Rummaging around the foothills

The Safari has been on the trail of some early summer migrant birds. For the most part we've been traipsing up n down the prom on the search for Wheatears. For the most part we've been thwarted by poor weather conditions though. One grotty, grey morning we saw a small group of Common Scoters sat on the sea not far beyond the low water mark. That's at least half a mile from the seawall but easily the nearest we'd seen this species this year, normally they are just black dots out on the horizon. T'mutt was hastily returned to Base Camp and swapped for the camera, luckily the flock hadn't flown off. Not the best pic but still #122 for our Challenge.

 

Despite the weather not improving we continued our promenade Wheatear quest failing to find any but did bump into the local male Kestrel hovering almost at eye level along thr cliffs. We usually see him in great conditions when we don't have the camera, or if we do the wind is in the wrong direction and we don't bother to take 'bum shots'. Today the wind was right but the light was pants and he was a little more distant than we would have liked.

A couple of unsuccessful Wheatear days later we had a wander to Marton Mere to join the volunteers, something we've been meaning to do for some time. We walked in from the north east passing a veritable plethora of Chiffchaffs, they were singing everywhere, and some were even showing themselves!

Also singing were a few Cetti's Warblers, Wrens and a couple of Robins, from deep in the scrub one of the small local population of  Bullfinches called.

We arrived at the worksite a little before the volunteers so sat on the nearby bench soaking up the spring atmosphere . We were joined by old mate AL and just as he sat down a Jay all to briefly landed in the bushes in front of us, far too quick for us to raise the camera, we've got a sneaking feeling that Jay is going to be this years Challenge bogey bird!
The volunteers arrived and we got stuck in to some dead hedging for a couple of hours. That's us at the back wandering around aimlessly. The deadhedging is made from cut back Bramble and other sgrub trimmings to help keep mostly dogs but also unleashed people out of the scrub areas during the nesting season.

We couldn't stay more than a couple of hours, it was a very pleasant spring day and t'mutt was beginning to get a bit hot so even if we had been able to continue working a longer we'd have had to have stopped to take him back to Base Camp sooner rather than later anyway. The walk back to the car gave us a couple of opportunities to try to get a pic of a Cetti's Warbler, but they were either too obscured in the vegetation or posing very nicely for the briefest of seconds and flitting off, like the Jay, far too quickly for us to raise the camera. We did another pic of a Chiffchaff though. #123 and March target of six new species reached, better still four of those weren't on our target list but 'bonus birds' if you will.

Another bird that wasn't on our radar for March, and one we didn't see at all last year never mind photograph, was a Green Sandpiper that dedicated local patch worker TS had found on a flooded field which was on our route back from the Mere so we stopped for a quick look but had no joy. We decided that if it was reported the following day we'd try again after getting some more detailed info about its exact whereabouts.We did go back the next day and had a look from where we'd unsuccessfully looked from the previous day and Bingo there it was and like most scarcer birds seem to be it was the furthest bird from us by far. A good addition to the tally, #124, and a big thank you to TS for finding a local one, putting the news out and the extra info.

And so onto the continuing saga of no Wheatears...we took the camera on every dog walk with half decent weather to no avail. And then a grotty no camera morning there was what we were looking for stood on the seawall not five yards in front of us - could we get a phone pic...no chance! And then before we'd got half way down our usual dog walking route we found another that soon disappeared when another dog walker came the other way. Just our luck it was a grim camera-free morning. Drat, drat and double drat. 

The next day the weather was morev conducive to carting a heavy camera round and much less  likely to get it water damaged, but there wasn't a sniff of a Wheatear to be had, We console ourself with taking some snaps of the passing Herring Gulls.

Further Wheatear meanders with t'mutt continued to prove fruitless, just as well really as they were mostly camera-less too.

Friday came around, and that's the week's day out  on safari with CR and IH. We had hoped to go up to south Cumbria but the weather had other plans for us so we stayed relatively local and had a day out on the foothills of Bowland, meeting IH at Beacon Fell's Visitor Centre. There was addition exctiement here as the North West Stages rally was being set up for the weekend. Here's a bit of what they got upto on the lanes we'd be driving later in the day. There going nearly as fast as we do if we've had news of a good bird in the area.

Once IH had arrived we had a look at the feeders at the visitor centre and they didn't disappoint. It's a bit of a shame you have to view them from inside the VC and there's a net acrosss the window to stop the birds trying to fly through the VC and hurting themselves crashing into the glass but you are up close and personal to the action just a few short feet away. The usual feeder suspects are there, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits, Chaffinches with the added excitement of lots of Siskins, a odd Nuthatch and the stars of the show, the speedy Bank Voles.

A walk through the forest to the Trig Point at the top and then down around the back produced very little, just a smattering of Coal Tits, Siskins and Robins, the strongcold wind not helping at all. So it was onward to our next port of call, Brock Bottoms - there's an ointment for that in the first aid kit in the car!

Here there wasn't as much water in the river as we feared which was good but at the car park a fair portion of the riverbank had been cordoned off where a flood had washed away several trees and taken away a good few yards of riverbank with them. The flood hadn't seemded to have changed the island in the stream there and Butterbur flowers were beginning to show through the shingle.

Walking down towards the first proper bend in the river, Dipper Corner, we came across a goodly patch of Wood Anemones, an indicator of Ancient Woodland.

We did see a Dipper at Dipper Corner but the bankside vegatation makes it difficult to get pics from there and at this time of day you're looking straight down the barrel of the light reflection off the water. So we hoped we'd see some more further on. We've already had Dipper for our Challenge but it's always good to get an improved pic which we hoped to do. The bird we really 'needed' was a Grey Wagtail having seen only one so far this year and that, weirdly, was in the garden at Base Camp during the Big Garden Bird Count. It wasn't long before IH saw some movement in a large fallen tree straddling the river, a pair of displaying Grey Wagtails. Nice but tricky to get anything like a decent shot of. #125

Continuing our walk through the fairly quiet riverside woods past the archaeolgical remains of the old mill workers' cottages we did finally meet up with another Dipper.

Great to listen to it singing too.

There were more Grey Wagtails here too.

We stayed a while trying to improve our pics of both species, having much more luck with the Dipper.

Wouldja look at those nictitating membranes, they protect it's eyes when foraging underwater.

And a typical 'on a rock' pose

And the other way round

We carried on downstream towards the old mill renewing our aquaintance with an old friend, the smallest plant with the biggest name - Opposite Leaved Golden Saxifrage.

Believe it or not there is an Alternate Leaved Golden Saxifrage, and it occurs at this site but we've never been able to find it here - or anywhere else for that matter. It's a much scarcer and less widespread plant. The nectar in the tiny flowers of our 'OLGS' was being enjoyed by a few Drone Flies, Eristalis pertinax.

Beside them on a patch of emerging Wild Garlic was a shiny blue beetle, possible an Alder Beetle off the adjacent bankside Alder trees.

In the afternoon sunshine and down in the steep valley sheltered from the cold wind we had hoped for our first butterfly of the year but these were just about all the invertebrates we came across. 

We went as far as the old mill before heading back to the cars and lunch. Passsing the same Grey Wagtail and Dipper on the way but with butties beckoning we didn't hang around too long.

While eating lunch we watched the feeders in the car park but they didn't give any photo opportunities. A procession of rally cars went past presumably reccying the route for pace notes for the event tomorrow, while a cheeky Spaniel appeared and began to hassle IH for some titbits, good job it didn't come to us - we're to mean to give t'mutt owt to eat away from his mealtimes.

Two sites were in the offing after lunch, Lydiate Lane or Grizedale (correctly with a Z this time) we opted for the latter as the former would have been just a smaller version of what we had just done and the latter held the prospect of finding some scaly things.

We drove more rally lanes to get to the parking area for Grizedale where we found safety tape on the tight bend warning any potential spectators not to stand there. No standing around for us we were off down the hill towards the river. It was fairly warm and still sheltered as we came up to the Slow Worm site. Unfortuantely turning over several of the rocks they like to hide under didn't produce any, perhaps they weren't out of hibernation yet. We've not been here for a couple of years and it was a shock to see the damage that mountain bikers had done in the big gully there, churned up tracks all over the place, trees cut down and obviously lots of disturbance to a formerly quiet area.

Working our way carefully down the steep valley side back to the main path we saw a Buzzard overhead, just about the first bird of the afternoon. Down in the woods all was deadly quiet, the most exciting thing we found was this rather large Scarlet Elf Cup fungus.

The reservoir dam didn't have any Common Sandpipers working theirv way along its edge, still a week too early we guess but IH did hear a Green Woodpecker yaffle in the distance, a good tick for here and good to know they're still around it's a good few years since we've seen or even heard one here. The res itself was devoid of life, no Goosanders - not even a Mallard. We should have taken a photo of the absolute butcvhery someone with a tractor mounted flail someone had done to the pathside shrubs and trees - horrific, it was really bad and whoever did it shouldn't have been allowed out with anything more than a pair of secateurs!

Back at Base Camp we've been continuing our unsuccessful quest to photograph a Wheatear, it's hard to photograph the invisible. We did see a promenade mega rarity this morning though, a Wren was hopping around the seawall, never seen one here before in several years of wandering up and down Chat Alley and beyond.

We've got another rant coming but we'll leave that til next time.

Where to next? Yet more grotty weather is forecast so it;ll probaly be more tales of unsuccessful Wheatear hunting and maybe another visit to the Mere volunteers...weather permitting!

 

In the meantime let us know who's been dipping in and out of the water in your outback.

 

Away from Base Camp and getting all twitchy

The Safari had a weekend away with Wifey and t'mutt in the Yorkshire Dales. Snow was forecast and the Yorkshire Dales are renowned for being snowy. And if you're going to get snowed in while on a mini-break is there anywhere better to be staying than a 17th century pub?

Especially one that's esteemed in literary circles and has really good beer.

We were there for some family time but there was the potential for a perhaps a couple of additions to the Challenge tally. 

The hoped for snow never materialised at valley level so our picture postcard village pics weren't going to happen. There was a bit of mist though.

The plan was to have a scrumlicious breakfast then head out for a wander around the nearby Aysgarth Falls. It was here we hoped to see (and phtograph) a Grey Wagtail with a very outside chance of a Green Woodpecker, we've seen one here before feeding on anthills a few years ago. The birds had other ideas; the village was full of House Sparrows, Blackbirds and Collared Doves but the woods along the river were full of nowt!

With plenty of water in the river the falls put on a thunderous show. Walking downstream from the car park there are two sets of falls, first the 'Middle Falls'.

Then a couple of hundred yards further on the 'Lower Falls'

A close up view -

To get to the 'Upper Falls' it's back to the car park and a short walk beyond.

As you can see we've try to go a bit arty - which do you prefer the fast or slow shutter speed?

We just got back to our digs in time before the rain came down heavy. We couldn't see it but it was snowing quite heavily on the fell tops. 

Sat indoors chilling out watching the telly in the vafternoon was when news broke of a pair of Lesser Scaup just two miles from Base Camp - and were were now 60 miles away - how horrendously unfortunate! But would they stick until tomorrow??? We'd be back by mid-afternoon.

In the evening the rain cleared and we managed a short wander round the village - if you can wander 'round' a linear village, down to the village green with it's 17th C Market Cross dated 1674 and 19th C chapel, denoted by the Yew trees at the gate, and tiny schoolhouse next door.

There was a small Starling murmuration of no more than a 100 birds too, possibly going to roost in the dense branches of those Yew trees.
The following morning the mist had cleared on our pre-breakfast dog walk giiving views of the fells and their smattering of snow, not much to write home about really.

The drive back to Base Camp was very picturesque with some sunshine and more snow

Ingleborough hill was looking particularly splendid with mist drooling over the saddle.

Ribblehead viaduct never fails to impress especially under sa bright blue sky - no trains today though.

A lovely weekend away and we even spotted a Brown Hare on the drive home.

Back at Base Camp we saw there had been no further local news of the Lesser Scaup - they'd gone...but to where?

 

In fact they hadn't gone far, they'd pitched up at Leighton Moss but again would they stick until we could get there, fingers, toes, buttocks were all well and truly crossed.

We picked up CR on Friday morning and headed north to meet IH at Lillian's Hide Leighton Moss with the intention of sprinting, aka slightly brisker walk than our normal dawdle, to Lower Hide. The plan paid off.

It only took a matter of seconds to locate the male Lesser Scaup in amongst a small flock of, mainly, Tufted Ducks. #118. Job done - we could go home now but cjose to hang around to see what else was about - it'd be rude not too.

As you can see in the back ground there was a selection of other ducks on the water.

Gadwall and Shoveler with quite a few Teal too, along with some unphotographed Goldeneyes.

Indeed the Teal were very vosl in the brighter minutes some of the males thought about doing some displaying.

Their almost bell like whistles filled the air with sound accompanied by the booming of several Bitterns. All of a sudden there was a commotion and a major panic. A Marsh Harrier that had been quartering the reedbeds in the distance had snuck round and was now attacking a group of Teal, Osprey like, just to our left. One individual was hit but managed to free itself by doing a deep dive then coming up for air and immediatley doing a vertical take off right underneather the harrier but far too quick for it - a lucky escape, and a hungry Marsh Harrier. CR managed to get some shots off but we were content to witness the action through the bins.

With the ensuing panic the ducks moved to another part of the lake so we took our leave of the hide and wandered slowly back to the Feeding Station passing booming Bitterns and shouty Cetti's Warblers on the way - both completely hidden, the Cetti's Warblers in particular taking the Micky out of us by singing just far enough into the cover of the reedbeds to be invisible to us. 

One of the days star attractions was the large number of brilliantly coloured Scarlet Elf Cap fungi brightening up the woodland floor here there and everywhere.

Apparently if you blow on them (you have to get down to their level to do that though) they release their spores in a big cloud. But it's not the motion of the blown air that triggers this reaction it's the slight increase in temperate your breath brings. We surmise that in the shade of the woodland floor any dappled sunlight coming through and lighting them up would be what they were waiting for, not some kahki clad numpty down on all fours huffing and puffing at them...they might be there a while if they were waiting for the latter.

The Feeding Station was quite lively with the usual suspects 

But a strikingly bright male Bullfinch stole the show. We failed miserably at getting an 'in habitat' shot of him so you'll have to put up with these two of him on the top of the feeder pole.

Butties were munched in Lillian's Hide were we soon ticked off the long staying Ring Necked Duck, miles away so no pics today. After being fed and watered we set off for Tim Jackson Hide where a trio of Snipe, the first of the day for us, were pointed out. We're still to find a Jack Snipe here this year and not for wnat of trying.

We took advantage of a rather dapper drake Teal making his way through the vegetation just outside the window.

Would you look at those vermiculations - simply stunning!

A few Lapwings were in display mode too, a great sound as they divied making that unique 'peewit' call, the soundtrack of our youth.

Looking closely at the diving bird you can see its tongue sticking out - we wonder if that's got any bearing on how the distinctive call is made...note to self - try to get better shots of this behaviour.

Splendid looking birds are Lapwings!

A Little Egret was in the pool too. So far we'd seen several Herons and a couple of distant Great White Egrets (as has been usual so far this year) but this was the first Little Egret of the day.

Then another of the half dozen or more Marsh Harriers flew over causing a bit of constenation and giving us our cue to head to the Grisedale Hide (spelled correctly for the first time ever).

Out of the Grisedale Hide windows we quickly found the bonny but dodgy duck known as the Cinnamon Teal x Shoveler hybrid but couldn't get a pic of him and after a couple of minutes he flew and left the pool - so annoying as he is quite sriking. We had to make do with more 'normal' fare.

Again the Marsh Harrier flew over

and then circled again giving us undoubtedly our best ever shot of this species.

That eye has some serious menace!

Once it was gone it was back to photographing the ducks. Unforunately the Pintail wouldn't come any closer so you can't make out his wonderful vermiculations.

You might even think Shovelers don't have vermiculations with their big block of ortange on their flanks, but you'd be wrong. Have a close look at the upper rear of that orange block and you'll se the tell tale dark wigly lines of vermiculations.

It would be very interesting to see what they look like under UV light, a wavelength that birds can see but we can't. Do they dazzle or dapple against the water surface or are they invisble, mysteries, mysteries.

In the left hand corner of the pool there lay a Great White Egret - yes Lay. It was having forty winks chilled out lying down on the dryish mound of cut reeds. It had been like that for many minutes until we ecided we'd get a shot of that unusual behaviourand as soon as we gotr to the window it stood up and had a right old shake. How rude of it. At least it was close unlike all the others we've seen this year.

Atfer a bit of a feather-settling shimmy and a short preen it had a bit of a walk about without doing much in particular.

Before settling down to have an upright snooze.

We let it go about its vertical slumbers to watch a female Marsh Harrier drifting low over the tops of the reeds.

Obviously looking for something tasty. With no luck she rose higher and did a couple more circuits before drifting off out of view.

Although it was only early afternoon IH persuaded us to decamp and move on to another site. We had a brief stop at the Allen Hide on the saltmarshes seeing only a few Shelducks upended in the deeper than usual water. We didn't do to the Eric Morecambe pool but maybe we should have as there were a good number of Avocets there when IH went back later on.

Instead we went to the nearby quarry and quickly relocated the Raven's nest, complete with the top of a Raven's head just visible above the impressive mound of sticks. IH soon had us puffing and panting as we climbed the path that goees around the top of the quarry. There wasn't much to point the camera at, still not many signs of spring up there. We did get a brief glimpse of a Jay, more than we saw last week but still not enough of a sighting to even think about raising the camera...could Jay turn out to be this year's bogey bird for the Challenge?

A good afternoon's mini-hike but not much in the way of distant views due to the hazy cloud. Not been up there for a long while so it made a refreshing change from staring at the vermiculations on a variety of ducks.

Where to next? A southbound safari is coming up soon. Hopefully it'll be full of good stuff for your delectation.

In the meantime let us know who's got all the vermiculations in your outback.