us several species of spiders including this one no-one in the group had seen before

Apologies for the camera shake, it was dark in there!

Back at the moth trap it was pretty dire with no activity around the light at all. Weird cos it was quite mild and there wasn't a breath of wind. The others set off to place some small mammal traps down while we stayed at the motthy just in case it livened up - it didn't. A Tawny Owl (148) called from the woodland garden the wrong side of the fence so couldn't be counted.

We got back to Base Camp and dropped in to our pit at 00.15 and was rudely woken by Frank not long enough after at 05.45 = not enough sleep!

Back at the zoo the moth trap took no time at all to empty, just a dead Light Brown Apple Moth, a Hebrew Character, a Double Striped Pug and several of these unknown Caddis Flies.

The mammal traps had been unsuccessful except for sadly killing a Common Shrew, not good but at least we had the little body to show the families. A mix of real experts had joined the team for the daytime session including an entomologist, a lichenologist (is there such a word) and a botanist. with these guys on board the Bioblitz list started to shoot up as we wandered around having a look in the public and some out of bounds areas including along the narrow gauge railway track. Scarce and even rare local species were added to the list. Just shows what there is to find when you take the time to look.

In the children's wildlife area when a pair of crazy ducks ruled the roost one of tthe raised beds of herbs and bee friendly plants had a Bird's Eye Primrose...how  had that got there? A garden variety that had reverted to a more natural type, in the seed mix - unlikely??? or in the seedbank - oh yeah??? Go one what do you reckon?

Looks like there's a Buttercup Leaf Miner in the pic there too

The wildlife education area gave the children the opportunity to make bird feeders out of huge Pine cones, bee houses and all manner of other goodies, the Pine feeders were hung on the fence under a nest box housing a family of Blue Tits. An as yet unused Tawny Owl box was in a nearby tree.

The pond dipping session in the Dinosaur Safari again was good with loads of Frog tadpoles and Summer Mayfly larvae. We discovered why there might have been no newts last night, the waterfall pump was now running and a deluge fell in to the pond from on high.

AB found a huge Drinker moth caterpillar floating in the Dinosaur lake and fortunately it was close enough to be rescued and proved very popular with lots of people having a little hold of it before it was released safely well away from the water.

We had to leave for an appointment at half time but even then the species list was around the 250 - 300 mark, what a shame we didn't get a lot more moths. Through the afternoon we got a few updates from AB including news of the first (as far as we know) Larch Ladybird for the Fylde.

Not sure what the final species tally will be but probably approaching 450 maybe even 500 species!
Many thanks to LS for organising everything and helping add a considerable amount of knowledge to the local and County databases.

Can't tell you what the appointment was about but it was a great laugh and we'll be able to give you more news in due course.

Today we didn't get a chance to look at the sea which was a bit annoying as Little Terns and Pomarine Skuas are on the move locally.
Then news came in that Wheatears and yet another Whinchat were at the nature reserve but we hadd a meeting all morning. That meeting was at an office near Base Camp  meaning we had to go past the nature reserve to get there which was lucky...after the meeting it was nearly lunchtime and we had a quick sprint round the wetland and soon found the Whinchat (MMLNR #83) but not the Wheatears. On the drive there we saw our first Holly Blue of the year high over the road near the hospital.

No chance of a look at the sea during a very much time reduced lunchtime.

At Base Camp it was lovely and warm when we got back and we found a moribund Tree Bee, on closer inspection it was deceased but had no wings...fallen off or a mutant that was 'removed' from the nest by the other workers.

Still no Swifts for us!!!

Where to next? Back on the beach with our reguar gang of kids from the Midlands tomorrow - what we'll their little eyes find for us?

In the meantime let us know how much is deceased in your outback.

Every cloud has a silver lining...and sometimes it's actually golden!

The  Safari is issuing a RANT WARNING; those of a nervous disposition should scroll down to the pretty pictures later in the post.

We had an evening soiree planned with the crew from the South-side and for that we'd need some 'baggin' (aka 'snap') as we'd be setting off before tea-time, so Wifey headed to the shops for pies n stuff and returned with a copy of the local paper...we NEVER get that...bear in mind that 8th June is always World Oceans Day...have alook at the front page...shocking!

WHAT??? A seaside town without seagulls??? You really couldn't make it up! Not only that the town's crest/coat of arms has a seagull slap bang in the middle of it!!!

Not sure what the four-legged ant thing is 

A classic case of if there's a problem blame the wildlife and get rid of it, no matter that the river catchment for our beaches contains probably well over a million people all putting lordy knows what down the drains. The gulls thrive because of the vast amounts of litter that are left...by humans; and have learned to rip open plastic bags of rubbish put out overnight by the countless takeaways...get up earlier and out it out just before the  refuse wagon comes in the morning. Some days the drive to work looks like Litter Armageddon just happened. The lads do sterling work picking it all up but they don;t start til 06.00 and the gulls are up n at em around 03.30 now. They are just taking advantage of our sloppy, lazy ways then get all the stick - WRONG we're supposed to be the clever ones, time to get a bit cleverer - or a lot less lazy...and to any tourists out there...you obviously like coming herree so why sh*t the place up with your crap when you leave - bin it or take it home done't leave it on our streets you dirty b******s!!!

But which species is going to get it in the neck next; arre there too many seal and porpoises pooping in the sea, will they have to go too, what about the fish - oh there aren't any the trawlers have got rid of that problem for us, then there's 10000+ waders on the saltmarshes all pooping away that'll wash onto the beaches...get real, there's nothing wrong with wanting clean wholesome bathing waters but there are limits and we should be looking closely at ourselves first before pointing fingers at innocent wildlife.

By the way the sea is not dirty - its much much much cleaner that it was 20 years ago and orders of magnitude cleaner than in the resorts heyday when visitors were like ants on the beach - you really didn't want to go in the water then! Probably cleaner now than for any time in the last 100 years, it's just that the new EU regulations are stricter..and so they should be the sea is NOT a dumping ground!

Ahh dumping that brings us nicely on to rant number two again associaterd with World Oceans Day and our unsympathetic, unsustainable and downright callous use of wildlife.

We went to the beach to find it full of families enjoying the beautiful sunshine. The sand was golden, the tide was in ( and clean!) the big boys were playing with their toys.

Frank had a little play with his ball and a paddle

and in the midst of all this a fisherman had been digging bait and chucked away wait he didn't want/couldn't use...no thought of not digging so many Lugworms or taking them home and freezing them...no chuck em and get some more - what a waste! And then fishermen often have the audacity to say they are 'guardians of the environment' well a few might be but a fair proportion aren't.

 The Speckled Sea Lice will take ages to eat that lot!

Enough of the ranting on the with the proper stuff...

The previous night's moth trapping was the best of the year so far with two moths and two caddisflies  succumbing to the lure of the UV light.

Another, more normally marked, Scalloped Hazel and a Bee Moth along with two individuals of Mystacides longicornis.

A very poor showing and we're getting worried about the fate of our moths round here.

Eventually evening came round and we picked up our Extreme Photographer and headed down the motorway to meet up with the gang, from where we followed their lead to our site for the night.

And what a site it is, somehow we've never been there before; 85 ha of mature woodland surrounding a remnant lowland mire - beautiful. We were taken up to the tower hide  by the Ranger and were duly impressed with the surroundings. So much so that we spent so much time taking it all in we totally forgot to get the camera out! A Buzzard flapped lazily at eye-level and away over the trees while a Yellowhammer looked for all the world like  a Canary in the scrub below us.

A train rattled by in the distance beyond the far trees on the world's first ever railway line between built between two cities.

The central part of the reserve is former peat workings, manually extracted by hard work rather than machine cut like the illegal turf cutting going on in Ireland at the moment.

The Rangers have been busy creating bunds and blocking drains over the last 20 years or so in an attempt to rewet the peat and it's working

They've also been removing encroaching scrub and invasive non-native Rhododendron all of which is having the effect that Sphagnum Moss is regrowing and the area is once again become an active raised bog...gonna take a long long time to get it back to pristine but the longest journeys start with the shortest of steps...and more importantly it doesn't take humans long to undo what Nature took thousands of years to create!

In the low evening sun the Cotton Grass was looking splendid

In areas were mire vegetation was becoming well established Round Leaved Sundew was found in abundance, this one had caught an insect (arrowed) despite being rather smothered in Cotton Grass seeds - an occupational hazard here we would imagine.

But it wasn't the plants we had come to see, here's a clue...

Now what might live under refugia like these???

We got a Slow Worm under an early lift, close but not close enough! Then a few lifts further on we connected with our quarry for the evening - an Adder! our first in Britain - - at laaaaaasssstttttttt!!!

Too quick for a pic on this very warm evening. The warmth somehow hadn't brought the dragonflies out and we only saw one 4-Spotted Chaser all the time we were out so there were none of the hoped for Hobbys that are a specialty of the site.

The Ranger lifted more tiles for us until at last another Adder and this time it stuck around just about long enough

Shame about those two grass leaves right in front of her face. getting pics wasa nightmare, the light under the tiles was dark but all around was bathed in strong low sunlight...we pitied the poor camera - our Extreme Photographer might have got a much better shot from a slightly different angle - we'll wait and see what he sends through.

An excellent evening our with the Hesitant Weasel (that's him in the white t-shirt above) and crew and thanks to all involved especially the Ranger for taking the time to take us in to this normally out of bounds part of the reserve. We'll certainly be visiting this most very excellent site again and aren't sure now why we've never been before - been missing a treat!

And it wasn't quite all over, after dropping of our Extreme Photographer back home we tired but happy drove the lat three miles and waiting at the last set of traffic lights we had a Peregrine fly over going to its roost site in the town centre followed by about half a dozen Swifts - good end to a perfect evening especially after all the earlier rants - all is not lost keep up the good work folks!

And we got three Kestrel records for the current survey...please take part if you can.
Where to next? Another hot day so we probably won't be out with Frank til it cools down a bit and we've got chores with a paint brush to do in the garden so news from Base Camp is quite likely - what will we find?
In the meantime let us know where  you have been missing in your outback.