A pleasant potter around Stanley Park

The Safari spotted some sunshine the other day and without further ado was picked up by CR for a photographic jaunt in Stanley Park. Well why wouldn't you after all the dull and wind and rain we've endured recently a bit of sunshine wasn't to be wasted.

A check of the rail in the lake proved fruitless for Mediterranean Gulls but there were a couple of Black Headed Gulls sporting rings and one of those also had a Darvik ring - White 4FC - a Danish ringed bird reported about annually in the park during the winter since 2013, except 2016 - was it somewhere else or just not reported?

A short walk to the other side of the lake saw us peering up at the old Great Spotted Woodpecker hole where a pair of Ring Necked Parakeets have taken up residence, one was high up in the tree top the other nowhere to be seen until it emerged from the depths of the hole.

The light was catching the Cormorants sat on the rail that partitions off the Conservation Area very nicely.

Lovin those emerald green eyes!

A Great Crested Grebe (102, PYBC #71) came quite close and in full breeding regalia too. It dived frequently but didn't come up with any fish.

From there we moved round to the Heron Island where about 10 birds were sat in or near their nests. There wasn't much nesting activity just a bit of pair bonding and a little stick rearranging, it'll all kick off in earnest in the next week or so, but we got a few snaps in poor light - the sun had gone back in! - to put Heron on our PYBC at #72. We might well go back on a properly sunny day and get some breeding behaviour 'action' shots before the leaves come out and obscure the view.

Always amazes us how those huge feet to stop them sinking in sloppy mud are also dexterous enough to grip the most slender of twigs.

Home for the foreseeable future

The Great Crested Grebe had followed us round to this side too. And while we attempting to get duff shots of Herons in trees C managed to get a quick capture of it in the process of swallowing a Roach. 

Retracing our steps we heard the Ring Necked Parakeets again, and this time they were at a different nest hole at the top of the lake.

Back on the rail a cluster of Black Headed Gulls had a different ringed bird, this on White VLJ, another Danish ringed bird and a winter regular first reported here in February 2009 and our last previous report of it to the ringing scheme was back in December 2013.

White VLJ - already an adult when first ringed near Copenhagen in March 2008

Returning to the Ring Necked Parakeets original tree the two birds were out of the hole and engaging a bit of lovey-dovey. The posse of parakeetazi stood beneath the tree told us they'd been watching them for about 10 minutes, now in that time we hadn't seen or heard (and they are noisy beggars when they take flight) fly past us from the 'northern' hole so we're pretty confident there were two pairs...interesting and awaiting confirmation.

The following day we'd arranged to take a group of families out on the beach to see what the recent storms had washed up. It wasn't long before tubs, trays and buckets were full of all manner of interesting flotsam and jetsam. One of the buckets contained the leg of a Spider Crab something we've never seen on this coast before - that always happens - someone finds something we've never seen before in nearly 20 years of looking - just shows you what's out there. Although to the children the Dead Man's Fingers sponge was probably a better story!

Spider Crab leg bottom left by the Oyster - should have got a close-up!

We also had a look at the huge selection of pebbles to be found on the beach. All have fascinating stories, from Limestone full of fossils to bits of old house brick, lumps of coal and granite from ancient exploding volcanoes...and most of it courtesy of the Ice Age...fantastic!

We ended the session with half an hour looking for crabs in the boating lake. It took a while to catch anything but then some rather large Brown Shrimps were brought to the surface.

Moving down to the other end by the bridge proved more successful wit ha bunch of Periwinkles found and lined up in the tray by the children for the inaugural Fleetwood Periwinkle Grand National.

A clear winner is emerging - literally!

More Brown Shrimps found their way in to the buckets and then a Common Prawn was found so we could examine the differences between these two similar species.

The crabbing wasn't going too well, it was more like fishing for bacon as the bait was all that was being hauled up time after time. 

But with minutes to go before the end of the session the cry of "I've got one!" went up. The lad came running over to show the rest of the group his catch and there sure enough was a Green Shore Crab tucking in to a rasher of best smoked streaky.

A bit of wrangling soon had it out of the net for a closer look.

The lad put it back and then returned a few minutes later with an even bigger one - job done as time was up!

In other news a Fox has been heard at Base Camp in the small hours a couple of times so we've put the stealth cam up in the back garden - fingers crossed. House Sparrows (P1 #20) have been heard early morning in the recently butchered (=Tidied) garden across the street which is a relief as we expected the work to have been so severe as to have rendered the shrubs useless for the sparrows and the patch's first Chaffinch of the year was heard then seen flying over (P1 #21).

In the garden we've added Long Tailed Tit (Garden #13), just a single - or did we not spot the others?

A sunny afternoon walk along the cliffs with Monty saw us actually take the bins for once and immediately we pointed them seawards we saw an enormous flock of Common Scoters (103) - really helps when you take your optics!

Conversely we almost didn't need optics on a sunny morning's walk around Marton Mere as there was very little to see, nice sunshine but the strong bitingly cold wind was keeping everything well tucked away. A few yards from the car this Carrion Crow watched Monty warily as he went giddy splashing in and out of the pond and puddle we really should have prevented him from going in by putting him on his lead much earlier.

After yesterday evening's txt from PT saying she'd seen a group of four Roe Deer very close to Wifey's work and only about 1 1/2 miles from Base Camp we took the opportunity to have a look this morning - nothing but brilliant to know such an awesome creature has been seen so close to home!

So you're all up to date now folks.

Where to next? Not sure yet, we've got a lot of family duties this coming week so might not be able to get out on safari much.

In the meantime let us know who's taking over all the holes in your outback.

Did we peak too soon?

The Safari hasn't had many opportunities to get out other than an early morning sprint round Patch 1 with Monty.

The Peregrine has been on its usual ledge a couple of times and we see at least one of the local Sparrowhawk family almost daily. Ever hopeful of an exotic migrant we scour the trees and shrubs taking a zigzag route through the park for the best coverage possible for spotting a Redstart or a flycatcher or something even more exciting but so far we've only come across the local Coal tits, Goldcrests, Wrens and Robins. On morning we had a good count of Robins but that might have been down to the improved weather conditions that morning rather than a bit of a fall of migrant Robins. Yesterday we had two early morning Red Admirals both flying strongly south in conditions you wouldn't normally expect to see butterflies on the wing in...cold wet and windy! They were undoubtedly migrants on a mission.

At the end of the week we attended a small conference hosted by JW about eco tourism and the future of the Fylde, very interesting if slightly commandeered by the anti-fracking protesters. To be fair there won't be much tourism of any kind round here if we're turned into a huge gas field. Immediately following that event was another we were invited to. Thhis one was insitgated by our local MP to recognise all those people who have helped keep our town Cleaner and Greener' over tthe year. We were invited on to the judging panel - probably in 'revenge' for asking GM to be a judge in our schools' R-U-a-Sculpture Vulture competitions of several years ago. We were happy to oblige but weren't expecting to be nominated for an award too. Unfortunately we were allowed to vote for ourselves as a judge! Who'd have thunk it!!!Any way we didn't win the award but all nominees wwould have been worthy winners so were given a certificate in recognition of the work they'd done. GM and ES from the Civic Trust said some very nice and humbling words about our 27 years in the job we've just finished.

Yours truly with Gordon Marsden MP - pic stolen from his Facebook page

The following morning the Fylde Future team had organised a marine wildlife event. We'd offered to do bit of rockpooling before the tide came in and the serious seawatching started. It wasn't the best of mornings! There was a strong wind driving in heavy squalls and longer spells of torrential rain which meant we didn't get the number of participants we were hoping for, people opting to stay in bed instead.

There's a bit of rain coming our way

But ever the optimists we set up anyway. On the beach before the others arrived we'd seen about 50 Sandwich Terns, a very flighty bunch. One time after they'd upped and landed back down with them they'd collected a smaller darker bird but were a bit too far out to get any detail on it with the bins - we hadn't brought our scope out by that time, concentrating on getting all the rockpool kit set up.

By the time the others (and the sunshine) turned up it had drifted off away from the terns not to be seen again. From what wee got on it grounded and in flight it can only have been a 1st winter Little Gull (171, P2 #57).

Look at that sunshine - not half an hour after the squall pic

The tide allowed us a good half hour's perusal of the rockpools and a tidy selection of marine life found its way in to our tray.

Juvenile Common Starfish and Beadlet Anemones

Common Prawns, Necklace Shell, juvenile Green Shore Crab and a Blennie

Another slightly larger Blennie

 Yesterday was still windy and squally and with the sustained winds in the right quarter it was time to go to look for  Leach's Petrels. We did about 45 minutes either side of high tide seeing just 3 Arctic Skuas, one Kittiwake and a Gannet before we had to leave. Probably the best bird of the watch was a female Common Scoter that flew past only about 50 yards off the wall - they don't normally get seen anything like this close to the land here. It was challenging watching at times with visibility in the torrential squalls down to only some hundreds of yards.

Juts left of centre at the top of the column you can see a Herring Gull. It sat there almost the whole time we were watching so we tried a few phone-scoped pics - we don't have an adapter so they're a bit dodgy.

You lookin at me?

We left too early it transpired as the first Leach's Petrels started to be reported about half an hour after we'd left...grrrrrrrr

This morning we got news that there were decent numbers passing by but couldn't get out until the tide was well down. We arrived at our watch point meeting JS who'd seen about a dozen already - an hour later and not a single one had passed us and we missed the Fulmar. All we had for our effort was a 1st winter Kittiwake. Very disappointing...we do like the tiny waifs that are Leach's Petrels.

Where to next? We'll try again tomorrow morning but the wind has veered round to the wrong quarter so we might well be out of luck again. We've a rockpooling session in the gloom of late evening - that could be fun!
In the meantime let us know who's passing you by in your outback

Summertime bird lull

The Safari has been up to the nature field with Wifey and Monty in the evenings. By that time of the day most of the enormous numbers of butterflies have gone ot roost even Monty and his pals charging through the grass only manage to disturb small numbers of Small Skippers and Meadow Browns. The birds too are mostly inconspicuous except for the gulls flying over, the Woodpigeons flying about and the House Sparrows roosting noisily in the big Blackthorn thicket.

There's ususally something to point the camera at though.

And if you like beetles there must be trillions of these Red Soldier Beetles.

Ass the evening draws on small numbers of Swifts congregate loosely overhead catching the last of the rising insects. They are usually too high for the 300mm though.

Monty likes a game of rough n tumble with his doggy friends and if there's no-one about his ball will have to do.

A sunny Sunday afternoon in the garden was reallly too quiet for insects, hardly a hoverfly to be seen - where are they all??? At CR's just over the road apparently he's had Wool Carder Bees and Hummingbird Hawk Moths in recent days. We've really struggled to find subjects to point the camera at although there's always a few Lucilia Greenbottles around the bins which gave us a chance to experiment with the extension tubes.

Other than those we almost had to resort to arty pics of the flowers!

At last we found a hoverfly but it was the only one we saw all afternoon apart from a tiny black one that was being buffeted around in the wind too much for any chance of a pic.

While trying to get pics of the hoverfly a small bee was seen among its larger Red Tailed Bumble Bee brethren. Some kind of solitary bee, possibly Halictus rubicundus again.

Then 'Catch of the day' arrived. A bright yellow 'wasp' flew past and landed. Unfortunately it landed in deep shade and the camera was set up for sunny flower tops. We managed one dodgy shot and a couple of totally useless ones as it disappeared down a gap in the timbers around the pond with its prey. One of the Ectemnius species of wasps - but which one? Is that why there's no hoverflies???

It's always good to see the little flies that dance on the Water Lily leaves in the pond. They are Poecilobothrus nobilitatus.

Psyching itself up

Stretch and ready....

Going for it!

Trying to chase off a rival - the females don't have the white tips to the wings

On Monday we were office-bound but parking the car by a demolition site the rough grassy mound held an interesting variety of wildflowers and a couple of Meadow Brown butterflies, some solitary bees as well as the chirping calls of numerous grasshoppers, a great way to start a day sat in front of the 'puter.

Yesterday early morning saw us scoping Patch 2 with LGB for half an hour. We found our first Golden Plover (P2 #53) of the autumn but missed the Kestrel half a mile or or more out to sea. Otherwise it was quiet out there with just a few Sandwich Terns going back and forth seemingly struggling to find any fish although one did catch a decent sized Sand Eel right in front of us. Thinking we'd improve our Year Bird Challenge pic of a Sandwich Tern we got the camera out and they promptly disappeared leaving us the first returning Common Gull of the autumn to photograph badly instead.

Later in the morning we played host to the local nursery kids and took them down on the beach to see what they could find. We didn't have long with them but long enough to get a few prize specimens in the bucket for them to have a look at.

At lunchtime we were joined by DW from a local beach care group and together we had a bit of a beachcomb collecting some more specimens for the afternoon's children.

All good stuff!

In the evening we had a group Rainbows visit the pond who found all the ususal stuff and then pulled out a dragonfly in real trouble. A strong wind had blown up in the afternoon and this poor creature must have been blown into the water while it was drying its wings. Duly rescued we put it in the last of the sunshine to dry out and then moved it to a sheltered spot where he morning sun would warm it -provided it didn't get blown away in the overnight gales.

Where to next? A day off work and a trip to the Southside on family duties but with the opportunity to do get some pics for our Year Bird Challenge.
In the meantime let us know who's on the way back in your outback.