Oh we do like a flat calm sea

The Safari has been left to our own devices this week with Wifey working away seeing yet more Red Kites on her travels and adding the likes of Pheasant (Wifey #53), Kestrel (Wifey #54) only two in over 500 miles of driving in reasonable weather conditions isn't good, and Pied Wagtails (Wifey #55) typically poking around on a car park. At this rate she'll be catching us up!!!

We've been able to get quick looks at the sea in the mornings and the visibility has been exceptional, so clear you could almost see climbers on the Lake District fells about 50 miles away! By lunchtime it's got as hazy as hell making it almost impossible to focus the scope and the bright sunshine made looking south out of the question.

We haven't seen much of note on the sea apart from a pair of Shovelers (P2 #44) which were only the second record for us here in 10 years, last year being the other, will they make it a three in a row hat-trick next year?

A Harbour Porpoise, or maybe two, put in an appearance for SD the day before yesterday, possibly as we passed him scoping from the cliff-top bench on our way to work. Not to be out done we had a definite two yesterday, one looking smaller than the other so perhaps a female with a well grown calf although we have to say our several sightings of them were very brief as the surfaced and rolled back down very quickly. Good to see all the same and only our fourth mammal species of the year, we seem to be struggling for mammals this year, not even seen the Long Tailed Field Mice in the garden yet.

The Friends of North Blackpool Pond Trail had their meeting the other night and before we went in we had a look in the pond near the community centre and found a fairly impressive dollop of Frog spawn.

The House Sparrows have been heard again from the door step when setting off for work which is more good news.
Today we've been feeling pretty grotty coming down with man-flu of the worst order and so with a pounding head, drowsiness and increasingly snotty snozzwanger we made our excuses and left work an hour early. We headed to the nature reserve to get some much needed fresh air and open space and found the main gate wide open, a van parked up and caterpillar tracks leading off down the main drag.

From the Viewing Platform we could see the bright orange arm of a digger working in the distance. We had a quick scan and picked up the Iceland Gull straight away. We weren't in a counting frame of mind but there must have been at least 30 of each of Wigeon and Shoveler, both looking splendid in the bright sunshine. We saw several big bumble bees but were only able to positively identify one, our first Red Tailed Bumble Bee of the year. 

Down at the far end we came upon AH and IB inspecting the works - they look impressive, the works that is! The digger had excavated several ponds already, the largest will be an educational dipping pond for visiting groups. The others will be linked to it by a path and the last one will be left undisturbed to its own devices...provided the flippin dog walkers don't find it.

One of them is in the shape of a flying bat...not to attract batman but to provide extra length of margin apparently. Can't wait to see how they develop over the summer. Interesting times ahead.

IH told us he'd found more Bee Orchid rosettes near the others we found a while back after he had mown the area so we stopped to have a look on the way back to the car. It took a bit of methodical searching but we found the three new ones eventually. Further on we searched quite diligently in other areas where they've popped up in the past but had no luck.

At the gate a cacophony of gulls alerted us to raptor, Osprey??? No, a much more likely Buzzard and just about right over our head.

By now we were hot and in desperate need of a brew so it was back to Base Camp as quick as maybe. Not at all bad for an impromptu hour though.

We also came across this simple survey for you to get involved with, looks like fun too so get yourselves registered and start counting those garden butterflies.

Where to next? More Patch 2 tomorrow but will it be bright and clear or as wobbly as jelly out there? 

In the meantime let us know who's been digging all the holes in your outback.

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.

Short of time

The Safari hasn't been able to get out much, the weather and poorly colleagues have conspired against us.     

Yesterday we had a quick look at the incoming tide, not much doing but there were 31 Turnstones working their way along the seaweed clad seawall to their favoured roosting point close to the big rocks on the 'point'.

Perhaps more interesting were the incoming waves, some bounced off the wall on the rising tide and met new ones coming in with an impressive swish, somewhat reminiscent of those impressively speedy Cuban Bonefish that race through the shallows after their prey ripping up a bow-wave as they go. You can see them speeding from right to left with a crazy crest.

 On the way back to Base Camp we stopped at the go-kart track hoping for a glimpse of the Purple Sandpipers in the wader roost. There were about 50 or more Redshanks but only a handful of Turnstones and no sign of anything more unusual. 

At Base Camp we saw we needed to fill the feeders which meant going outside and past the pond. There were had a pleasant surprise, there was a blob of Frog spawn slap bang in the middle.

Checking our records we noticed that it appeared on the same day as last year, but not the same date as you have to allow for the fact that this year is a leap year. 

Today a cold wind blew and the sea was very choppy. We only got out for a few minutes at lunchtime but long enough to watch a nice flock of about 30 Kittiwakes go north hugging the waves not too far out to sea. We see plenty of Kittiwakes but rarely in tight flocks like this though, great to see.

Once again we looked through the kitchen window to check the feeders and once again we had to go and top them up, the colder weather has made them hungry! 

And once again we looked into the pond to see more Frog spawn had been laid over night - good news indeed, let's hope the fish don't eat it, they probably will it seems to be their first meal of the year.

So limited opportunities for wildlife but there's always something to be seen if you look hard enough or are just plain lucky!

Where to next? We'll be out somewhere tomorrow, weather permitting and will there be even more spawn in the pond when we get back to Base Camp?  

In the meantime let us know who's arrived in bigger numbers than usual in your outback

                     

A bit of allsorts today

The Safari has been on the look out for signs of spring in the garden at Base Camp. The last few evenings we've been out with the torch to see if there were any Frogs in the pond, there weren't but we did find one of our Orfes (aka Ides) was sleeping in the shallows very close to the edge, a very vulnerable position as the local cats have often been seen on the stealth cam peering in to the water in the dead of night.

From Wiki..."The Ide reaches a maximum length of about 60–80 cm (23.5-31.5 inches) though the average size is about 40 cm (16 inches). The Ide reaches a weight of about 9 lb (4 kg)." Ours must be about 15/16 inches long or more now and we've had them over 16 years, they've even survived a house move!

The cat in the clip jumps to exactly where this fish was snoozing, although the clip is from last summer.

We didn't get much chance of any safari-ing yesterday but on the way home we stopped off at the flooded field near the nature reserve where the Green Sandpiper has been for about a week. Unfortunately we didn't have our camera or telescope with us so this is the best we could manage digi-binning it - good job it was in the closest corner of the flood.

Once back at Base Camp a look in the pond revealed the Frogs had indeed been active and left four clumps of spawn over on the far side.

This morning we were teaching rocks and stomes to Year 3 on the beach, lots of great finds but it was so so cold it must have been like torture for the poor wee ones. We had a our hands in a bucket of water to clean the sand of the stones so the youngsters could see the detail, not the best idea on a cold and very windy day like today. That stung!

We've had another go at lamping the pond this evening a couple more clumps of spawn have been added but so no sign of those slippery adult amphibians. An unusual sighting, we think, is the recently unfurled Water Lily leaf, there's another one about to reach the surface too. Is that right in the first week of March?

So there you have it a bit of spring springing in a couple of hundred words.
Where to next? We should be able to get a reasonable look at Patch 2 tomorrow.
In the meantime let us know who's prowling round the ponds in your outback.

A pond visit today

The Safari saw a Grey Seal on Patch 2 yesterday but not a great lot else. This morning was a little better with calmer conditions but no blubber just a fairly close Guillemot, a distant Red Throated Diver and some passing Meadow Pipits - still no Wheatear for us! 

At the end of the day we took advantage of the dry conditions and had a visit to one of our more difficult to access sites for the first time this year. The vegetation is still in winter mode but the tripsy Brambles were still out to get us. We couldn't see anything that would specifically tell us that the Water Voles had been active, a little grazing lawn on the little island (centre left on pic below) looked to be most suspicious but the grass was nibbled straight across rather than at the 45 degree angle more diagnostic of Water Vole feeding activity.

We walked the circumference of the pond without seeing any thing of note. The land based refugia held no reptiles or amphibians but we did find two too speedy Short Tailed Field Voles. One of the slabs in the water had a large Frog underneath but upto then we'd not seen any spawn. There were no pond plants large enough for Great Crested Newts to lay their eggs on. An unusual 'thing' caught our eye, no idea what it was it looked like something you might find in the deep sea rather than a pond, didn't get a good look but it appeared to be transparent with a few symmetrical bio-luminescence spots...no we weren't dreaming there was something there - honest 

Almost all the way round we found this pondweed, any ideas we're not good with aquatic vegetation.

It wasn't until we 'd got all the way round before we found any Frog spawn but when we did there was a little more than plenty.

Where to next? Off to the big park to talk about Herons tomorrow afternoon.
In the meantime let us know what the mystery creature was in your outback - ohh if it was a mystery you won't know...