We didn't get em all!

The Safari had a mixed bag today. The Peregrine was seen on the tower on the drive up the hill. On the prom R'Ouzel Puddle has been drained, filled in and resown with grass, but a new puddle has developed a little further down which held a (local?) Pied Wagtail this morning; still haven't seen a Blackbird on those new grassy areas!

A marine biology student and her tutor came in for a bit of advice/ideas about her dissertation and itt would seem that the distribution of the Sabellaria reefs is going to be well analysed over the course of the winter months.

The Young Uns came round to do a bit of work in the Untidy Garden getting it ready for the autumn, it is currently swarming with hoverflies at the slightest hint of sunshine. They found a roosting pug which we all thought was a worn Double Striped Pug. But we could all be wrong.

Only a few bees were around in the mostly dull conditions but this Buff Tailed Bumble Bee was truly enormous and not at all happy with our close approach with the camera, persistently waving her middle leg in the air as a warning for us to back off. A pose we somehow failed to capture on digital film!

After the borders had been attended to it was time to see how many 3 Spined Sticklebacks were left in the pond after the last 'battle' in the 'war' against stickles. A few days after our last netting session we counted about half a dozen still in the pond but yesterday we had a slow walk around the pond and counted at least 30!

With three of  us netting we soon had 50 in the bucket! No wonder there is virtually no invertebrate life in the pond these days.

We left the pond to settle and the fish to forget about the nets and went to have some lunch. After three quarter of an hour we crept up to the pond again and started fishing. before long we had added at least another 30-40 to the bucket!!! All were released unharmed to a site where there are plenty of their brethren and they can do little harm to the ecosystem...But how many do you think we'll see when we get to work tomorrow morning? There's bound to be more than two and if we don't get them out there won't be any pond life for the kiddies to study next season. We'll have another netting session later in the autumn and another around Easter just to make sure we either got them all or have the 'starting' population as low as possible to give the other animals a chance.

Next it was a site visit to our now well grown, and difficult to crash through, Water Vole site. And what a sight it was; the Purple Loosestrife was simply stunning.

One of the main reasons for going was to check on the locals and see if they had done the jobs we'd asked them too a while back - disappointingly they hadn't although that could have been due to the high water levels in the pond after all the recent rain. We couldn't find any Common Meadow Rue either despite it being quite numerous when we were last here, but it did look like Meadowsweet had had a bumper year as had the Spearmint. If access was easier we're sure this would be a crackin place to put a moth trap out.

The dull blustery conditions kept the larger insect down but we did find a nice bright male Common Darter who wouldn't stay still enough for a pic and later a stonking Brown Hawker.

Lifting the sheet put down for amphibians and reptiles only produced Red Ants and ground beetles although a very neat grass nest suggested a Short Tailed Field Vole had been active recently.

But what about the Water Voles - well we still haven't actually seen any, nor heard them 'plop' at this site but we did find some nice feeding signs and a latrine, in the pond too rather than the ditch so our habitat works have been successful but we think we'll need to put up a trail-cam to stand any chance of actually 'seeing' the cutesy little blighters!

So not a bad day's safari-ing and it just goes to show you mightn't see what you want to see but there is ALWAYS something of interest to be seen!

Where to next? Gotta be something on the sea tomorrow - we gave it a short go with precious little success this morning but Young UN AB watched a reasonably close Arctic Skua pass by on the rising tide a couple of hours after we'd left.

In the meantime let us know who's eating you out of house and home in your outback,

“What’s in yer pond mister?”

The Safari has nothing to report form Patch 1 or R’ouzel Puddle, a tent pitched near here was an unusual migrant species and perhaps surprisingly not moved on.

Patch 2 gave us little but a Grey Seal and a few Cormorants. We watched an indeterminate raptor head northwards some way offshore – Osprey/Marsh Harrier/ Buzzard/Honey Buzzard type thingy, take your pick – but only got silhouetted rear end views probably showing some white/pale on the underside. As we followed this desperately trying to get something on it a diver passed it coming towards us from out by the wind farms. A chunky looking thing but still a bit hazy at the range it was at to get any detail on it, chances are it was a Black Throated Diver but almost equally it could have been a Great Northern, didn’t seem to be any smaller than the Cormorants knocking about. A Great Crested Grebe was about the best of the positively IDd stuff.

All the while there was a steady stream of Swallows going north, some well out to sea others over the beach.

Mid-morning our school group arrived and armed with nets pots and eagle eyes they hunted mini-beasts and gave the pond a right good seeing to. Just minutes before they turned up we were lucky enough to catch a real rarity for them, a butterfly in the work’s garden is something of a novelty but we successfully potted a nice fresh Small White. 

As we were telling them all about it the local gulls and pigeons went up en masse and then a little further down the beach another gang of gulls appeared above the houses circling and making a racket but we didn’t connect with the probable raptor that upset them...good timing though as it helped explain the wonders and mysteries of migration to the class.

They did better; hunting down all manner of creepies and crawlies – nothing seemed escape their sharp eyes – they even came back with miniscule Springtails on the end of their fingers! Millipedes in particular weren’t safe, hundred s of the tiny little things were dragged kickin and screamin out of the woodchip – closer inspection revealed at least two species. The generally larger blacker one is White-legged Snake Millipede. 

A Woodlouse and a miniature version were found along with a similar looking Pillbug and a chunky looking spider.

Not so chunky was this Rove Beetle seen here wrestling with a grain of sand that has got stuck to its head.

One young lady found a large Garden Snail and got rather attached to it, or it got rather attached to her...she called it Cornelius and carried ‘him’ round for ages.

The final diggings in the soil under the woodchip gave us a beetle larva which we think belongs to a ground Beetle of some species or other...but we could very easily be wrong....we were wrong those clever iSpotters think it's possibly Heart & Dart moth caterpillar

The pond produced the usual Wandering, Keeled Ramshorn, Common Ramshorn and Great Pond Snails. A few front swimming, Corixid, Waterboatmen were caught but the bigger backswimming Notonecta was seen but somehow avoided capture.

A very recently emerged damselfly was recued from the water and placed gently on a reed to dry out...it still hadn’t fully unfurled its wings...probably a Blue Tailed Damselfly...lucky animal with that lot around, anything could have happened to it but it did eventually manage to fly off. 

A small number of damselfly nymphs were caught as was a single Water Hog Louse, not seen one of those in there for ages.

Final catch of the day made everyone go ooohhhh was a large male 3-spined Stickleback still with the vestifges of his breeding colours – he had been breeding as we did find a few tiny fry...OOhhhhhh NNooooooooo!!!

Nothing of any note or interest was seen on our brief and now chilly, with the wind swung round to the north, Patch 2 lunchtime safari.

Where to next? On the beach tomorrow with another school group...well it is that time of year!

In the meantime let us know what’s be dragged from the depths in your outback.