The photo challenge creeps slowly forwards.

The Safari hasn't had much time for putting finger to keyboard this last few weeks, we've been down to Southampton, up to Shetland via Belfast and Stornoway working as a guide for Ocean Wildlife Encounters on Fred Olsen's cruise ship Borealis then back down to Devon for a family holiday during May. 

Our bird photography challenge has a distance limit of 75 miles from home this year and all of those lovely places are 'out of bounds'. But in breween our travels have added a few more to our tally. The first was a 'banker', a Whitethroat at nearby Rossall Point.

The next was far from a banker, it was something really special, a Green Woodpecker at Leighton Moss #148. We've not seen one there since the mid/late 1980s although we have heard them in that area a few times since. This one had been seen regularly up to a couple of weeks before our visit and we thought we'd missed it as there had been no mention of it in the sightings book over the previous few pages we looked at. A chance view over the wall into it's favourite field and wow - there it was!

A few Swifts #149 were alos present over the reserve that day but only briefly.

After returning from the cruise job we had a rather dank and dreary safari with CR out to the Trough of Bowland where the weather turned a bit grim and scuppered us a bit. We were hoping for a Cuckoo but although we heard at least two they were staying well out of sight unforunately. But we did fluke a Whinchat for #150.

And that brings you up to date with our progress. 15 to go to reach our target but although that seems a tiny number there's only a handful of 'bankers' left, the other 10 or so will prove a lot harder to get. Still birds have wings and anything can turn up anywhere any time so we'll keep our fingers crossed...and that brings us to another pressing matter, we're due another hand operation in a couple of weeks so might be out of action for a while after that too.

We'll do our best to give you a blog about our travels around Scenic Britain as soon as we get round to processing the hundreds of pics we took.

Where to next? Another safari up north tomorrow with a couple of target species for our challenge but yet again it looks like it's going to be a weather affected affair.

In the meantime let us know who's turned up unexpected in your outback.

A trip out, a forty year wait over and a hot day

The Safari took the opportunity to venture further afield now that Lockdown is just about over. We arranged a socially distanced meet up with good friend JG at the always brilliant Lunt Meadows Lancashire Wildlife Trust reserve from where we'd recently seen some awesome pics of Water Voles. Now Water Voles are a species of our youth and the ditches between the fields where we grew up are only a stone's throw from Lunt Meadows. We wandered these fields regularly and often heard the unmistakable 'plop' of Water Voles diving in to the water when they heard us coming on our bikes or collecting Blackberries with our Nan, we'd often see them swimming in the ditches too, great creatures but when we thought back to the last time we'd actually seen a live one it must have been over 40 years ago despite having undertaken surveys for them in more recent years. Yes we'd found feeding lawns, latrines, the tell-tail 45 degree nibbled stems, burrows but not an actual animal!

By the time we arrived it was already getting hot and we worried that it might be too hot for the Water Voles to come out but J had a cunning plan.

We set off full of anticipation stopping at the first screen for a quick shuffy. The bench there was of interest J pointed out a Leaf-cutter Bee's nest in a hole in the wood and another in a larger crack - great stuff. To the right there's a small island in the pool where we saw both Ringed and Little Ringed Plover, the latter becoming #159 on our Photo Year List Challenge.

Little Ringed Plover

Ringed Plover

Over the water there were dragonflies in profusion getting our hopes up of a visiting Hobby.

A cracking start to the safari.

It was getting hotter by the minute so off we went in search of the voles. A Grasshopper Warbler sang from the rushy 'field' to our right. No chance of seeing it but it sang continuously all the time we were at that part of the reserve.

We had a short wait but J's plan was put in to action, she lobbed her half eaten pear over the ditch landing it square on the voles feeding lawn - a perfect shot! Within a few minutes the sweet scent of oozing pear juices wafting over the water was too much for one of the juvenile Water Voles and out from its burrow it came, swimming across the ditch to the feast.

Like a certain TV naturalist, CP, we can't abide the word 'cute' but is there a better one to describe these furry beauties.

It chomped away from several minutes being enjoyed by several watchers stood with us, while to keep them as undisturbed as possible general passers-by and dog-walkers were deliberately kept uninformed and left to wonder why there were a gang of people stood there looking at a dirty ditch. 

Once the little chap had eaten it's fill off it went back to it's underground world.

Somehow we missed the swimming shot...dohhh...

Moving on we came across this small Toad just sitting looking rather nonplussed at the side of the track. Not the best of days for an amphibian to be out in the open, it was already well over 25C.

Continuing the circuit we watched butterflies and looked fro other insects among the profusion of riverside vegetation.  A small brood of two young Tufted Ducks with their mother were on the river.

Great to see as this river in our youth was little more than a chemistry set and open sewer and is now teeming with life. Unfortunately none of the Banded Demoiselles would sit still for a photo opportunity - we'd never have dreamed of seeing anything like these along the river all those years ago.

Nesting Avocets are on site too, another 'wouldn't even have dreamed of' back in the day. It was a long long trek across country to the fabulous East Anglian marshes to see them in those days.

At the third screen dragonflies were very active, mostly Broad-bodied Chasers, some of which were good enough to perch up.

Also there were couple of young Lapwings already fledged and another Little Ringed Plover.

What a fabulous morning's wildlifing but now it was time for some lunch and boy were we glad we hadn't packed any chocolate, the inside of the car was like an over when we opened to doors.

After quickly demolishing a bag of cheese and pickle butties and having a good slug of fizzy orange juice it was back out on the circuit again. This time our wait for the Water Voles to show themselves was unsuccessful but while we waited we had some interesting butterfly action. Small Tortoiseshells mooched by as did a couple of Commas. But sharp eyed J soon realised that one of the Commas wasn't a Comma at all but a fritillary, a Dark Green Fritillary. Now these are present on the coastal dunes a couple of miles away and have been seen on the dune nature reserve on our side of the river in recent days but we never expected to bump into one at an open wetland site like this.

It could well be the first record for the site, to today our limited investigations haven't revealed any earlier records not even from the days prior to our visit. It seemed settled patrolling a territory bounded by the Bramble bushes either side of the ditch regularly stopping on both flowers and leaves but always just that little bit too far away. With the day being so hot, toughing 30C now, there was no way it was going to bask with its wings open but at least with its wings furled up you can make put the green sheen from which it gets its name.

Also on territory in the Brambles was a showy Whitethroat that flitted from fence to bush and back and occasionally towered into full song-flight mode.

Further round we again looked for butterflies along the path to the little hide. The pat sides are festooned with the gorgeous blue flower spikes of Viper's Bugloss but the hunt for skipper buttetflies wasn't as successful as hoped, a couple of brief sightings of Large Skippers were all we had.

But by now the Avocets on the adjacent pool had moved into a better position for viewing and we found another small juvenile that hadn't been hatched more than a few days. The first brood to hatch were well grown now but of the two youngsters only one remained after a hefty thunderstorm a few days earlier.

The great views of the Avocets nicely wrapped up our day out as time was pressing now and we needed to get homeward bound before too long.

So it's a huge thank you to JG for the company and up-to-the-minute info and the perfectly lobbed pear of course, and to Lunt Meadows for being as utterly brilliant as ever.

We've had some great wildlife encounters around and about Base Camp too during June and we'll be bringing you up to date with the best of those shortly - watch this space.

Where to next? We expect to get out on safari further afield again soon but aren't sure where yet...oh decisions decisions, there's so much good stuff to go and look at/for.

In the meantime let us know who's turned up brand spanking new in your outback.

And remember whatever you do, stay safe,maintain that social distance.

Creeping along

The Safari apologises for the lack of recent updates, inexcusable we know but we have been away for a week in a rather windy southern Scotland. But before we get over the border we've been on a few other safaris loser to home doing our best to add to our Photo Year List Challenge. At the time of writing we're currently in third place with no hope of catching the front runner (from British Columbia) unless something awful befalls her, there are a others who are hot on our heels too.

A cold, drizzly and windy Fleetwood golf course early in the month gave us this poor Skylark pic for 116 - yet another to try to improve on as soon as possible.

CR took us up to the private reserve in southern Lakeland but the weather transpired against us with no reptiles and few birds seen so by lunchtime we decided to call it a day and head south to Leighton Moss RSPB reserve where we spent much of the afternoon enjoying the Black Headed Gull and Avocet colony. However our fave pic of the afternoon as of this bathing Oystercatcher.

 quick stop at the nearby quarry on the way back to Base Camp gave us a brief Raven (PYLC 117)

An improvement in the weather brought some migrant birds with Wheatears being seen along Chat Alley but only when we werre camera-less. A wander round Marton Mere gave us our first Willow Warbler  (PYLC 118) of the year. Always a joy to hear their liquid cadence filling the morning  air.

Now armed with a camera we headed to the cliffs again and were successful in our quest for Wheatears (PYLC 119)

The cliffs aren't 100% natural but we have been allowed it as the 'hand of man' can't really be discerned in the pic - phew! 

We've had several visits to Marton Mere, mostly with the aim of coming across one of the many Cetti's Warblers but the skulky little devils continued to avoid us as they had done all year so far - hearing them isn't problem; seeing them out in the open for more than a split second is a different proposition entirely. We were rewarded one morning with a handsome drake Garganey (PYLC 120) that was unfortunately a little too far away to do it full justice

And then to Dumfries and Galloway we went for a week with Wifey, LCV and family. For the first half of the week there was a very cold wind blowing in all the way from the far side of Moscow that was keeping many migrants at bay. The second half of the week warmed to almost tropical temperatures so it was beach and ice-creams wit hthe family. not until we'd visited the Red Kite feeding station at Bellymack Hill Farm - a must visit if you're in the area, open every afternoon of the year. Like everyone else there we filled our boots with pics but chose this slightly blurred one for our challenge pic (121), they stoop very very fast when the food appears!

There's a whole heap more Red Kite pics on our Flickr site. 

Morning visits to the nearby RSPB Mersehead reserve gave us lots of Barnacle Geese but few migrants other than chiffchaff, a couple of Willow Warblers and a few Blackcaps, one of which was photographed very poorly for number 122.

The star of the show there are the Barnacle Geese and we spent a lot of the time just  enjoying them and trying to read some of the Darvik rings some of them sported.

Best animal of the whole trip for us though were the Badgers at the last public watch of the year at Mersehead. We hate to admit it but we've not seen a live Badger since the early 1980s so for a few quid, a comfy chair and an almost dead cert chance of seeing them we just had to pay the entrance fee. A bit of a wait that included a couple of unidentified bats and an unidentified 'dark' owl - not the fairly regularly seen Barn Owl was crowned by not one, not two but three Badgers feeding on the peanut butter bait down to six feet from our boots the other side of the window - we just loved it and big thanks to Calum the warden for allowing the group to stay an extra half hour. hopefully our Badger drought has been ended and it won't be 35 years or so until our next sighting of a live one - crikey we'll only be a few years short of the ton by then!!!

Roe Deer are always good to see there too and we could even have reached out of the car window and touched one as it bolted past us on the way out of the reserve from the Badger watch - awesome!!!

The last couple of days of our trip gave us a distant flock of Golden Plovers (PYLC 123) - not quite the summer plumaged pic we were hoping for but an enforced digi-scoped pic at phenomenal range. Also out on the rocks but not photographable were our first Whimbrel of the year and a local scarcity in the form of three Little Egrets.

Our very last morning gave us another year bird, the Sedge Warbler that LCV had heard the day before.

Back in Blackpool it was only a matter of time before we went to Marton Mere and this time we had our Cetti's Warbler (PYLC 124) success - even got it singing. The relief is palpable.

The following day we managed to get a pic of  the Whitethroats (PYLC 125) that had eluded us on 'Cetti's' day

But were still unable to submit Lesser Whitethroat, Sedge Warbler,  Reed Warbler and Grasshopper Warbler to the SD card. Later that afternoon news broke of a nice selection of birds at a bit of a flooded field just round the corner from Marton Mere towards Weeton so we piled Monty into the car and set off. Pulling up we scanned the muddy flood seeing some Black Tailed Godwits feeding in the water and lots of Pied and a few White Wagtails on the mud then a little flit of brilliance caught our eye at the back of the field - result one of the two Yellow Wagtails (PYLC 126). It's such a shame that these are now so uncommon - in our youth aka the old days we came across these much more frequently on our birding days that Grey Wagtails. Could have done with it coming a little close though.

Also in the field and taking some finding as we expected them to be on the mud at around the water margin rather than well away from it in the grass were two Little Ringed Plovers (PYLC 127), again right across on the far side of the field.

Our next safari was an afternoon out at Brock Bottoms with Wifey where the Bluebells were at their finest.

Wifey spotted a butterfly resting on some track-side plants which turned out to be a female Orange Tip laying an egg, the plant being Jack-by-the-Hedge/Garlic Mustard/Hedge Garlic.

A change in the weather was due and we txtd CR that Stanley park could be good in the morning with Wood Warbler predicted - and would you believe it on our early morning dog walk news broke of a Wood Warbler in Stanley Park, sixth sense/experienced birder/pure fluke - take your pick. They're only ever a one-day-wonder around these parts.

An hour and a half later we'd picked up CR and were watching it infuriatingly flit through the twiggery giving very poor views. Thankfully eventually it moved a few yards and gave much better views.

Better views were had through the bins when it showed well again later on in the morning but we had no chance of getting a pic then. Still it's one we didn't photograph in either of our two previous challenges so very happy to add it to this yea's tally at number 128.

While in the park we were told of a family of Tawny Owls over the road in Woodland Gardens so after filling our boots with the Wood Warbler off we went for a look. After looking in slightly the wrong place we came across another lad pointing his camera high into the tree-tops where he kindly pointed out the adult and two fluffy youngsters to us.

A top morning out!

The following day we left Base Camp in heavy rain and so didn't take a camera with us. Big mistake as when we were down on the embankment at Marton Mere after seeing very little on the way the gulls got up making a commotion and there above them was our first Osprey of the year and well withing range of the big lens and now the sun was shining - dohhhhhh - - you can't win em all!

Never forget you don't have to go to exotic locations and nature reserves to get close to awesome wildlife - here's a gorgeous Small Tortoiseshell butterfly slurping nectar from the Spanish Bluebells (admittedly an INNS weed) right outside the front door at Base Camp. Just make some space for nature in your gardens, doesn't even have to be all your garden just a bit of it will do for starters.

Where to next? Looks like a wet weekend coming up but we have a kids Bird Bingo event in the morning and who knows what might turn up at this time of year and then next week another further flung safari oop north with CR weather permitting.

In the meantime let us know who's the one day wonder in your outback

Plagued by good weather?

The Safari has had little time for keeping you all up to date with our goings-on of late, what with good weather meaning we've been out n about a lot and some serious family stuff to contend with there's not been much time for putting finger to keyboard.

So here's a very swift catch up of what's been about

Swift (155, PYLC #124) - rubbishy pic taken at Lunt Meadows which we hope to improve on but they do seem to be horrendously scarce round these parts this year.

Sedge Warbler (PYLC #125) Lunt Meadows again

Grey Partridge (156) a pair seen as we drove out of Lunt Meadows and unable to get a pic, the Little Owls in the nearby barn weren't one show - AGAIN!!!

A stunning full sum plum Black Necked Grebe 157, PYLC #126) rocked up on a local park lake and was thoroughly enjoyed by hordes of birders showing down to point black range while the resident Mute Swans, Grey Lag Geese, other waterflowl and Herons were oblivious to its presence.

Aquatic Emu?

Not far away non-feathered interest was found in the form of a male Great Crested Newt

What's left of Stanley Park, after some horrifically late tree felling including probably illegally taking down a tree with an active nest box containing eggs on it, held host to unseen Redstart and Spotted Flycatcher but we did catch up with the Garden Warblers (158, PYLC #127) thanks to TS waving us over and later in the day we managed to twitch but not photograph a Wood Warbler (159) not far from Base Camp on the North Blackpool Pond Trail. A pair of Swallows (PYLC #128) posed nicely at the start of the road on the way back, another species that seems to be horrendously low in numbers in their usual haunts so far this season - just late or a winter/migration catastrophe somewhere...we hope it's the former...

A rare trip into town gave us the opportunity to take a quick snap of a Lesser Black Backed Gull (PYLC #129) but the local Peregrines were nowhere to be seen.

Whinchats (160, PYLC #130) were all the rage in early May and we eventually caught up with a pair on Lawson's Wetland/Marton Mere getting very wet feet in the process, the dry spell hadn't really dried out the wetlands that much!

Whitethroats (PYLC #131) have done an excellent job of avoiding our lens and this grotty attempt is the only passable pic we've got of one so far this season and it's really not that good.

Having seen but not photographed the Spoonbills at Marshside on the Southside we did a little better with the recent two Glossy Ibises (161, PYLC #132) although the light and distance were 'challenging'!

At Base Camp the moth trapping has been dire although a 'New for Garden' Marbled Coronet was big surprise and the rarely captured Pebble Prominent is always a treat.

Marbled Coronet

Pebble Prominent

This afternoon we joined the Living Seas LWT team at Rossall Tower for their monthly seawatch and picked up a few Grey Seals, surprisingly late for our first of the year, and at least seven and probably eight Harbour Porpoises including a pod of three that was caught up by a fourth. Sadly all a bit distant for the majority of other watchers without scopes to get a good look at but well worth the two hour session...and we're in joint charge of the next one!

Well that's it for your quick catch up, hope you enjoyed it.

Where to next? An earlyish jaunt to the hills out east in the morning

In the meantime let us know who's not where they should be yet in your outback.