Bird bingo

The Safari joined PT to lead the North Blackpool Pond Trail's Bird Bingo family event last Saturday morning. The birds were on fine form, showing well, it's just a shame the families didn't make such a good showing too. Maybe people are doing other stuff on Saturday mornings and Sunday might be a better day for more people to be able to come along.

The birding is quite easy at Kincraig Lake as the birds are more than willing to come close and grab a beakful of whatever is on offer so you can get some nice portrait shots of old favourites like this male Mute Swan.

The sun shone bringing out the finery of the drake Mallards.

Also present was a very tame Heron which has become accustomed to eating bread - Can't be good for it!

Note its iris, it seems to be deformed and not circular like its other one, an old injury perhaps or was it born like that?

There are three Herons' nests on the wooded island this year but now the spring buds are unfurling they are quite difficult to see unless you can watch the birds flying in to them.

Birds came and went and we saw Woodpigeons display flighting, Collared Doves passing by, Feral Pigeons doing circuits and a lone Stock Dove heading north - never really imagined seeing one of those at this sight, weird or what, it certainly wasn't on the Bird Bingo tick-off sheets!

Woodpigeon

One of the Woodpigeons alighted on the fence to our left so we crept closer for a better look

As we were edging closer a Common Sandpiper (154, YLPC #123) flew past us

And landed on the edge of the viewing area just behind the fence almost right beneath the Woodpigeon.

It was quite wary and flew round several times looking for the best feeding opportunities around the lake which has no muddy margins, eventually after waiting most of the morning it came reasonably close.

Where there's water and bread there's inevitably Coots, this one had a nest under construction close by but wasn't going to pass up a free lunch

And if there's Coots there's inevitably Moorhens

A young father and his very young son had tipped out what looked like some porridge oats, neither the Coot nor the Moorhen could pick up the small pieces left after the Mallards had had their fill of the choices and largest flakes in the conventional downward pecking manner we're used to seeing birds do but resorted to this unusual sideways forceps pincer peck to glean the pickings from the hard concrete.

Ever cautious at any hint of danger or anything untoward even if totally not dangerous the Moorhen would scurry to the water's edge where it waited a while before taking the plunge if necessary, which it rarely was.

From the scrub we heard Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff and Blackcaps and watched House Sparrows collecting feathers for their nest in the houses across the road.

Wandering around the lakeside path we came across our first Speckled Wood butterfly of the year and then spotted this collection of still sleepy Garden Snails.

Back at the viewing area chat had got round to news of a strange video of a deer sleeping on a dumped sofa - how comfy but how odd. Well knock us down wiff a feaver not twenty yards further on was a dumped sofa but this one had a one eyed cat sleeping on it. You couldn't rite it - well errr - we just did!

After giving us the evils for disturbing it it went back into comfy cat mode

Good to see someone has provided a ramp so it doesn't have to leap so high to get on the arm rest - fly tipping at its most considerate?

Further on out of the woods and back in the sunshine a big queen Red Tailed Bumble Bee was giving the pathside Dandelions a good going over.

Dandelions get such bad press so much so that they are the 'weed of choice' for the garden herbicide advertisers and yet they do so much good for the early pollinators enabling them to build up their populations - we should be celebrating them rather than demonising and obliterating them. Us humans really can't stand anything that thrives amongst us we didn't put there can we. Just think of all those expansive and expensive swathes of yellow Daffodils along the roadsides, we could have Dandelions, Lesser Celandine, Cowslips and Primroses for free - but no we'd probably mow and spray them off as soon as they appeared in the name of 'tidiness' -  what a ridiculous species we are.

Rounding the corner our group stopped to let this female Blackbird finish her ablutions.

Back at the viewing area the Common Sandpiper was still flying round and eventually settled on the remains of an old Willow bush. Not where you'd expect to see one but apparently they have been know to sing from the branches of riverside trees on their territories up on the hillside streams and smaller rivers.

A morning's birding in the sun wouldn't be complete without a raptor or two and we had three...a big female Sparrowhawk soared overhead before disappearing only to be found by the local Magpies in the wooded area when we walked through that way. A Buzzard gave a good display of 'skydancing' as it mooched sort or northeast wards and then this came over. At first when we first picked it up coming towards us being mobbed by a throng of gulls we hoped it might be an early Honey Buzzard, but the jizz wasn't right, then as it drew nearer it looked Osprey-ish for a moment but then was obviously far too long tailed. We tried to get some pics but it was quite high and the camera refused to pick it up against the sky until it was annoyingly well past us. we only got this one poor usable shot and now we're pretty sure it's a immature male Marsh Harrier - answers on the usual post card please.

Right at the death a family did turn up but only to feed the ducks...and the Heron!

Isn't urban wildlife great!

Yesterday we had a mooch round Marton Mere with CR calling in at the Woodland Gardens first to see if we could find the male Pied Flycatcher LR had told us he'd found there a couple of hours earlier. Needless to say it had moved on and with not a lot else on show in there we did too.

Our mission was to get some pics of the summer warblers for our challenge but they weren't playing ball, singing yes but showing no. Grasshoppper Warbler, Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler all noisy but invisible. The first bird to hit the SD card was a Linnet swaying away in the cold brisk wind on a thin stem poking out above the Bramble thicket.

At the Bird Club hide interest was provided by the first family of Coots we've come across this spring. Our first Swift (155) of the year dropped in with a few Swallows too.

The embankment was cold in the wind and again the Reed, Sedge and Cetti's Warblers were all keeping out of sight, fortunately a Reed Bunting bucked the trend and sang from an exposed perch.

The scrub taunted us with mostly invisible Blackcaps and Whitethroats. C managed a couple of snaps of a Blackcap and a Sedge Warbler deep in cover but try as we might we couldn't get the camera on to anything at all.
That said when all seems lost nature pulls a blinder for you. After seeing not a lot from the viewing platform we turned to leave and C spotted some bee activity around a patch of Nettles catching the sun. Patient watching revealed them as a species of Nomad Bee, we don't think we've ever seen any species of these here before. wit hour birding 600mm lenses getting pics was tricky to say the least. But we both were able to get a few and they look like Nomada flava (based on this one being a male [pale yellow eyes] having all dark antennae) but we could be wrong, they're not an easy group to ID

If the are N. flava they've not been recorded locally before according to the NBN map, Preston 15 miles away being the closest dot. Happy days!

Where to next? Family day on the Southside tomorrow but we might see something if we get a chance

In the meantime let us know who's buzzing around for the first time in your outback

What are we playing at?

The Safari hasn't had a lot of luck recently. We've been out n about but not seen a great lot to shout about...or get any pics of really.

Back on Patch 1 the big Parasol Mushroom from our Oddball Bat post now looks like this...or did look like that a coupla days ago, we didn't check it yesterday due to horrendous thunderstormy rain nor did we today either.

Having a bit more time to ourselves at Base Camp hasn't produced the goods although this Grey Squirrel is the first we've seen in the garden for quite some time, it was on next door's feeders for ages before it hopped over the fence.

Taken in the gloom through the double glazed kitchen window

Also over Base Camp was the first Meadow Pipit of the autumn, just the one - no sign of any migrant floodgates opening yet.

We had an early morning three hours round the nature reserve seeing very little at all and not once needing to raise the camera. Best of a very slow morning was a mixed flock of tits and warblers in which was a single Lesser Whitethroat. Insects fared a little better with at least four Red Admirals seen around the reserve and a cluster of four Small Tortoiseshells butterflies in the top corner nectaring on the abundant Hoary Ragwort flowers. At least something is abundant this year!
At the Viewing Platform therre was no sign of the Otter nor the Bittern - there never is for us! But in the still very leafy Sycamore trees above our head a small bird was flitting about we did our best to get the bins on it but it just kept disappearing behind the foliage to be relocated a yard or more away only to instantaneously disappear again. Was there a hint of red on its back end? Did we really see that or just think we did after the event? It called several times a loud strident soo-iit as it moved about the tree tops. After a minute or so of losing it among the leaves and Monty getting restless we moved on but had we just ignored a Redstart which would have been our first at the reserve for a number of years and our first self-found one for a long time?

A venture to the cliffs to look for Bottlenose Dolphins didn't go as planned when Monty legged it down to the beach so we had to abandon our initial plan and once got him back under control had a wander along Chat Alley where we successfully found some chats, five Wheatears, none of which would pose for a pic. They were very flighty but it was busy with joggers, cyclists, dog walkers and fishermen driving past to their favourite spots.

Yesterday we met up with GB after the storm. The initial plan was to head out east but with lost time we just stayed local and had a mooch along the northern prom. Worth it too. At least five Grey Seals one of which was very close in but due to the earlier very heavy rain we hadn't brought the camera out....dohhhhh...and it didn't rain and we were over-dressed in our waterproofs! On the golf course and beach we counted 9 and three Wheatears respectively but reckon that there were almost definitely many more. It's be interesting to see how many more and what we missed when Fleetwood Bird Observatory post their tally for 31st August. We did get a good count of at least 120 Sandwich Terns fishing very close inshore catching Sand Eels and then roosting on the beach, joined by eight Turnstones, the 'largest' flock we've seen so far this autumn. Out in the bay it was just coming up to low tide and there were a lot of Cormorants roosting on the recently formed King's Scar (labelled as Rosmic Island on Google Maps - would be much better if people kept off it though as we've been told that good numbers of Grey Seals have been seen hauled out on it recently.) an impressive shingle island, how big is it going to get in the years to come??? There were several Cormorants in the middle distance fishing but we failed to find GB any Harbour Porpoises - he reckons he jinxes us, he could be right as conditions were bob on for spotting any cetaceans that might have been out there.

The local Love my Beach beach cleaning volunteers were out doing their thing and had put some interesting and too-large-for-their-bags items on the sea wall. One of those items of interest was a gull skull

Another thing we noticed was the large number of Garden Snails out for a slime along the prom, most but not all were heading towards the beach. Was it something to do with the overnight rain, do they eat seaweed, did this one have a towel and windbreak to take advantage of the sunny weather down on the sand??? All very odd, you'd think the osmotic potential of the salty sand and vegetation (not that there's much of that just a few leaves of Sea Lyme Grass and even lesser amounts of other species) would be enough to do a snail in but headed beachwards they were.

We know where it's going but why - Answers on a postcard please

This morning we were supposed to join CR on a jaunt to the big wetland reserve on the Southside but once again our plans were thwarted by poor Monty honking up in the most wretched way all night. So insead of heading towards exotic birds we're heading tto the vets instead.

We took him for a quick trawl round Patch 1, you could tell he's under the weather as his tail was down all the way round. It's usually up like a flag and wagging non-stop. The earlier light rain hadn't dropped anything exciting and nothing was heard or seen going over but we did come across a Great Spotted Woodpecker, they seem to have moved back again after being lost when their favourite dead tree was cut down, a Coal Tit, a Goldcrest, a Blackcap and a small flock of Long Tailed Tits. Not a total dead loss then.  

Here's a quiz for you - who else do you know wanders round with, bins, a camera, a dog and occasionally peers into roadside gullies? And then finds one to photograph as it has a bit of self-contained jungle growing in it. Go on own up - you do it too, don't you?

We received some pics from one of our recent Moth and Bat Nights from organiser HP today, we're sure he won't mind us posting them on here.

A good crowd of eager wildlife enthusiasts

Feeling how soft and velvety the fur is on a mummified Pipistrelle bat

Just how well can moths see in the dark? Look at the tapetum on that! Well it's probably not actually a tapetum in the vertebrate sense but it serves the same function

If anyone would like the Safari to do local-ish wildlife events, guided walks, talks for groups, schools etc for a reasonable fee please get in touch.
And there endeth our second week of retirement. What have we learned? Even though we have loads of time nothing seems to go to plan and if it can go wrong it will go wrong...Things can only get better - sounds like that could be a good title for a song!

Where to next? We can feel a bit of seawatching coming on tomorrow morning, after a just post-dawn mooch round patch 1 of course.

In the meantime let us know who's going down the drain in your outback.

Sitting at the dock of the bay

The Safari was able to get an hour down at the old dock where mooring pontoons have been commandeered by a colony of nesting terns. Actually there wasn't anywhere to sit so we were standing against the railings.The terns are sat on their nests right below your feet!

and offer crippling views 

as they come and go

sometimes bringing food for egg incubating mates

Right by the huge Mute Swan's nest was this Arctic Tern sitting tight. The swan's nest is constructed between heaps of driftwood.

The Common Tern's nest in the first pic got trodden on by the male Mute Swan as he clambered aboard the pontoon to join his mate. Somehow he only managed to kick a bit of cardboard over the eggs and managed not to crush them. Not the best place to build your nest - bit like pitching a flimsy tent in the inside lane of the M6 and hoping the trucks won't squish you.
On the way back to Base Camp we stopped briefly at the neaby marsh where a number of House Martins were busy collecting mud for ttheir nests. Is it just us or do numbers of these little beauties and Swifts appear well down this summer?

We had a quick scan of the muddy margins of the pool but found only a few Redshanks, Lapwings and snoozing Mallards.
Then out of cover close by, perhaps worried about the barking from Monty as we'd left him in the car and he wasn't happy, came a family of Shovelers. Good to have them nesting in our area, let's hope at least a couple of the ducklings survive.

Back at Base Camp the garden is blooming after our holiday and now we have two spikes on our Northern Marsh Orchid in the tub by the sitting room window.

Herb Robert self seeds into every available space buut we don't mind as it's cheery and the bees and other insects love it.

And finally here's a few mmore from Cornwall we've managed to get round to processing.

Botallack's Meeter-n-Greeter in-chief - - no-one was allowed to pass without giving him a tickle on the chin

Bumblebee sp on Gorse

Common Blue

Black Lipped Banded Snail - yellow un-banded form

Garden Snail

Navelwort - very common on the dry stone walls around the village and cliffs, in fact it grow where-ever it could find the tiniest toe-hold

Mine chimney built with granite

Cape Cornwall - originally thought to be Britain's most westerly point until someone measured Land's End properly - - there's five Grey Seals in the cove bottling just behind the surf

Cape Cornwall again

Where to next? Back on Patch 1 for a couple of days before we go back to work.
In the meantime let us know who has to be seen in your outback.