June didn't really improve

The Safari received an email from the water board imploring their customers to save water. Well that did the trick it has hardly stopped raining since! And as a consequence our forays with the camera have been somewhat curtailed.

Needless to say though we have been out on safari looking for all manner of interesting wildlife.

Our first trip was down to the docks at Preston to have a look at the tern colony which apparently hasn't been doing so well this year. A Combination of ferocious predatory Coots and ever-present Lesser Black Backed Gulls have meant far fewer Common Tern nests this year. We met up with SB to give her a skull a dog-walking friend's son had found at the bottom of their garden. We thought it was a Fox as it had extremely worn teeth but as soon as S saw it she said Cat. taking up our usual position on the south side of the dock where the light is supposed to be better it was immediately obvious that there were no  tern nests at all on the pontoons on this side. Rather than take the car round the far side and look into what little light there was we walked across to the bullnose within the dock and tried to get some shots of the Common Terns coming and going along the short channel to the lock gates. Had we gone round to the other side and viewed the northern set of pontoons there's a chance we might have seen the pair of Arctic Terns.

Common Tern - PYLC #154. the spikes are to keep the Lesser Black Backed Gulls from swooping down to steal the chicks

Nearby in a gap between the blocks of flats is a small patch of 'amenity grassland' which has  a superb range of wildflowers on it including a sizeable population of Bee Orchids. Unfortunately it had been mown the day before because long grass is 'untidy' not that it was very long anyway. This was the only Bee Orchid to survive the mower out of at least a dozen others apparently in flower a couple of days earlier - what a shame! This out-dated out-moded Victorian 'control nature at all costs' attitude has to stop or be stopped and soon.

Meanwhile the millet CR donated to us is going down a treat with our regular male House Sparrow

so much so that we went and ordered a ginormous bag of the stuff so we're praying he sticks around and brings the wife and kids to the feast in due course too.

A visit to the rock pools at South Shore which we ransacked regularly when we worked down that way was a little disappointing. The loss of the old over-spill pipe along the beach seems to have allowed much more wave action on the wall and there is now far less seaweed for the creepy-crawlies to hide in. 

We struggled to find more than a handful of Common Prawns although this one in berry was a welcome sight.

Green Shore Crabs were similarly hard to find unlike the Periwinkles of which there appeared to be more than we've previously noticed.

One of our main aims of this safari was to find some fish for our Vertebrate Photo Year List Challenge. In the pots we saw a few small Blennies but couldn't catch any, they're just far too quick for us with no seaweed to hide in they see you coming long before you can lift a net. The runnels below the seawall held a a small number of Sand Gobies but agaqin they were too quick for us. Normally another net is required and some team-work to out-wit them; fancy being out-witted by a fish with a brain the size of a pin-head - sad but true!

Further down the beach in the next runnel over the sand-bank we did catch this juvenile Sole (PYLC #155) and some rather large Brown Shrimps that were bigger than it.

Also on the beach were masses of Sea Gooseberries. There were several different strand-lines of them as you went down the beach.

A quick back of the fag packet calculation gave us a figure of somewhere between 10 and 15 million between St Anne's and Fleetwood, based on the density we noted above and there may have been more as photos on the local media sites showed them much more tightly packed than we saw them in various places along the coast.

The following week we had a surprise visitor to Base Camp. A Coal Tit turned up - not seen one here since the end of the winter.

A wander round Heron's Reach starting out in the Woodland Gardens gave us this massive Parasol Mushroom, a real corker!

Once out on the more open track we came across a few butterflies including our first Painted Lady of the year.

Another good find was this hybrid Marsh Orchid spotted in a place we regularly check but have never seen one there before.

An interlude of bright weather had us nipping out to the Rock Gardens to see if the earlier hot spell had brought the White Letter Hairstreaks out. It was a bit blustery and their favourite tree was being tossed around so we didn't hold out much hope after half an hour we gave up and went around the rough fields to see what else we could find - not a lot was the answer. but we did get great views of this hoverfly holding territory in the lee of the big trees at the edge of the park.

Volucella pellucens - a bumble bee mimic

Back at Base Camp the first juvenile Blackbird of the season turned up. Rather late, either a second brood and we'd missed the first or the first broods failed when it was so dry that the adults couldn't get food.

In poor weather the driest, cleanest place to walk the mutt is along the cliffs where there is far less opportunity for him to become a mud-mop. So far this year we've not had much success with Grey Seals so it was a nice bonus to have one bottling not too far offshore although another 50 yards closer to the lens might have been better - can't have everything that'd make us spoilt and no-one like s a spoilt brat!

With Lockdown restrictions easing still further we arranged to meet CR for a mooch round Marton Mere. Gee it's different (good/better) in the summer when the dreadful caravan site adjacent is closed, no numpties, far fewer dogs around and no booming music from the clubhouse.

A good selection of wildlife was enjoyed

Freshly emerged Narrow-bordered Five Spot Burnet  moth

Small Skipper - who's going to first to find an Essex Skipper on the Fylde?

A species we had hoped to see well and until now had had only fleeting glimpses, nothing to point the camera at was the Reed Warblers. But from the Fylde Bird Club Hide we were entertained by a family flitting around the reedbed for about half an hour, just great to watch.

Reed Warbler - PYLC #156

We left the Reed Warblers to their business and carried on the circuit. After a few yards C says look at this...there was a small mammal we assumed (never assume nothing!!!) was a Short Tailed Field Vole. We fired a few shots off but even the best one's not that brilliant but does show a pointy nose rather than a blunt one so it's a shrew not a vole and from the tail length it's a Common Shrew (PYLC #157). Not a species we expected to see out in the open and certainly not one we'd have expected to add to our challenge tally.

 Further on still we could hear nearby Cetti's Warblers but as usual they were all doing remarkably well at staying hidden and out of camera sight. While waiting for a particularly loud and therefore close one to show - it didn't - we spotted this awesome nest of Peacock butterfly caterpillars.

For the final week of June the weather was more like March although we did get a couple of hot days (see previous post about our safari to Lunt Meadows).

First up we headed back out to Marton Mere inspired by our previous visit. This time it as much duller and much quieter. we'd got half way round before we'd come across anything to point the camera at and when that happened it was at this very distant but still lovely and brightly coloured male Linnet.

Nothing else made it on to the SD card, which has got to be a record, there's always something worth pointing the camera at there.

The following day we were back, this time with CR. We'd hardly left the car behind when we came across this very confiding Sedge Warbler. he was totally oblivious to our presence flitting from song post to song post and giving a us a chorus of his extensive and loud repertoire.

A few Swifts were about too.

But again the weather wasn't conducive for a lot of the wildlife to be on show, particularly the invertebrates.

Back at Base Camp we tried a different tack with the mealworms trying to entice the local Starlings to come into the garden. no Starlings just this brute polishing the mealworms off in a matter of seconds again. We're sure he can smell them, there's no sign of him when we put them out but within a matter of minutes he's turned up.

An early morning dog-walk round the rough fields at the Rock Gardens had us see some ginger movement close to one of the big Bramble thickets. We only had our phone with us at that time of the morning and were very surprised that the Fox sat and watched us fumble in our pocket for it, turn it on and point it in her direction AND the dog was sniffing around very excitedly where she had been only moments earlier. We had to use full zoom and couldn't see the screen for the low early morning sun  hence the rather grotty pic. But hey it's identifiable (just) so goes on our Challenge tally as #158 - Result

And so ended June.

Where to next? Well the rain continues into July but we've already got a few wildlife moments to share with you next time.

In the meantime let us know who's sitting still watching in your outback

And don't forget to stay safe and socially distanced.

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.

It's like real summer on the beach

The Safari has had a couple school groups on the beach over the last two days. Yesterday's group also did some pond dipping and mini-beat hunting. While the children were rummaging around for interesting insects we spotted this delicious flower in our wild annuals bed. We're not sure what it iss,  but assume it came from the seed packet which was supposed to contain, Field Poppies, Cornflowers, Corn Marigolds, Corn Cockles and Corn Chamomile. Whatever it is it's a looker - over to you...

Here's a rubbish out of focus shot of the lanceolate leaves if that helps.

Find of the day yesterday was on the way in to work when we saw that last year's Ergot had reappeared on the Sea Lyme Grass.

Don't think we'll be harvesting those seeds to make any bread with!

We've been taking school groups exploring the beach for over 10 years now and almost without fail every trip someone will find something we've not seen before. Almost invariably it's one of the children because there's more of them and they really hunt, which is really exciting for them to have found something the 'expert' hasn't seen, but this time it was one of the teachers who made the find with one of the last sweeps of the net - how often does it that happen like that too! This was a school from the hill country of East Lancashire so the teacher was just as excited to find something new as the children are.

It's 'only' a Common Prawn but what are the black things stuck to its legs? We've never seen anything like that before - could it be eggs, she's carrying a load underneath her, could it be a species of sponge? Shame it was a bit dull and the phone cam's resolution isn't quite so good as it would have been in bright sunlight.

Today another group was scouring a different part of the beach nearer town. Sea conditions were absolutely ideal for them to spot any Bottlenosed Dolphins that might happen to be passing by but none did although earlier, before they arrived, we had seen a rather distant Grey Seal.

Trying to get the youngsters to stay away from the numerous jellyfish was counter-productive we might have been better telling them to pick them up and put them in their pockets...no, they'd have done that too. There were a good many Moon Jellyfish and a few mainly small Compass Jellyfish.

One of the little ones picked up some 'brains', better known as Whelks eggs. But then another child found some enormous ones. We should had got a pic of them side by side to show you how much larger these are to the 'normal' ones - each 'egg' is about 5x regular size and almost pure white rather than a buttery cream colour.

Are they from an ordinary Whelk or some sort of as yet undiscovered Super Whelk crawling around in the sand out there in the depths.

Once again towards the end of the session a shell was shown to us that at first glance looked like the many Tower Shells that had been stuck under our nose for inspection. This one, however, looked just that little bit different to hold our attention. A little longer than the Tower Shells and on closer inspection has a set of fine longitudinal ridges. The ridges weren't striking enough for it to be a Common Wentle Trap Shell, which are far from common here.

A rummage round a few on-line marine encyclopaedias suggest it could be Turton's Wentle Trap Shell (Epitonium turtonis) - a new one for us and consequently another great find by the kiddies. You just never know what they're going to hand you next! We'll await confirmation from DB who graduated from her Marine Biology degree yesterday so big congratulations to her.

Both groups found a rather strange blob like amphipod which we've yet to identify. They both could have been large Speckled Sea Lice without the speckles but they were more free swimming rather than trundling around in the sand at the bottom of the trays. Who knows what they'll eventually turn out to be identified as. 

All great fun exploring the wildlife out on the beach in the sunshine, it's what summer is for!

Where to next? It's the weekend and we're hoping for a moth or two, might be some butterfly action too if the weather stays good.

In the meantime let us know who's exploring things unknown in your ourback.

National Whale & Dolphin Watch is coming up shortly - details of where we'll be and when will be posted here until the event ends

 

Non-stop safari-ing

The Safari has had a hectic start to the week with young Beavers coming to visit and a school group all day today. More Brownies tomorrow evening - can our ears survive the strain all those excited young children make a lorra lorra noise!

Late on Sunday afternoon realising we weren't going to be able to get out we had a last mooch round the garden at Base Camp looking for the Blue Tailed Damselflies to see if we could get any more super close-ups. They weren't playing ball as the sun had gone in and a cool wind had picked up so we had to be content with flowers. Last summer there was hardly any Herb Bennett in the garden, this year there are a few plants. That's one of the joys of having  a wild garden you just don't quite know what's going to come up where year by year.

If there were any hoverflies about they'd love it but we've seen very few so far this summer.

Herb Robert is much more forthcoming and maybe you can have too much of a good thing when it starts invading Wifey's special planting tubs.

We noticed some had little orange specks on them, some times just a few and others had several. They were randomly placed so we deduced they weren't something the plant had produced.

 Then we spotted this tiny fly which may or may not be the culprit of what we suppose are eggs.

Big eggs if that little insect did lay them. Maybe they only lay two as most seemed to be in pairs and several insects have laid their eggs on one flower - isn't nature great there's always something new to see and learn, one question leads to a whole bookful of others.

Last night we were with the youngsters on the beach looking in the rockpools, it was a lovely summer's evening warm with hardly a breath of wind - a perfect evening for exploring on the beach. The recent offshore winds might be great for keeping the sea calm and helping our Dolphin spotting but it does mean there's not a great deal of shells and the like washed up. That didn't stop us finding some good stuff though like this Thornback Ray egg case.

Lots of the Common Prawns were in berry - except this one!

Star find as far as the Beavers were concerned were a couple of medium sized Common Sand Stars.

After we'd got back to Base Camp and had tea we were chatting to our Extreme Photographer on the phone when we notciced the sky start to build up some odd looking clouds. He had similar ones too 200 miles to the south. Once we'd finished chatting we got a couple of snaps with the phone, apparently they are Cirrus fibratus and Twitter friend @MaryJasper2 had similar all the way down in SW Cornwall.

Impressively wispy but were better than this a few minutes earlier

All day today we played host to a local school doing pond dipping and mini-beast hunting. The pond is still a bit slow probably due to the iffy weather in May and early June but they caught a reasonable selection of snails and plenty of 3-spined Sticklebacks, none as bright and energetic as 'Spineless Simon' though. The biggest surprise came in the form of a small dragonfly nymph, we very very seldom see adult dragonflies in the work's garden but there must have been some last year

Of the terrestrial invertebrates this bright, long and skinny Centipede was our favourite but the kids' favourite was probably the huge spider they found and many were brave enough to gently hold it - well done them!

Talk of our Extreme Photographer he's sent a few pics from his garden out in the wilds in the last week or so

Drinker moth caterpillar

Hedgehog

Great Diving Beetle larva - you wouldn't want to mess with those fangs!

Where to next? More Patch 2 dolphin hoping - there was a Humpback Whale not so far away just out of sight over the horizon last week!!!!!!! and there be more netting shenanigans with the kids too.

In the meantime let us know who's sucking the juice out of who in your outback.