Otterly brilliant

The Safari hasn't been out as much as hoped this week. Yesterday we had to say goodbye to our large Elm tree. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with it it had just become too big for the small space it was in and had begun to send up suckers all over the garden which could easily become a digging out problem in a couple of years time and could pop up in neighbours' gardens too. Sadly it means that there will be no chance of the local White Letter Hairstreak setting up a satellite colony at Base Camp as was the original hope when we planted it. Perhaps now the small subservient Rowan will be able to grow and maybe one day attract a Waxwing or two if the Blackbirds leave any berries for them.

Many thanks to CP and his skill with the Stihl

Today we took Monty down to Marton Mere for a quick spin in the sunshine, once the early morning rain had cleared. First stop was the (to our mind) somewhat over-zealously cleared Feeding Station. There was little about apart from a couple of Pheasants and a Grey Squirrel, no sign of yesterday's reported Bullfinch.

 From there we could hear the volunteers' strimmers not too far away. We thought they were continuing to work at the little bay view point they made last week that we're not fond of, we think the time and effort could have been spent better elsewhere on the reserve. When we got there we saw we were wrong, they weren't there but further down at the first hide. We had a quick chat but it was too noisy for Monty's sensitive doggy ears. They did tell us that there were two Otters over against the far reeds. We looked and looked and saw 200 or more Coot panic but didn't see any Otters.

We left the vols to their tasks and walked down to the next hide where we didn't go in but snuck round the front and flattened the area of reeds to the left to open up the view for the winter, our first bit of volunteering here, we're sure there'll be more!

We also had a look at the new reed island from this angle...it's massssiiiivvveee!!!!! And the ducks seem to like to loaf in its lee so perhaps it's not all bad...still going to be a nightmare though.

Once again we were time constrained...how does that happen when your retired?? so we had to head back. This time the strimmering team were having a tea-break and all was quiet enough to join them again. This time we were told the Otters were having a swim round again. Wow, we got superb prolonged views of them with the bins, if a little distant, on the far side of the mere. Excellent!!! Awesome!!! Other expletives are available. Just a little to distant for our 300mm lens we brought out today - typical; and we're not entirely sure why we opted to leave the 600mm back at Base Camp - won't make that mistake again in a hurry!

Well chuffed but later found out there were two Bitterns flying round together in the afternoon, long after we'd had to leave though.

Almost back at the car we spotted a few flowers of Meadow Cranesbill enjoying the last of the year's sunshine.

In the afternoon we joined our local Wildlife Trust's Living Seas team for a Sea Watch at Rossall tower. A chilly and blustery afternoon but the event was well attended. We got a count of 50 Eiders roosting on the new shingle island, there were a lot of Oystercatchers and Turnstones roosting over there too.

It took a while for the only Grey Seal to put in an appearance and we missed it. While searching the waves and troughs for it we spotted half a dozen Little Gulls, five adults and a first winter, flying west out of the bay. A nice find even though we say so ourself.

Not much else was out there for the others to enjoy, a few more Eiders and a few Common Scoters on the sea and a small flock of Ringed Plovers, Dunlin and a Sanderling on the beach.

Where to next? More gardening at Base Camp tomorrow but we'll keep our ears open for anything passing overhead.

In the meantime let us know who's gracing the waters in your outback.

The best kind of visitor

The Safari had the stealth-cam out all the while we were away but the batteries must have been on their last legs as we only got daytime activations. Yesterday we got round to buying some new batteries and set it up late evening overlooking the ground feeder with some sunflower hearts in it. If the Long Tailed Field Mice were still about they'd come to the food and trip the camera and of course there's a multitude of passing cats to be snapped.

The time on the camera shows it must have been waiting for us to put the food out, it was only a few minutes earlier that we'd set the scene up!

And it was munching away in the morning not long after we'd been out with Frank through the back door only a few feet from the food tray - brazen these mice are!

But what of the intervening hours of darkness? Yes, there was cat after cat after cat but we also hit garden gold.

We haven't seen or heard any evidence of the local Foxes for several months so were really chuffed to get this one passing through on the first night the camera was set up, which begs the question is it a regular route for them???? Tonight's camera might shed a little more (infra-red) light on the question.

Not entirely sure what it's stopped to sniff at, can't be 'looking' to see if Frank is still about as it's well past his bedtime. We now need some tasty morsels that the cats wont be interested in to see if we can tempt it/them to linger longer - boiled eggs perhaps; any other suggestions anyone. Are there cubs??? Do we still have Hedgehogs coming into the garden?

At lunchtime we were allowed out for a couple of hours and as we'd had a call from LR about the orchids at the nature reserve we decided to go and check them out. We pulled up at our usual parking spot and as we locked the Land Rover doors something dark lying in the grass caught our eye. We thought we'd best not step in it and saw that it wasn't that yukky stuff that should be picked up but something bizarrely out of habitat and totally out of context. It was a Mermaid's Purse, or more accurately an empty egg-case from a Thornback Ray. How'd that got there? Dropped by a passing gull, passed through a passing gull - hope not we picked it up!, fallen out of a child's seaside bucket or fallen from a fisherman's car. Anyway it's possibly the oddest find we've ever had there and we've had some weird stuff over the years.

We know they like it wet but nowhere near as dry as a wetland!

We had a look over the water but all was quiet. A pale thing attracted our attention.

Was it a giant dead Eel, was it the arm of  the long lost mythical Boggart, looked far too big to be a piece of Yellow Water Lily root or Reedmace rhizome. What was it? Later, from the other side we were to discover it was a large piece of tree branch covered in old bleached water weed - almost disappointing!

Our mission to find the orchids didn't go quite to plan as we'd seemed to have forgotten exactly where they were and ended up looking about 15 yards away from their patch. We did find them in the end. Most only had flower buds like this large and stout Common Spotted Orchid.

But some of the Northern Marsh Orchids(?) were just waiting for another sunny day to open fully.

We didn't count them but were later reliably informed by MMcG that there were at least 45 spikes waiting to open.

After that we had a look from the Viewing Platform and enjoyed a few Swifts until the weather cooled a little and about 30 turned up only to depart as quickly as they came whe nit warmed up again a few minutes later.

Coming out of the scrub we bumped in to the Kids Club being led by Ranger Steve from the caravan site on a guided wildlife walk and we were able to show them something really special.

Most of them had never seen any kind of newt before and some hadn't even heard of them but they all had a turn of gently holding it, even some of the mums! There were three altogether, all small ones from last year, which is our best count on the reserve.

Not far away in the scrub is our favourite tree on the reserve, an Elm which has obviously succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease but is now recovering and growing strongly - great to see, is it too far from the colonies of White Letter Hairstreak butterflies to hope they might find it - actually there are at least two other Elm trees on the reserve, the nearer one is much bigger than this one but bigger is more easily found by the Elm Bark Beetle and Dutch Elm Disease might not be far away.

Another great couple of hours on safari.

Where to next? With the antics of #spinelesssimon on Springwatch we might have to get the underwater camera out and set it up in our pond at work tomorrow to see if our 3-Spined Sticklebacks are as interesting as he is. Our hols have come to an end so Patch 2 will be back in play too.

In the meantime let us know what needs a few hours of sun to burst forth in your outback.

More from Patch 1

The Safari had a great morning on Patch 2 watching about 30 or so Gannets diving for fish. Not much with them, where are the terns? Close in, only a couple of hundred yards behinds the very gentle surf they were diving very shallowly but further out they were plunge diving from way high.

Eight Shelducks went past but little else was happening.

At lunch time most of them had dispersed leaving three Grey Seals in their wake - nice but not cetaceans.

A fascinating Herring Gull was milling around with the other gulls. In all respects it was normal apart from the primaries on its left wing...they were Glaucous or Iceland Gull-like pure white giving it a weird asymmetry. In flight coming directly towards us it look strangely lob-sided. Sadly it was far too far off for a photo but we'll be keeping an eye out for it tomorrow.

While were waiting for for a crack at that gull here's some more pics from Patch 1 the other day

Bird's Foot Trefoil

Common Blue butterfly

Same one

Common Vetch

Perforated Elm leaf

Another one

Mating Water Measurers in the pond

More of the little so n sos

Mouse Eared Hawkweed - not seen this species here before

Parasitised Yellow Dung Fly

Frog in pond at Base Camp

Back to the Common Blue butterfly

Tenthredo sp

Same one

Wolf Spider with egg sac

Where to next? Think we'll be looking for a certain wonky gull and we've got another visit to the 'snake-pit' on the way back to Base Camp after work.

In the meantime let us know who's got the wonky colouration in your outback.

Patch 1 mega!

The Safari woke up to a frosty dawn but fortunately the sun was strong enough to blitz it off quite quickly and it turned in to a very nice day. We didn't get out until late afternoon after our Extreme Photographer had come round to do a bit of a five minute job which lasted a good couple of hours - nothing's ever straight forward at Base Camp! 

After the last screw had been tightened we had a brew and then picked up our cameras and walked round to Patch 1. The warmth had brought out a good many bees and we saw a couple of  Small Tortoiseshell butterflies. 

A Chiffchaff was seen in the Butterfly Zone where the Elms are flowering but many more seemed to have died of Dutch Elm Disease so we hope that the White Letter Hairstreaks are OK...seriously need to sort out the planting of some disease resistant Elms next season if we can.

At the pond we spent a fair few minutes waiting for the Pond Skaters to come within range, our Extreme Photographer even managed to get a pic of a Water Measurer too, pretty impressive!

Very heavy crop - a little too far away at their nearest

Above the pond a Coal Tit was singing and at the upper pond we failed to see any Frogs or Toads but there were some there making waves beneath the Duckweed and they'd been busy judging by the huge amount of spawn in the middle of the pond - buckets of the stuff. A pair of Wrens collected nest material from the edge of the pond.

We wondered round the gardens without seeing anything else of enough interest to point the lenses at so we hit the rough field where another Small Tortoiseshell caught our attention. After blasting of a few pics of that we wandered down to the mounds and gravelly area at the bottom of the hill. It's a very very late spring as the vegetation hasn't got going at all, even the Coltsfoot is only just coming into flower here! But we're glad we did come down this far as our Extreme Photographer caught a fleeting glimpse of something red that he didn't think was a Robin that flitted along the scratty bit of hedge in the corner of the field. We put our bins up in the general direction he was pointing and got a bird by fluke right in the middle of the field of view in perfect focus! He was right it deffo wasn't a Robin...a crackin male Redstart (141). Not the first to have been seen here, but there haven't been many and this was first either of us have seen here.

We didn't get a chance to get the camera up before it did another flit and the drivel below is all we could manage.

After yesterday's dip we're triple chuffed to have one on our local patch that we aren't able to get too all that often these days.

Sadly our Extreme Photographer's computer has thrown a wobbly so we might not see his results for some time.

Where to next? Should be able to get a few hours at the nature reserve tomorrow, maybe early doors.

In the meantime let us know what multi-coloured beauties graced your outback