Wilderness and wildness

The Safari was full of wildness last week, everyone should try to fill themselves with wildness it's great for the soul and something that's lacking in the lives of too many people these days. Wildness isn't quite wilderness, with wildness you can be anywhere , even looking through your window at your garden - it's a state of mind, but wilderness requires a bit of remoteness.

Monday
Wilderness for us is somewhere we can't hear human noise, here in southern Scotland all we could hear was the wind, the waves,and wild sounds like the bubbling of the Curlews, the kleeping of the Oystercatchers and of course the yapping of the Barnacle Geese - all adding up to pure bliss.
This morning flock after flock of Barnacle Geese joined hundreds of others out on the mudflats where there were also a hundred or so Shelducks.

Much closer a Merlin (178) glided low over the rocks panicking a Curlew that was really far to big to be in any danger. Well beyond the action two white birds stood out among the throng of Barnacle Geese but they were in the furthest and largest flock away on the outer mudflats (isn't it always the case!). All of a oneness the whole flock took to the wing and we lost them.

A tiny proportion of the flock

without our scope the white ones were simply to far away to get any ID on but what were they? There's a few possibilities...albino/leucisic Barnacle Geese, Snow Geese or maybe just a couple of farmyard type Grey Lag Geese that had got themselves mixed up in the wrong crowd? A mystery to solve!
The weather was mild and there was a bit of passage through the morning with new Linnets on the beach, Skylarks and Meadow Pipits went overhead and a flock of about two dozen Swallows held at least one Sand Martin with them.
A second visit to RSPB Mersehead, an afternoon visit this time, was a fairly quiet affair. A Mistle Thrush on the drive to the reserve was a new species for the trip. We called into the visitor centre where the helpful lady on the desk told us there were two leucistic Barnacle Geese on the reserve last year, so we guess that's the mystery solved then!
The sky was full of geese again with Barnacles Geese, Pink Footed Geese and some Canada Geese sat on the wetland.

We walked down to the beach through the scratty trees, there wasn't much on the beach this time but turning back we saw a Great Crested Woodpecker high in one of the dead trees.

A Chiffchaff was in the trees too. When the geese were nowhere to be heard the soundtrack to the day was the thin calls of numerous Goldcrests and Robins. A Coal Tit was briefly seen in the woods too, while down on the water in front of the hide there was a family of three Little Grebes.

Hundreds of Pink Footed Geese appeared out of the low cloud over the high mountain, Criffel, at the back of the reserve. More Barnacle Geese came in too, what a fantastic sight and sound to witness. They dropped on to one of the paddocks where four Roe Deer were grazing - an awesome spectacle of wilderness. Earlier we'd only seen one of the deer, a buck.

A Red Admiral was again nectaring on Ivy flowers along the trackside hedge. At the pool there were lots of Wigeon and probably many more hidden in the dense rushes, far more than we noticed the previous day so perhaps fresh in overnight, 15 Snipe had a quick fly round too.
Tuesday 
Another mild morning, calm and clear. In all our years of seeing Cormorants we can't ever remember it being so quiet that we were able to hear their wingbeats - a little like the sounds a Mute Swan's wings make but much quieter. Back out on the beach we walked down to our goose watching spot. It was so clear that the Isle of Man was poking it out in the distance.

Looks idyllic doesn't it but turn round and look at the strandline - sadly it's not that nice. The amount of plastic mixed in with the natural seaweed and driftwood was shocking, and this is a remote beach by our standards so it's mostly washed up plastic rather than litter dropped by beach-goers.

Also down there was a let go bundle of balloons from an organisation in Ireland - maybe they should think about protecting the environment for those saved babies to live in, there is no Planet B for them.

Good job there's not a dead seabird tangled up in this one! Don't forget folks #BalloonsBlow #DontLetGo

A day out sightseeing took us to the pretty riverside village of Gatehouse of Fleet. At the turn off from the main road there were a couple of Red Kites (178) circling over the roadside woodland. No chance of a pic from the car but hopefully we'd visit the feeding station later in the week.
We missed the Red Squirrel Wifey saw on the walk through the woods we took, a lucky sighting according to some locals we chatted to, the most exciting thing we could find was a calling Nuthatch, a fairly recent colonist in this part of the world and this little cluster of mushrooms.

While Monty had a play in the river with a new friend we were watching a Dipper working its way along the far bank.
From there we took a the road south back to the coast to a secluded little cove, Brighouse Bay, we'd discovered by pouring over the Ordnance Survey maps. What a cracking find, an absolutely stunning secluded little beach. It didn't take long to find a Wheatear at the top of the beach and the flock of pipits working the top strandline weren't Meadow Pipits but Rock Pipits (180). After a few minutes they left the top of the beach and came down to explore a pebbly bit of beach close to the tide line where they offered a couple of photo opportunities after a bit of fieldcraft.

So Rock Pipit makes its way onto our Year Bird Challenge at #154. What a superb find that little beach was, shouldn't have told you about it and kept it secret!
Passing a tiny wood in the middle of a field on the way out we spotted no fewer than five Buzzards soaring over it. Another Buzzard was seen from the supermarket car park as we kept Monty company while Wifey hit the aisles for supplies.
Wednesday
This was one of those wild wet n windy mornings we really wished we didn't have to take a dog out but suited and waterproof booted out you have to go! The small front garden had a tiny but well berried Hawthorn bush in the corner and opening the door we flushed a couple of 'black billed' Blackbirds from it - continental fresh arrivals???

Our walk on to the beach gave us three Twite sheltering in the vegetation  at the base of the sea defence works right under the nose of the cottage.
Back at the cottage the rain kept coming and coming it was a day for staying indoors. - our view of the lighthouse looked like this...

It should look like this...

The rain stopped briefly and with the break in the weather came eight Whooper Swans flying eastward up the firth. The rain came back with a vengeance and we were once again stuck looking out of the window at the procession of Blackbirds to-ing and fro-ing in and out of the little Hawthorn bush taking advantage of its bounty.
A late afternoon seawatch (in our slippers!) during a brighter spell in the even had us only finding a a Great Crested Grebe flying out to sea followed closely by a Common Scoter and then we found another Great Crested Grebe on the sea and not a lot else
We'll save the rest of the week for the next installment.
A couple of hours seawatch this morning gave is a Leach's Petrel and a skua sp and nothing else on the tails of Hurricane Ophelia.
Where to next? We might have a little shuffy at Marton Mere tomorrow morning
 In the meantime let us know what's on the rocks in your outback.

And so on to that frustrating fog

The Safari met up with the Community Arts team again on Saturday to do a bit of a history talk followed by a wander round the park to see what we could see. They had all sorts of activities planned too, one of which was 'seed bombing' and we were to look out for a suitable area for their wetland mix of seeds during our walk.

Filling a seed bomb - more like a seed scatterer actually

As with Thursday's event we were on the look out for interestingly shaped and/or patterned trees. We found a large Small Leaved Lime tree we didn't know was in there, it was a giant but the trunk forked too low down to be able to do the measuring the age with a tape measure trick. Hawthorns often have good bark and trunk shapes, these two are right by the children's play area.

Did you spot the litter between the trees? fortunately some of the group were armed with bags and pickers so it was collected along with quite a lot of other rubbish that had been strewn about. Why are we so messy??????

The park was probably laid out in the early 1920s but few of the original trees remain, perhaps the big Lime and a few Sycamores, there were likely to have been Elms but these have long since succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease. From measurements of some of the other trees we'd guess they were about the same age as us being planted in the late 50's or early 60s. More recent planting has taken place too, like this Jubilee Wood from which Jubilee we're not sure and even more recently in the year or so there have been some groups of trees planted under the Woodlands From Waste scheme.

The wooded future of the park looks rosy!

At the wettest point we tore away at the thatch of grasses, bring a rake would have been a good idea, to reveal about a square metre of clear soil on to which the youngest member of our group sprinkled her seed bomb. We all helped press the seeds in by gently trampling the ground and then hoped for rain. Wit ha bit of luck more similar patches would be done in the afternoon to create a nice colourful area buzzing with bees and butterflies later in the year, or probably next year.

The end point of our walk was a half buried lump of 13500 year old Bog Oak which was dug up when the field was tried to be drained. The Arts group had heard about it and as a piece of local history wanted to lift it from its dumped area and display it on a plinth with some interpretation for all to see.

It wasn't buried as badly as we thought, just covered with a good growth of grass which was soon pulled off. It was however a lot longer than we realised.

Never the less with a bit of muscle and teamwork it was soon released from it's grassy grip. As it was lifted off the ground we saw our first Frog of the year.

Turning it over to find out how much it had started to rot on the underside revealed a horde of hibernating Yellow Slugs, Limacus flavus

They weren't too happy about being woken from their slumbers and slithered off to find somewhere else to lay their heads.

After a little pulling and shoving, puffing and panting the Bog Oak was wrested on to a couple of smaller pieces to keep it clear of the ground so it could dry out properly. The local rugby team who play on the field from which it originally came will lift it to its final resting place near their clubhouse. Where it will get a more detailed permanent sign too.

Mission accomplished and all good fun.

On Sunday we set off back over the river in an attempt to mop up some of the species we missed last weekend and went a little further to find some more. We had to stop of the marshland car park again and in the field at the entrance there was a flock of about 100 Pink Footed Geese.

At the very back of the flock we're sure we got a fleeting glimpse of a Barnacle Goose with them, but we waited and waited and waited much to Monty's impatience but it never showed again, if indeed it was ever there in the first place...why are the odd-balls always at the back of the flock when we look???

From there we headed to the northernmost point of our day out, the little estuary with the creeks. Here we had a walk along the old railway-line passing an unseen Goldcrest and a couple of Chaffinches in the hedge, the tide was well out so the river was out of range of our bins and camera.

Moving round to the pool we had cracking close up views of a Curlew and a couple of pairs of Teal.

With not much else on the pool we had a look in the creeks. Here there was a good assortment of birds, Shelducks, Teal, Wigeon, a couple of Black Tailed Godwits (102), a lot of Redshanks but no sign of the hoped for Spotted Redshank. A heavy drizzle was beginning to fall so we moved around the lanes to find some wild swans which we soon did. We'd heard there was a flock of about 400 Whooper Swans in the area with a few Bewick's Swans mixed in but before we found them we came across a much smaller herd of Whooper Swans (103) some distance across a large field. we stopped and pointed the camera out of the window.

It was just as well as a few bends further down the lane we saw the large flock miles away across the fields and without a scope we'd had no chance of looking through them. On we went to the marsh where by now a think mist was settling over the river and snaking its way towards us. We saw a Collared Dove that didn't sit long enough for our Year Bird Challenge and had to drag half a rotting Shelduck from Monty's gullet - yuk!!!

With the river still low there weren't many birds close up to shore and with the wet gloom rapidly approaching we didn't want to stay out too long and get the camera soaked so we fired off a few shots at a group of Black Tailed Godwits. Just another 'banker' really, we should get much better and closer pics of them in full summ plum later in the spring.

The rest of the afternoon was spent driving along lanes through dense fog not seeing much at all apart from the odd suicidal Blackbird darting across the road in front of the car at the very last minute. We expected the Lesser Snow Goose to be where it had been all week but could hardly see the field and only saw one Grey Lag Goose, we later learned it had moved half a mile or so away - cruel, so another trip over the river will be needed.

We decided to give the dipped last week Black Redstart a miss too as we'd arranged to meet GB (not the Aussie one!) for a bit of a walk with Monty who he's not met yet.

On the way we briefly stopped off at the nature reserve that is really just a dogs' toilet in the hope of seeing either or both of the Glaucous Gulls that have been frequenting the adjacent tip, we could barely see the river or the tip so gave up on that one and went to pick up GB.

A few minutes later were were walking to the point along the prom and stopped to look at the sign about the pebbles on the beach. now GB was a geologist and the next half hour was spent on the beach having a good close look at many of the fascinating pebbles there. We were careful to keep Monty away from the roosting 40 or so Ringed Plovers we could just about see about 50 yards away through the murk.

It must have been a low murk as we could hear a couple of Skylarks (104) singing over the golf course behind us. Actually its not year bird 104 as we'd neglected to put one flying over the garden (Garden #16)  on our spreadsheet on 5th of Feb.

With both of us getting hungry we took GB home and set off Base Camp. Once ensconced at the computer downloading our day's pics we spotted we'd got a bonus Bewick's Swan (105, YBC #80)

Where to next? Dunno yet but we do hope the heating engineer comes soon as it's freezing in here with the boiler on the blink - hope it's not terminal it is a bit of an old thing...

In the meantime let us know who's hiding in plain sight in your outback.

Hmmm...beards

The Safari was out early this morning. We parked up and headed off to the nature reserve with birdsong filling our ears. Half way along the path we passed a little row of Hawthorns coming into leaf. Looking back the shrubs were bathed in the early morning spring sunshine whereas the other side of the path was still in the dark, cold grip of winter.

Once in the reserve a Song Thrush was singing loudly from the top of a shrub in the scrub and not many minutes later we heard our first singing Chiffchaff of the year. But we were secretly hoping for a Wheatear or some waders on the bottom fields so we walked quickly on. The scrape only gave us ducks, several Teal and a couple of each of Mallard and Gadwall.

A Chaffinch landed in the top of a pathside Willow tree and stopped long enough to allow us to fire of  a few pics.

A big Buff Tailed Bumble Bee was up there too taking advantage of the flower's nectar and/or pollen.

The small Hawthorn bush at the start of the embankment is a favourite place for Reed Buntings to hang out, today was no exception, there were several about vying for the top spot.

Not sure what this one was doing, the open beak isn't singing it was held like that silently for ages as was the spread tail obviously some type of display but that weird open beak???

Down at the bridge we hoped to see the Grey Wagtails or even, yes we were feeling lucky, a Kingfisher but even at this very early hour there'd been some serious doggy disturbance. Undisturbed in the reed-bed was the female Mute Swan sitting quietly on her recently built nest. We're not sure if she's finished building it and if so is it too early for eggs?

We turned back a few yards turned round and scanned the wet areas in the fields seeing very little apart from four Oystercatchers.

Behind us we were sure we heard a 'ping' from a Bearded Tit. We spun round and saw a tawny brown shape scud across the top of the reeds. Then it reappeared coming out and showing well hopping across the top of the reeds stopping here and there and calling all the time.

We then had the most amazing Bearded Tit experience we've ever had, sod the East Bank at Cley, the grit trays at Leighton Moss or the bench at Titchwell, the next ten minutes topped any sightings we've had at any of those awesome reserves.

The bird was very agitated coming close, flying up to 50 feet or more several times, calling all the time then dropping back down and as it seemed coming close to have a look at us. It even flew past us going down the far side of the embankment where the new ponds have been dug.

Awesome!!! Eventually it flew up after a small flock of Meadow Pipits heading northwards and we didn't notice it come back down - did it really go off with the pipits?

We finished the morning with a single Sand Martin (117, MMLNR #82) whipping through without stopping. 

After a brief lunch break Wifey floored us with an offer of taking us back to the nature reserve for a walk round with her - well that's never happened before!!! Being mid-afternoon it was quiet, or at least for us it was quiet, Wifey was racking up the year birds left right and centre. She even met CR for the very first time.

No Bearded Tits this time round and we missed the Iceland Gull by a few minutes but it was very pleasant, we were out about 4 1/2 hours - that's 50% longer than we were out on our own early doors - she must be keen!
We spent some time in the Feeding Station with MMcG who'd seen four very early Swallows.

What a great day out on safari.
And Wifey's year birds
Cetti's Warbler - 57
Chiffchaff - 58
Common Gull - 59
Fieldfare - 60
Great Black Backed Gull - 61
Goldeneye - 62
Jackdaw - 63
Long Tailed Tit - 64
Reed Bunting - 65
Sand Martin - 66

and she didn't quite hear the Song Thrush by the gate which went quiet as we passed and didn't fire up again for her. But there was a Collared Dove (67) singing from the roof of a neighbours house back at Base Camp for her.

Here's a couple of her pics from her phone

Lichens on an Apple tree

Blackthorn flowers

Where to next? Back again tomorrow, hopefully the forecast morning rain will drop something a little more out of the ordinary.

In the meantime let us know who's wearing the beards in your outback.