Pleasant surprises all round

The Safari was very pleasantly surprised the other day, wehappened to be looking out of the window when a family of Greenfinches dropped onto our feeders. That might not be a big deal to many readers but they were the first actually IN the garden since we moved here 2 1/4 years ago, our only other records have been single fly-overs in each of the previous autumns. Unfortunately two off the feeders were empty, the House Sparrows are eating us out of house and home at the moment, and the only one that was nearly full was the nyger feeder, the holes of which are almost definitely to small for a Greenfinch to get its chunky beak through so it was unsurprising that they didn't stay long - we wonder how long it'll be before we get our next IN the garden record.

The following day we had another surprise, a fun one but at the time not so welcome. We've had a pair of Herring Gulls nesting on the roof again this year and thankfully neither of the chicks have fallen off and had to be chucked back up. Both chicks fledged successfully, unlike previous years when only two out of the three survived to fledging. One of them had returned overnight and in the morning we found it our small wildlife pond have a right old sploosh.

Whether it had deliberately flown down for a bath or got blown off the roof and decided to make the most of a bad situation we don't know. We do know that it struggled to get enough lift to fly over the fence in the morning but a stronger breeze blew up after lunch and when we went to check on it it had gone saving us having to get a soft blanket to  throw over it and take it to the beach.

The recent more settled weather also encouraged us to get the moth trap out. The selection of weather forecasts we look at suggested a dry muggy still night so there should be a good chance of a decent catch. No such luck, when we got up the following morning we saw it had rained overnightand the trap was very wet inside, fortuantely the electrics hadn't blown or tripped out. The catch wasn't anything to write home about either just nine moths of only six species. However, one of them was a new species for us, the tiny Argyresthia geodartella. A stunning shiny wee beasty, it's a shame that some these micros are so small and overlooked by 99.9% of the population; if only they were the size of butterflies then those folk would be able to see how absolutely wonderful they are and might appreciate them more.

The following day CR very kindly took us to Brockholes at the other end of the motorway just beyond Preston where we'd arranged to meet up with IH again. We arrived first and had a few minutes to wait so headed to the floating visitor centre to  look for Roe Deer and Great Crested Grebes from the open air viewing/pinic area. There was a single distant Great Crested Grebe but there could have been more Roe Deer than there are Wildebeest on the Serengeti, the vegetation had grown up so tall anything smaller than an Elephant would be impossible to see - one of the few woes of summer! The floating platform makes for great fish watching when the water is still. There's a large shoal of either Roach or Rudd or probbably both right under your feet no doubt waiting for a passing sandwich or pie crust to be dropped in.

While we waited for IH to arrive the Great Crested Grebe came a lot closer but sailed right past us.

But then it did the decent thing and caught a fish, a Dace by the look of it.

And took it off to its young at the far end of the lake.

IH appeared as the grebe paddled off into the distance and likewise the three of us would toddle off into the distance starting with a wander along the riverbank. Before we got to the riverbank there's a bit of a woody patch to go through which gave us the first of the many millions of IH's least favorite plant, Himalayan Balsam.

A Common Darter dragonfly and then a female Black Tailed Skimmer landed on the path for a bit of warmth but we were too slow for a pic. Would these early dragonflies and their kin bring out one of the day's target species? A yard further along the path the sun shone on a little glade where several insects buzzed around a few Ragwort plants. We looked for Cinnabar moth caterpillars as we've not seen any so far this summer. None to be seen. Among the mostly Eristalis sp hoverflies around the flowerheads was a small black and yellow 'wasp'. On closer inspection it wasn't a wasp but a Conopid fly, probably Conops ceriaeformis.

Back under the dappled shade of the trees a Speckled Wood sat on a leaf wonderfully backlit.

Along the riverbank we hoped to find an Osprey but didn't, at least IH was happy to see his first Heron of the morning. As the morning warmed butterflies began to flit around the grassland, mainly Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers with a supporting cast of a couple of Red Admirals and, a little more surprisingly, a Painted Lady. A female Mallard dabbling mid-stream in the river turned out to be a Shoveler when we looked through our bins, what an odd place for one of those with all the still water around the site, not really a species you associate with running water.
Just away from the bankside vegetation CR found this pait of mating Gatekeers

From the riverside we walked up the hill back towards the main path and a specific location for the other of our main target secies for the day. Slowly walking along the edge of the trees we heard a Whitethroat 'chrrrrr' from the solitary Hawthorn bush in the field behind us but that;s not what we were after. We really wanted to find a little bronzy butterfly, a bit like this Small Skipper but one that flies much higher.

Bizarrely this was the only skipper we saw all day, there should have been loads of them in the grassland we'd just walked through. Anyway there were quite a few Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers to keep us occupied as well as a couple of Large Whites and Small/Green Veined Whites too - the now strong warm sunshine meant butterflies weren't for settling much. And then we spotted our quarry, small, fast, bronzy gold and high up towards the tree tops, it can only have been a White Letter Hairstreak and a few minutes later a second (or the same one doing a circuit) flew past us at height. Leaving the other two patrolling that area of treeline we went on a bit further to the White Letter Hairstreak hotspot by the bench and path junction in the hope that one might get altitude sickness and come down to our lowly height for some nectar but when we got there we knew this wasn't going to happen as there we no Thistles in flower and all the Brambles had gone over to become proto-blackberries. We walked back to join CR and IH to learn they'd had no further sightings. Not the best sightings we've ever had of these elusive little butterflies but a bit of a relief in a funny old summer to know they are still about. 

The cool of the woods was a welcome relief from the now blazing sun, at this time of day and at this time of year the birds go very quiet and there was little to be seen or even heard. Logs tied to trees provided an interesting diversion.

We assume they are to attract Willow Tits. As the logs rot the Willow Tits will be able to excavate a nest cavity as they do this rather than use an existing hole like other members of their family. The trees with logs were all Poplars, a very soft wood that should break down pretty quickly. Even if no Willow Tits appear,we're not sure if there are any in this area, the logs will be great habitat for a wide range of invertebrates. Coming out of the woods past the smaller pools it was very hot it was very noticeable how few insects were about even on plants like Hogweed which are normally teeming with life. A handful of Common Darters and a few Brown Hawkers were the only dragonflies we saw and they were keeping low over the vegaetation, what we wanted were some high fliers waiting to be picked off by a Hobby (or two!). There were no dragonflies acending to any height at all which would suggest there were no midges or other aerial plankton up there for them, no Sand Martins either (or Swifts or Swallows) again suggesting a lack of food up there. Even the butterflies along this stretch of the path were limited to a handful of Gatekeepers (below) and Meadow Browns.

The corner where the open path turns back into the woodland was busy with a family of Chiffchaffs, the youngsters keeping ma n pa busy collecting and delivering tasty morsels to hungry mouths, a Treecreeper briefly flitted through too.

At the first viewing screen overlooking the water there were no birds in sight so we checked the path edges for invertebrates and found this rather unusual form of Gatekeeper. We've had a good ole trawl through Google Images and Flickr and found only a tiny number showing either two black dots on the forewing or the small white centred dot on the hind wing and none showing both these features! It's a female too with no scent brand on the forewing.

Rejoining the main drag a little way along was a bit of a clearing on the right with some big white blobs at the back, a look through the bins revealed them to be massive, really massive fungi. It's hard to tell if they're growing on a fallen log or out of the ground but they are certainly impressive, each one being well over a foot in diameter. We're useless at fungi so we've no idea which species they are.

We were now getting towards lunchtime and thoughts were turning to the joys of pies and other goodies but there was still a couple of hundred yards to go before we got back to the cars. We'd not gone much further when a small white moth landed on a leaf right in front of our noses. It turned out to be a Bird Cherry Ermine, we should have cast our shadow over it when getting the pic, we never realised how reflective they are, it didn't look anything like that reflective to our naked eye.

One more viewing area overlooking the lake to visit before we could lay our hands on our butties. Here the nesting raft for the Common Terns looks more like some kind of prison but the terns seemed to like it.

There were still at least four adults hanging around but no sign of any juveniles so we don't know if they've been successful or not this season. Out on the lake there was a flock of a dozen or more Tufted Ducks, another pair of Great Crested Grebes with a youngster, too many Canada Geese and a good few Mute Swans. The island held several Lapwings and a noisy Oystercatcher. 

With nothing close enough for his lens CR had taken hinself off to check the sunny path edges for macro subjects and called us over to have a look at a good find, probably a 4-Barred Major fly, Oxycera rana. Another wasp mimic.

A quick look at the Sand Martin nesting bank didn't give us any photo opportunities although if you look closely there are two juveniles peeking their heads out of their burrow right of centre.

Lunch now called more strongly than wildlife!!! 

After feeding our faces we were off again and on route to putting our bags back in the cars we passed a couple of 6-Spot Burnet moths having a tussle over a Creeping Thistle flower. There should have been many more insects on this flowery bank but it was almost devoid of other invertebrate life.

Walking back to the the lake we'd just left for a look from tyhe big Lookout hide we stopped when CR found a small number of Cinnabar moth caterpillars on their Ragwort foodplant. These were the first we've seen this year and not for want of looking there just aren't any around Base Camp despite there being plenty of Ragwort. We've not seen an adult yet - is this going to be the first year in probably well over 50 we've not seen one?!?! 

Another plant a few feet away had some too but they were the exception rather than the norm as we hadn't seen any on the plentiful Ragwort all morning and that was with keeping an eye out for them since we've not seen any this year.

The afternoon was getting proper hot and more butterflies were on the wing, this Comma stopped right by us and started to furl and unfurl its tongue.

The only insects we'd seen in any numbers all day were Eristalis sp Drone Flies, even they weren't visiting as many flowers as they ought to have been and blue damselflies the lattter not really wanting to settle in convenient places for a pic. When a Common Blue Damselfly did deign to settle in front of us we muffed the shot a bit.

Along the path coming away from the big hide CR spotted a Swollen Thighed Beetle, a female - without the swollen thighs! A species we don't see on the Fylde for some reason...lack of looking??? A look on the NBN Atlas shows they are a mainly southern species so might not have made it this far north and west yet. The nearest dot to us is here at Brockholes and there are only four dots to the north of us of which only one is a confirmed sighting, just over the border into Scotland

As we mentioned earlier it was getting hot, must have been over 25°C in the sun, the butterflies were flitting about very rapidly. We'd already seen a few Ringlets but finding a stationary one was another matter until this one kindly stopped for us.

Rounding a little bend in the path we stopped in our tracks, a female Blackbird was full on sunbathing right in front of us, all it needed was a sunlounger, sunscreen and a cocktail and it could have been on the beach in Benidorm.

It wasn't for moving but eventually was disturbed by a family coming from the opposite direction, that gave us the opportunity to move on. We were making our war back to 'Hairstreak Corner' when we met JB, a stalwart volunteer at the reserve and keen entymologist, he told us some good places to look for his favoured dragonflies and also that so far this year he'd only seen one, yes ONE, Common Blue Butterfly here, it should really be teaming with them. This year's weird poor weather has had a dreadful effect on our already severely depleted invertebrate populations. Needless to say we'd not seen any here yet.

He pointed us in the direction of a field pond noted for it's dragonflies and on the way to find it we passed a chirpy little Robin.

And then came across the best sighting of the day so far, a Red Admiral 'feeding' on dung, probably Fox dung as dogs aren't allowed on the reserve.

This is something we've seen other species do on the telly but don't ever recall seeing it in Britian in real life before. That's one of the wonders of nature, you just never know when you're going to see something new. We found JB's pond and saw a couple of Brown Hawkers flying over it but we didn't fancy the walk through the thick vegetation to reach it - it just smacked of too many bitey Cleggs. To be fair we'd hardly seen any all day and folk much more scantily clad than us didn't appear to have bite marks all over their exposed flesh - another sign of the current Insect Apocalypse? 

After giving JB's pond a miss we continued to 'Hairstreak Corner' and soon found several Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers low down, but we wanted to spot things high up. Which we did after a few minutes, not bronzy gold but paler, we thought it might have been a Holly Blue but IH saw it settle and told us it was a Purple Hairstreak. It buzzed around a few more times always settling out of view, one of these times it was passed very swiftly by what was probably a White Letter Hairstreak that disappeared into the canopy never to be seen again. Eventually the Purple Hairstreak did do the decent thing and find a leaf in full view to rest on.

It's a rare day out on safari when you see two species of hairstreaks even if one of them only gave brief flight views. Our bad hand was now getting swollen and uncomfortable with all the walking and the heat so we made our way slowly back  to the  cars via the riverside walk. It was busy with summer holiday picnicers now so we didn't linger too long, just long enough to find our first Banded Demoiselle of the day.

And the last Heron of the day, although they had been ahead in the Herons v Egrets Stakes they were overwhelmed when a flock of three Little Egrets flew up river. The river also held a huge shoal of small to medium sized fish which repeated scattered in a surface breaking swirl. We couldn't see a submarine predator and they could have all been trying to chase down a tasty morsel being brought along in the current. We think (=guess) that given the size and number of them they were Dace. The Heron was stood in the wrong part of the river! More food than he could shake his beak at was 50 yards up river, or he'd eaten his fill!

On the fishy theme a last look around the edge of the visitor centre didn't give us any more fishy photo opporunties with the big shoal of Roach/Rudd as the wind had now ruffled the water too much. In the more sheltered parts we saw lots of small fry and some very small Jack Pike

Another day of quality over quantity left us musing over the distinct lack of insects as we headed back to Base Camp. As for our targets, yes we got brief flight views of the White Letter Hairstreak but there was no sign of any Hobbys to add to our Challenge tally so still nine species required for our target.

Where to next? Probably on the trail of more insects up north but anythinig can happen between now and then - keep your eyes peeled folks.

In the meantime let us know who's missing from your outback

Too busy to blog

The Safari has been out looking for wildlife every day this week with much of our time taken up in the evenings with Brownie and Beavers groups. They've been working in the pond and have successfully released a tiny Froglet in to the garden. Our work's pond is raised with high sides so there's no way it could have escaped in to big wide world on its own. There's at least one big tadpole still in there too.

We've been so busy educating the kids in the wonders of wildlife that we've not stopped to take any pics. But then again there's only so many gruesome pics of dragonfly nymphs chomping down on poor unfortunate 3-Spined Sticklebacks you readers can take. 

We've had a couple of brief visits to Patch 1 with Monty to see if we could increase our tally of just a single White Letter Hairstreak. No joy with those as no more have been seen but we did note a large increase in the number of Small Skippers.

While waiting for the WLHs after some afternoon rain we spotted an arty spider's web by our knee.

Mid-week we were down on the beach with school groups for a couple of days. Great fun and some great finds like a small unknown species of Bearded Rockling, a few Blennies and a handful of tiny fry from some unknown fish. Neither of the two groups could catch any Sand Gobies though, imagine being outsmarted by a tiny fish with the brain the size of a pin-head. Yes, catching those calls for teamwork and some serious stealth, something we were sadly lacking this week. 

Much easier to catch was this stranded Barrel Jellyfish.

It's a small one

After doing the health and safety talk to the teachers and children we broke the don't touch any jellyfish rule and picked this one up. Gathering the class around we got two of them to stand next to us for a teacher to get a pic. Fully dangling (it was well heavy - arm achingly heavy waiting for the not so quick class to assemble) it was almost as big as the little Year 1 children! 

They continued to collect their shells and whatever else they could find. Then one child called out 'Jellyfish!!!!!!' exactly as they had been instructed to do. We headed off to inspect it and drawn a no-go line in the sand around it with the end of a net but found it not to be a jellyfish at  all. It was a cluster of Squid eggs. Only a small one and well battered but still the first bunch of Squid eggs we've seen on the beach for a few years. Interesting - what were we saying about the dolphins a couple of posts back...

Unfortunately despite the excellent sea conditions the Bottlenose Dolphins didn't put in an appearance for these children from an inland school. That didn't bother them too much they still had a whale of a time. It's very gratifying when at the end of the day and they're getting on the bus to head back to school one of them says 'Thanks sir, that's the best school trip I've ever been on'...but please note he was only six years old and hasn't been on many school trips! Not to worry we're sure he'll remember it for the rest of his life and tell his friends how brilliant our beach is and what they should do and look for if they come down with their families during the summer holidays.

We've got a little guessing game for you now...sadly that was our last school session ever :-( ...but why? NO - we haven't been arrested!!!

Where to next? Family duties at the weekend but we might be able to get out on Safari somewhere for an hour or so.

In the meantime let us know who's holding up the specimens in your outback

You don't have to travel far to see great wildlife

The Safari was able to put the big light on the moth trap on Friday night. The weather was mild with a light wind and we were hopeful of a good catch. A good catch (for here) is what we got, 53 individuals (excluding a few escapees) of 16 species although we had to be careful emptying the trap as there were two sleepy Common Wasps clinging to the sides of the trap - thankfully none had made there way inside and were lurking with intent.

Top slot went, unpredicatbly at this time of year, to Large Yellow Underwings with 17, Lesser Broad Bordered Yellow Underwings weren't far behind with 12.

Lesser Broad Bordered Yellow Underwings

 A stunningly beautiful Common Marbled Carpet was lively enough to disappointingly evade the lens unlike this equally stunningly marked but less colourful Lychnis.

A very nicely marked Small Square Spot was also happy to have its picture taken.

The prettiest micro-moth captured was a Garden Rose Tortrix which sadly evaded the lens, flying off when we lifted the pot off it after it had settled nice and quietly for a couple of minutes - dohh, don't you just hate it when that happens. That left us with only two micros, a very worn Blastobasis adustella

and a couple of Agriphila tristellas.

While working through the contents of the trap we heard a Willow Warbler/Chiffchaff 'hweet'ing from the bottom of the garden or next door's garden, a Swift screaming way up in the blue ether, will this be the last at Base Camp this year?, and saw a small flock of Swallows going south. We kept hearing a faint sound of what we thought was a nestling nearby too, every now and then we'd pick up the high pitched calls but a look around the garden didn't reveal their location. Later we saw a family of recently fledged Dunnocks down by the feeders - we had heard something after all it wasn't a figment of our imagination.

Once we'd packed the moth trap away we were umming and ahhing about where to go when we got a call from CR saying he was popping down to the nature reserve in a while and would we like a lift. So Saturday morning jobs were done and the optics cleaned and shouldered ready for the knock at the door.

We walked in through the wetlands trying to get near the pond for any dragonfly photo opportunities but we were beaten back by the dense vegetation and had to resort to using the proper path in the end.

It was a nice warm summer's day and it didn't take long to bump into some butterflies. There were a few Common Blues about but they weren't for settling and it was a bit of a nervy wait wondering if this Small Copper would open its wings and bask or just fly off.

Our patience was rewarded with a brief glimpse of the open wings before it flew.

The path to the Viewing Platform cuts through one of the meadow areas and we have to say that it's looking about the best its ever done, there's very little grass and the hum of insects going about their business reminded us of summer days long past. The pic doesn't really do justice to the masses of Black Knapweed, Hoary Ragwort, Meadow Vetchling, Upright Hedge Parsley and Wild Carrots that are in flower.

The mere was looking good too but there was no sign of the early returning Bittern...or has it been here all summer???

Of note on the water were a few Gadwall, that we kept on identifying as something else, a variety of school-boy howlers! And the surviving Great Crested Grebe chick is almost as large as the adults and fingers crossed should fledge OK. The Brown Hawker dragonflies gave a few impressive fly-pasts too.

Mooching slowly along the main path brought more butterflies in to play.

Common Blue butterflies - top female probably egg-laying, middle female feeding, bottom male resting

 

There was nothing happening at the panoramic hide, the light being strong in our faces at this time of day, so C took us off-piste on a new desire line that really needs blocking off. Good job he took that route and we followed though as he spotted an unusual red insect. Obviously it was a 'True Bug' of some species or other but being a cracking looking beast we both took plenty of pics.

Once back at Base Camp we scanned through the field guides to discover it's Corizus hyoscyami and a check on the national database told us its not been recorded in our local area.The nearest record and one of the furthest north of this northwards spreading insect is about 15 miles from here. Close by was one of the very few 7-Spot Ladybirds we've come across this year - any one else thinking they're not seeing many too?

From there we passed the new scrape that's not so new any more, nothing exciting lurking in or around it today so on we went down towards the bridge.

After seeing so many Brown Hawkers it was good to see an unidentified blue dragonfly, possibly Southern Hawker, and then our first Common Darter of the year which as they often do landed on the path. We didn't have long to take some pics as it was about to be disturbed by a couple of dog walkers after which it flew well out of range.

At the bridge we saw that the water level in the mere was down quite a bit as the stream was little more than a trickle.

A Heron fished at the bottom of the run. 

Normally the water here is well over knee deep...no not Heron's knees, human knees!

Heading back the way we came we got to the corner by the first big Willow bush and saw a couple of Brown Hawkers flying around in the warm sun sheltered from the breeze by said tree. We stood and watched as a third, then a fourth, then a fifth...and was there a sixth, came in. For the next five or more minutes we stood transfixed as though we were actually in part of a David Attenborough documentary. The dragonflies whizzed past at eye-level their wings clickety-clicking as they sped by occasionally soaring up to grab an invisible (to us) insect. It was awesome to witness and then as they spontaneously appeared so they drifted away almost un-noticed. Fabulous - indeed the experience was beyond fabulous.
Back up the main track we spotted some Hare's Foot Clover growing over the old old cinders at the edge.

While the warmth had brought more butterflies out to feed on the much taller Ragwort that lined the path. Too many people malign this plant, mostly out of ignorance and/or media scaremongering, but it is an essential part of the later summer flowering flora for a myriad of pollinating insects.

Peacock butterfly, under and upper wings

 On the main path almost at the junction to the Viewing Platform we saw a dark lump in the middle of the track which seemed to be glowing purple against the pale stones. Closer investigation showed the purple was from eaten Blackberries, we're pretty sure it's a blog of Fox poo. Can't think of anything else that would do that amount and eat so many berries.

At the top of the path near the entrance gate there is a huge patch of Canadian Golden Rod. Wow it was bright, the scent coming off it was heady and the buzz of insects, mainly hundreds of Honey Bees, was loud!

Rather than go straight back to the car we took C up to a part of the reserve he'd never visited before, the rough fields and ancient hedgerows. Here there was a good chance of more butterflies. We did see a Red Admiral but there was no sign of any Painted Ladies he had hoped for. With Essex Skipper being discovered on the Southside a few weeks ago someone has to be first to find one on our side of the river so when a small skipper was seen we chased it round until a decent pic was obtained. It was 'only' a Small Skipper but someone has to find that first Essex Skipper and to do that we're all going to have to look at a lot of Small Skippers very closely!

By now the heat, hunger and thirst had got the better of both of us so it was time to call it a day...and a very successful and pleasant one at that...and head back to the car.

Where to next? A trip out east and uphill for a  purpose.

In the meantime let us know who's up to their knees in it in your outback.