Good day all round

The Safari had an early physio appointment this morning so missed out on Patch 2 which was a shame cos news on the desk when we arrived at it there was a message telling us of what wee think is the first Grey Seal of the year along our coast, a Red Breasted Merganser and some Little Gulls, a tidy little pre-work haul for SD.

Our walk back to the car park from the hospital gave us a clump of Winter Aconite coming in to flower.

The rail the gulls sit on along the lake edge is just about near enough to check them without the naked eye, lots of Black Headed Gulls, a handful of Common Gulls plenty of Herring Gulls but no sign of the Mediterranean Gull that's been seen in there a few times recently.

Our brief lunchtime session could hardly have been better, it's not everyday the first birds you see are a couple of Little Gulls and a Kittiwake. Three more Little Gulls moved through - by eck they're bonny! Five or six hundred Common Scoters showed how calm it was but we could only find three Great Crested Grebes and half a dozen Red Throated Divers. A speck of black and white was a distant unidentified auk and we did find a nearer Guillemot. Needless to say we were quite happy with that little lot for our 20 minute watch...the Grey Seal would have been the icing on the cake.

Minutes after going back in we were out again, this time on route to the nature reserve via the little wetland for lead a guided walk. 

We waited by the gate in glorious sunshine while a gentle shower passed over giving us a splendid rainbow to enjoy. A male Kestrel worked the wetland, resplendent in the sunshine. Scanning watching him we spotted a distant Bumble Bee and then saw a stump ended squat medium sized bird shooting over the houses, didn't get the bins on it but the first thing that came to mind was a Woodcock! Whatever it was the local Feral Pigeons weren't impressed and flushed off the rooftops.

A wander across the wetland didn't produce any Snipe of any kind which was unusual but three Meadow Pipits popped up out of the long grass.

Making our way to the reserve we heard Great Spotted Woodpecker calling, Woodpigeons singing  and Long Tailed Tits buzzing about unseen.

The reserve was louder still with Song Thrushes, Chaffinches, more Woodpigeons and a couple of sporadic Cetti's Warblers all in song. The warm sunshine, lack of wind and birdsong made it feel very spring like out there.
We watched the water having a look at the waterfowl, a very nice mix with FW's Pintails being STILL present three pairs and a single male, 58 Shoveler was a good count, three female and a male Goldeneye, loads of uncounted Wigeon, 100+, and even more Teal but most of them were hidden in the reeds.

Three Great Crested Grebes had argy-bargy and the Coots have started their chases but we didn't see any fights breaking out.

We kept checking the gulls gradually increasing the count of Lesser Black Backed Gulls (MMLNR #63) to 23 and then we spotted the jackpot, the local Iceland Gull! (MMLNR #64) It came into bathe unseen and stayed at least 20 minutes giving good but distant views and poor record shots.

Enough of the gulls, try as we might we couldn't find a Mediterranean Gull we wander off down the path to see if we could find the Long Eared Owl. We stopped on the semi-circle of grassland that hasn't been cut and raked yet but we still managed to find some Bee Orchid rosettes within a few feet of each other.

Coltsfoot was also coming into flower nearby.

No sign of the Long Eared Owl(s) though and we were helped by a couple of other birders. We gave it a concerted effort to no avail and moved on, now we had a decision to make do we go round to view the lake again  or cut up round the back of the reserve to have a look for the Long Eared Owls from the back-side. Before we had the chance to make that call we saw a white thing flit over the embankment towards the sopping wet fields to the east and our brain picked out Little Egret from the memory banks...wrong...it reappeared closer and in profile, a cracking Barn Owl. Now the chase was on to get good prolonged views of it and maybe a pic or two...no joy it had done one probably across the thick hedge to the next field to the north. Nice to see them in the middle of the afternoon but it does mean they're struggling to find enough scram which isn't so good.

Round at the second Long Eared Owl spotting place we couldn't find it/them there either but we did see some Blackthorn in flower.

Spring is deffo trying to get the upper-hand, further on we found more evidence of the perennial of battle the seasons. Hawthorn buds opening...

More singing Song Thrushes, Robins and Dunnocks completed the spring-like scene.

What a great afternoon for a safari! Full of great sightings and surprises.

Where to next? More Patch 2 and hopefully a Dolphin (= Harbour Porpoises) watch tomorrow afternoon.

In the meantime let us know if spring is doing its best to sprung in your outback.

Supermarket sweep

The Safari wasn't able to get out early enough to meet the Long Eared Owl walk this morning, so while we were waiting for Wifey and Frank to ready themselves we had a shuffy at the Stealth-cam, It revealed lots of Fox comings and goings at Base Camp in the wee small hours.

Then it was time to load Frank into tthe Land Rover and head off to the nature reserve. With slow coaches and road works the three mile journey too well over half an hour! We went straight into the hide and phoned the Rangers to see if they'd had anything and found the owls. The owl had been a pain and several of the punters left disappointed but shortly after the walk the Rangers had another look for it and it popped up from out of sight lower in the shrubbery and was able to be shown to a few from the walk who had only gone as far as the nearby hide. The Rangers also mentioned four Pintails, which we saw almost immediately as we were scanning with the bins in the direction they were in anyway. Pintails (102, MMLNR #71) on the nature reserve are perhaps the rarest of the dabblers so it's always nice to see them - we've deleted the dubious Red Crested Pochard from the park cos it's hardly from a self-sustaining wild population which is the reason we didn't count yesterday's Red Legged Partridge, only introduced by numpties so they can kill them round here.

Frank took an age to get round to the owls and on route we met up with a chap who was looking for them but had already gone past them without knowing it. We showed him the easy one that had popped up for the Rangers and then saw the second one secreted behind a bundle of twigs only 18 inches (50cm) from the first but soooooo hard to see.

With nothing much else in the scrub we wandered back seeing a few Snipe and a Little Egret on the way. We checked the gulls but nothing was outstanding.

Back at the hide we were told that there were some Waxwings at a nearby supermarket...aren't they always! Cars were loaded and turned and off went the convey somewhat reminiscent of twitches of old...all of two miles rather than the two hundred we used to do. And there they were sat in a tall Poplar tree at the side of the road opposite the store, 10 Waxwings (103) waiting to drop into a Cotoneaster tree still heavily laden with berries.

You've seen sqizzillions of cracking Waxwing pics this winter, now it's time to 'enjoy' the worst of the lot!

We now had the choice of going back to the nature reserve or somewhere else. We chose to go to the park to look for the Treecreepers. 

On the way to the park we were stopped at traffic lights we were inexpicably drawn to the footwear of a trendy type of woman wearing the most bizarre thing we've ever seen - at £125 a pair you've gotta ask yourself why?????????   Maybe we should have gone back to the park as we were struggling to see anything interesting in the park when the phone rang and one of our fellow 'twitchers' told us they'd gone back to the reserve and the Bittern a flew past them and landed in the reeds close by - &*^(*&^&^%^%W*W!!!!!!* 

The gulls in the park gave us a rather interestingly long billed Herring Gull which must be at the extreme end of bill length for the species but nothing else about it was unusual.

Shame about those lovely altruistic people that enjoy feeding their left over bread to the ducks but then chuck the empty bag in the lake when there is a bin only a few feet behind them!!!

At the far end of the lake we met up with the Rangers again who told us of a Winter Aconite in flower.

So a late start turned into quite a good day in the end and Frank seems to have survived...so far...how he doesn't go double lame again later on this evening.

Where to next? Back on Patch 2 and with strong winds forecast again the Little Gulls and others may well be back in play.

In the meantime let us know what turned up unexpectedly in your outback.

* insert expletive of your own choosing