We've never put our coat on so fast

The Safari was in the middle of the washing-up this morning when the phone rang. We couldn't answer it but a few minutes later listened to a voicemail from LGB telling us a Risso's Dolphin was heading slowly north past him down at Starr Gate and could well come past Chat Alley where he knew we'd be walking the dog sometime early morning.

We listened to the message at about 09.10 and immediately donned our coat, grabbed our bins and bundled Monty in to the back of the car for the fastest drive to the prom of his life!

It was now nearly 20 past, there was no sign - had we missed it? We kept an eye on the calm sea southwards with a few scans to thw northbut nothing was seen. A small flock of Common Scoters flew past close in, close enough to pick out the paler females with the naked eye - not often that happens here!

Still no sign of any blubber - we thought at least there might have been a Harbour Porpoise out there, we've not seen one for ages and some of the fishermen have been saying they've been catching Whiting, the Porpoises' favourite prey.

A dog walking friend came along and asked what we were looking for and it was while chatting about the news from South Shore that we picked up the Risso's Dolphin coming towards us quite slowly about 3/4 of a mile off North Pier. It surfaced a few times then made a longer dive before coming to the surface again a couple of times, getting nearer all the while. We saw the huge splash of a breach in the corner of our eye and are a bit miffed we missed seeing the animal leap out of the water. But from then on it surfaced much more regularly and now didn't seem so far out maybe only 1/2 a mile and not far beyond the low water mark. It wasn't to hard to spot with the naked eye now, but getting the other dog walkers on to it was difficult as there were no real landmarks (shouldn't that be sea-marks?) to point them towards and sadly neither of them managed to see it. Meanwhile we were getting quite good views in the bins, the blunt head was obvious and the sickle shaped dorsal fin was particularly hooked although it was still to far away to be able to make out the scarring typical of the species. We watched get closer to the yellow buoy but didn't see it pass it, it would have been closer to the shore than the buoy, and we didn't see it again. What a great morning and a huge Thank You to LGB for the head's up. A cetacean Lifer for us...well chuffed indeed.

In other news we've had the stealth-cam deployed in the garden at Base Camp with the hope of getting evidence of some unusual behaviour from fairly normal garden birds.

Here's a selection of the usual garden feeder visitors - apologies for the quality of our aging camera

Blue Tit

Coal Tit

Great Tit

A rather arty Great Tit

A nocturnal visitor, half expected - Long Tailed Field Mouse

What goes down...

...Must come back up

Wasn't expecting this male Sparrowhawk - they rarely come into the garden - - shame he couldn't have looked at the camera

Three Greenfinches - looking nice and calm, normally they're squabbling for the prime spot

And now the two pics we'd hoped for. A couple of years or so ago we got a pic of a Dunnock on this feeder taking sunflower hearts but hadn't seen one doing that since then until a week or so ago when it happened a few mornings in succession but every time we'd dashed off to get the camera it had gone not to return by the time we got back to the kitchen window. So we decided to be sneaky and set up the stealth-cam in the hope of snapping the evidence.

Success - but does anyone else get Dunnocks using this type of feeder clinging on like a Blue Tit?

But better was to come further down the SD card. We were surorised to open one of the images and see a Robin was doing the same, something we've not seen from the kitchen window. Again has anyone else seen Robins using wire feeders?

Isn't wildlife brilliant - a totally unexpected Lifer on one of our Patches and some unusual behaviour from 'ordinary' species in our own garden, doesn't get much better than that and no need to travel to far flung or exotic places...well actually Blackpool promenade is pretty exotic!

Last Monday was a dry, calm and sunny day wit ha bit of a frosty start. We've not had a full day out with Wifey for a while and seeing as how she was on a long weekend we decided to venture into Lakeland for a scenic low level walk. We picked her sister up on the way and headed to the well known beauty spot Tarn Hows between Coniston and Ambleside.

Beauty spot is an apt description, it was glorious up there. Cold and crisp with the frost on the grass lingering all day in shady glens and a bit of snow on the higher mountain tops. 

The bright blue sky and lack of breeze meant some reflection photography was order of the day.

There wasn't too much wildlife to be seen, a couple of female Goldeneyes and a female Goosander on the tarn and the odd Raven and Buzzard passed overhead.

The only slight dampener on the day was we couldn't walk the full circuit of the lake as the furthest third was out of bounds due to some serious tree felling. The Larches had contracted Phytopthera fungus and were having to be felled, 100m around each infected tree, this meant the peace and quiet was non-existent until the workers stopped for lunch then it was noticeable how quiet it was out there with just the 'tseep' of occasional Goldcrests and a Treecreeper in the remaining trees and the 'wacka-chacka' of a passing Fieldfare flock to break the deep silence - not even the few remaining leaves on the deciduous trees made a rustle.

Where the Larches had already been felled it looked devastating but the extra light reaching the woodland floor should allow a much more natural forest of Birch, Rowan, Alder, Holly, Oak and especially Juniper to reclaim their rightful place on the hills now the alien conifers have been much reduced. Although within the walk there were some Belted Galloway cattle, and much worse for any tree seedlings that might try to get established, Herdwick sheep.

There's a few more pics over on our Flickr page.

The hill with the dusting of snow in the distance is Wetherlam. Many years ago when we were in training to climb Mt Kinabalu in Borneo we were up there in much snowier conditions and managed to slip very badly on some sheet ice we were actually doing our best to avoid as we knew it would be tricky not far from the summit. We really thought we'd done a knee ligament in and were seriously considering having to call the Mountain Rescue team out to stretcher us down. Being mid-winter it was already going dark in the valley below us but somehow we managed to hobble/slide down the trails to the car parked at the foot of Coniston Old Man from were we had a horrendously uncomfortable drive back to Base Camp barely being able to press the clutch to change gear, think we only used second and fourth all the way back. A lucky escape!

Yes we did make it to the top of Mt Kinabalu, the conditions and view were much the same as those at the top of Wetherlam or Coniston Old Man most days - cold wet and windy with a view of the inside of a cloud!

Where to next? A bit of a sunset and a Starling murmuration to be a enjoyed means another visit to the prom.

In the meantime let us know who's clinging to the wires in your outback.

Goldeneye provides quantum of solace

The Safari reckons you can't beat a bit of James Bond for a but of modern day buckle-swashing!

Patch 2 was a misty, poor visibility day today but at least it wasn't fully knitted fog! Our morning session on the almost full tide wasn't up to much with little being seen other than a few small flocks of Common Scoters and a single Shelduck flying south towards the estuary.

The lunchtime safari was more productive even though the visibility hadn't improved much. As soon as we got to the wall we saw five Shelducks going north. A scan along the other side wall itself gave us just seven roosting Turnstones. As the tide ebbed a little more and revealed some runnels a good count of 31 Redshanks appeared from somewhere unseen, the wall has a slight bend in it before it terminates so they were probably just round that.

Out at sea we could just about make out about the shapes of group  of 16 Cormorants with about a dozen associated muggers (Great Black Backed Gulls) waiting for the chance of a steal. Another Cormorant was fishing successfully well to the left of them and much closer in and without the hassle of the muggers. Also fishing successfully was one of the two Great Crested Grebes but not the single Red Throated Diver which just drifted about rather aimlessly.

A male Goldeneye (82, 26) flew south very close in. Another useful species for the list that can't be relied upon to be found in any given year, so we were well chuffed with that.

Back home our bait had been severely depleted so we assumed that Stealth-cam would have captured the action.

We were right...A Magpie came and went a few times

As did a a Woodpigeon, two Collared Doves were 'captured' sitting on the pergola but didn't descend

 Stealth-cam captures all manner of bizarre action

And over night added a new species to its list...probably a Long Tailed Field Mouse, the one that's eating its way through the contents of the garage edible or not, no doubt.

We missed a good bit of action the  other evening/over night when the bait had gone but nothing was recorded so we changed the sensitivity setting from Low to Normal. The pics are taken at 3MP and are quite heavy crops. The wall is seven feet (2.1m) away from the camera. Technical details for the benefit of KB who was asking about such cameras recently.

Where to next? The small matter of another Winter Thrushes Survey to attend to in the morning and we might follow that with a quick sprint to the coast for the Purple Sandpipers.

In the meantime let us know who's sneaking around in the dark in your outback.

And have a look here at who or what was going bump in the night the other day.

Are dips good for your pecs?

The Safari sorted the moths out first thing. Not as big a selection as yesterday probably due to the brisk  wind. New in were the first Lesser Broad Bordered Yellow Underwings of the year.

Common Rustics are always good value - you just never know which form you're going to get

And a male Buff Ermine was a welcome returnee - not had one for a three weeks.

Then it was in to the Black Mamba - aka Wifey's car - and we sped off over to the South-side for an appointment with an American.

It wasn't showing straight off and another birder had already been looking for it for over an hour without success so we were hopeful it wouldn't be a long vigil before it put in an appearance.

Lots of Black Tailed Godwits, Redshanks and Lapwings were on the flood with a really nice number of Snipe. It wasn't long before we had  little heart flutter but it turned in to one of three or four Dunlins we eventually found.

Two Greenshank were 'hidden' amongst the godwits but several Ruff in various stages of moult were much easier to pick out.

Ducks included a good number of Teal but no Garganeys. Gadwall and Shoveler were present in small numbers and we saw singles of both Wigeon and Pintail. A juvenile Little Grebe was getting some stick from one of its parents.

Not a bad view from your bedroom window!

 Can you see the Pectoral Sandpiper?

Couldn't find it? Neither could we :-(

The site had a bioblitz on so we popped in to the centre to have a look at what they were up to. On the walk in we were just in time to see tthem tip out this Wood Mouse from one of their overnight traps.

We came away a tad disappointed, not seen a 'Pec' for some years but dipped a few - too many!

Later in the day our Extreme Photographer came round for a chat and whilst sitting in the garden we spotted a mason wasp going in to a hole in the kitchen brickwork. Nearby he saw a Ruby Tailed Wasp which was lurking furtively. As soon as the mason wap came out of the hole the Ruby Tail went up to the hole and backed in to lay an egg - fascinating to watch! It's all happenin at Base Camp.

Our Extreme Photographer also sent us some pics from his uncle's garden. Wish we had something similar wandering around on our lawn! 

Where to next? Frank is going to the vets for his op tomorrow and we'll meet up with some friends once he's been dropped off with them and hopefully we'll see something of interest while we're with them.

In the meantime let us know what's scuttling around on your lawn.

Deluge drenches Jubilee June bioblitz

The Safari was out at 05.00 and with a dozen other early risers. We approached the moth trap location with some trepidation as it had rained heavily all night - would the light have blown up and tripped all the electrics to the cabin in the woods, would the trap be full of drowned moths, would there be ANY moths?

No it hadn't and yes there was, nine species in fact. Not brilliant but considering the rain and cold temperatures but a nice selection to kick off the list - - will we reach the now rather optimistic target of 500.

A bird walk followed but only a paltry two dozen hit the notebook as the rain poured down. 

Next was the inspection of the mammal traps - a great result four of the 28 had an occupant, a whopping 14+ % and even one of the first pair of traps had a Wood Mouse.

Very welcome hot bacon butties followed with many thanks to the girls at the Crematorium Tea Rooms.

By late afternoon a trifle over 300 species had been recorded with only a pond survey for amphibians;  still no Toad on the list and a Great Crested Newt or two wouldn't go amiss either. After that the bat detectors will be out but if the temperature doesn't reach double figures and the rain doesn't stop it's quite likely no bats will be found, but try we must.

Where to next? Far more news and the final result tomorrow.

In the meantime let us know if the rain put the dampners on the wildlife in your outback.