The Safari and Wifey had a very pleasant afternoon stroll along the estuary this arvo. Cold but bright and sunny. As we pulled up in the car park a Buzzard was getting grief from two Carrion Crows over the river and was gone before the camera could be activated. Immediately we noticed that there were thrushes everywhere, mainly Blackbirds and Fieldfares but also quite a few Redwings and Song Thrushes as well, numbering many hundreds altogether.
Sadly they like the estuary birds were being flushed from pillar to post by the multitude of doggers out with their hounds, people throwing balls well out on the marshes flushing Shelduck, Wigeon, Teal, Curlew, Lapwing, and a flock of around 250 Skylarks was continually kept on the move, really disheartening, why can't the flipping doggers stay on the paths; we managed it just fine but still disturbed too many of the thrushes and just one Robin. At one point the Skylarks had just settled down for the umteenth time when a little raptor whizzed over flushed them and had a bit of a chase - Merlin?...no such luck they are all on Hesketh Out Marsh, a male Sparrowhawk chancing his arm - he missed this time but as the flock gets hungrier and more tired we reckon he'll get a meal. Couldn't see any Lapland Buntings in the flock, even though it was nearly as cold as Lapland, we're still as cold as Chicago perhaps a little colder! The safri was always taught that central continental locations were

Difficult to get shots of the wary thrushes, should have done that yesterday on the reserve where there was much less disturbance, In the end we scored, just about, the light wasn't too good and the birds were at full range.

We took some pics of a handsome mutt for next year's NW Labrador Rescue calendar - d'yer think his modelling skills are up to to the job?

Have a great Christmas/winter festival where-ever you are...hope you have a cracker...ho ho ho pun very definitely intended as usual.

Where to next? Little chance of a safari tomorrow...been cooking the scram all day reckon the electricity has cost more than the turkey!

In the meantime let us know who's disturbed or disturbing in your outback,

Managed an hour or two

The Safari was hoping for a late lie in but after taking Frank round a very quiet patch 1 we had to go and get a load of pre cut and pre split wood, so we ened up at the yard still in the pitch black. Many thanks to PM and his team for helping keep us warm this winter - this little lot should last a week or two.

And there's more...

Lovely stuff, the inside of the Land Rover has a warm pleasntly rustic woody scent to it now - far better than those plastic pine tree air freshener things people hang from their rear view mirrors. why do they asy that 'rear view mirror'? You're hardly likely to use a mirror to look forwards are you?

We put more seed out and a few more apples then had a look at the pond - looks like our Coot needs his shield and eye repainting in the spring - if he ever thaws out.

The waterfall is a dodder-culture worthy of an Swedish ice hotel!

Then we had a call from CR saying he'd been on the nature reserve and there were over 1000 Fieldfares! Click on his website cos his Fieldfare pics are likely to be an order of magnitude better than quite good. While we were chatting a Kestrel and a Mistle Thrush flew over - he'll have to call more often the birdings good at base Camp when he's on the phone!
We were about to set off anyway as the Rangers had told us the Ring Necked Duck had reappeared, assuming it is the same one as last January. So without further ado we loaded the dog and optics in to the Land Rover and set sail...

Wow the place was seething with Fieldfares and Blackbirds, wouldn't like to say how many of each but certainly more Fieldfares than we've ever seen in one place before!

Looking east down the frozen mere... From the little hide we had a look at the gulls but there was nowt special so we had a look at the Ring Necked Duck - took a couple of pics, all rubish and the best one, full side on showing white shoulder stripe and peaked crown was the worst of the lot! Plenty of Wigeon and Shoveler and a lot of Teal were on the small patch of unfrozen water. A Buzzard came in and was mobbed by a stunningly bright male Kestrel, while a Sparrowhawk eyed up its options from the cover of a distant Willow tree.
Five Whooper Swans dropped in for a while, their trumpeting being louder than the calls of the several hunded Pink Footed Geese in the thawed field just to the east of the reserve. While we were surveying the scene a Cetti's Warbler began calling to our left - what on earth do they find to eat in the frozen reedbeds, and if they can why didn't they colonise years ago - have they undergone some sort of cold temperature adaptation mutation?

With cold setting in the fingers and toes we called it a day and walked back keeping an eye ion thee far reede bed in case a Bittern should pop out - it/they didn't. Nor did we see any one the many Water Rails (15+ seen today) (one of which caught and ate a Wren yesterday! - needs must when the Devil drives eh), none of the many Woodcock on site showed either but there was no way we were going off piste to try to see them, dfar better to let them lie up and conserve their energy. We did see a well fed Fox able along the edge of the reed bed, it looked to be aiming for the ducks but they weren't at all bothered by it and it ignored them and slunk in to the reeds.
All in all a very pleasant couple of hours, could have done with more time but fingers and toes might have put in formal complaints! Unlikely to be out tomorrow so where-ever you are have a marvelous winter festival...bring on the summer solstice!
Where to next? Wedding anniversary tomorrow followed by a full day's EATING.

In the meantime let us know what's put in a reappearance in your outback.

Any warmer yet? Or should that be any less cold.

The Safari wasn’t risking counting the Magpies in Magpie Wood this morning as the pavement was just way, way too slippery to be able to look up and count rather than look down and watch where we were putting our feet. It’s scarily icy where the snow has been flattened down by the passage of many feet. And it’s still colder here than Chicago, which shouldn’t really happen!
In the park Frank shot off like greased lightning, to run full tilt like that with no ball to chase he musta seen or smelt a Fox, but we didn’t see anything.
A Blackbird went over in the darkness and several minutes later so did a Redwing – the first we’ve heard for a while.
Again we had to wait for it to get light enough to nip out to Patch 2. The tide was on the rise and washed in some small areas of freezing sea-slush. Doesn’t look much does it but we won’t be going for a paddle this week that’s for sure, or should that be foreshore? Perhaps not the most exciting pics we’ll ever show you.

In the distance was a Cormorant feeding mêlée, again stretched out in a long thin line about ¾ to a mile offshore. Difficult to say how many there were, but probably getting up towards triple figures. Three Red Throated Divers were out that way too. The usual Great Black Backed Gulls were milling around on the off-chance of a free meal.
Five Ringed Plovers flew past us heading south and we heard the call of a Grey Plover coming from the northern ‘alternative’ patch.
Away to the south the numbers of Oystercatchers were impressive, impossible to count from Patch 2 but there were two enormous flocks of them on the beach this morning.
On the way back from taking the sea ice pics we saw a small bird land in the middle of the promenade and start pecking around in the snow. We were very exposed and worried we’d disturb it but managed to scope it to see it was a Rock Pipit, couldn’t make out what it was pecking at as there didn’t seem to be anything there other than snow, maybe it was just having a ‘drink’. We edged a few feet nearer and then were able to take advantage of a bit of cover and sneak up a bit more to try to get in range for the little camera...made it...nice light over the shoulder, bird still sitting out on the snow...gently eased hand in to pocket...drew camera out ever so slowly...turned camera on...held our breath while we raised the camera...flushed the bird...drat, drat and double drat!!!
No Patch 2 visit at lunchtime – Christmas got in the way. Bah humbug...
Where to next? If we get anywhere other than a thawing and consequently muddy Patch 1 in the dark in the next 5 days we’ll be pleasantly surprised.
In the meantime let us know if there is sea ice floating around on your patch.

You know it’s cold when...

The Safari counted 39 Magpies still asleep in Magpie Wood this morning. There being no other news from patch 1 we’ll go straight to Patch 2 and the beautiful blood red dawn, missed the eclipse due to cloud though. Looking out over the sea wall the tide was on the rise and had already covered the beach. Temperatures overnight the last couple of nights have been down below minus 10 and just beyond Patch 2’s southern boundary the sea has started to freeze. There were a couple of slushy patches probably of over an acre each gently rocking on the light swell.
Our dodgy gull wasn’t present today, very few were on the patch, but there were good numbers just out of range beyond the slush. Also there was a huge black morass of uncountable oystercatchers being pushed up the sandbank by the rising tide; a very conservative guestimate would be well over 1000. Also present in large numbers were Cormorants with a constant stream of reasonable sized flocks coming in from the open sea to roost in the estuary. SD had recently made a count of about 800 in the shipping lane to the north of us on his cetacean ferry survey; there were certainly plenty about today. Looking to the north we could see a lot more fishing in the hazy distance with several Great Black Backed Gulls in attendance. Wouldn’t like to say how many we had but somewhere between two and three hundred wouldn’t be far short of the mark.
Also seen were two Red Throated Divers, a few scattered small flocks of Common Scoters, nothing like last weeks numbers, and best of the session a pair of Red Breasted Mergansers flew south at close range.
At lunchtime the blimp over the wall was severely curtailed by the need for Christmas shopping. We spent a total of five minutes in the shop and almost an hour getting to and from it – it’s only two miles from the office...this traffic nightmare is becoming, well, a - for want of a better expression - NIGHTMARE!!! Some people are driving over cautiously on the well gritted roads – you can’t skid if you’re only doing 0.0000001 mph!!! We had a minor sideways ‘incident’ on an icy side street ample warning that not even 4WD is totally safe, just put a bit too much right boot down at the wrong time and whayyy-hayyy that was fun!
We had hoped that yesterday’s gull would be about again but it wasn’t. From our usual vantage point we saw the Bar Tailed Godwit again but there were very few gulls on the beach. Looking away down to the south the beach there was full to busting with Oystercatchers and gulls, we shudder to think how many Oystercatchers there might have been, at least a couple of thousand. Once again we moved our second vantage point and once again wondered if this might not be a better patch to watch (nice vagaries of the English language there – why isn’t it patch to wa-tch or potch to wotch rather than patch to wotch?) This viewing point is (currently) better for beachy stuff than our normal watch point. The six ringed plovers were still there as was the Grey Plover. A handful of Sanderlings scampered around a solitary Dunlin, we didn’t count the Oystercatchers or Redshanks but two Turnstones were noted.
As for the gulls; plenty of Black Heads and Commons but very few larger gulls, a Lesser Black Back was way down at the far end and as we were leaving a Great Black Back came in off the sea and landed not too far away from us – my those things are brutes close up.
Far too dull for photos today.
A trawl through the interweb revealed the following joint coldest records going back to January 1973 for Blackpool, equalled in the early hours of yesterday morning; minus 11ºC on 13th & 28 Jan ’79 and 15th Jan ‘82 – not come across any -12s yet, hottest was 34 ºC on 3rd July 1976.
Where to next? Back to those dang shops...
In the meantime let us know if there’s somewhere else you should incorporate in to your patch.

Thought we were in luck

The Safari has nothing to report from a very cold Patch 1 a full 2 ½ hours before sunrise, but as we left for work we heard a Blackbird singing somewhere in the distance. Only a couple of days now til the nights start drawing out, not much chance of the weather warming up significantly though.
We managed a short spell on Patch 2 and although light it was still a stupid -7ºC. The tide was just about full and there were only a couple of hundred gulls sat about on the gentle swell to look through. At any distance there was only grey mist.
So we set about the gulls. Nothing out of the ordinary until we got to the last dozen or so when we found four Herring Gulls sat close together. One of them was just a little different. So much so that we decided it would be worth while contacting a local expert with a bit of a description. Not that we could get much of a description as the bird was more or less facing us jsut taking it easy resting on the water. A pic might have helped but the camera was too cold and it wasn’t cooperating at all.

Size - as Herring Gull.
Bill - pale lemony yellow with dark gonyeal spot and above on upper mandible, some red on lower mandible – probably indicating a fourth winter rather than full adult - pale tip looked quite heavy but not as pronounced as Great Black Backed Gull.
Eye - dark brown but too far to see eye ring colour, easy to see the pale eye of adjacent similarly aged Herring Gull
Head - lightly streaked couldn't see how far down the back of the head it reached but upper breast was unstreaked so unlikely to have a hooded appearance
Mantle - bit of a weird light this morning but it looked almost if not the same shade of silvery grey as nearby Herring Gulls, certainly not as pale as an Iceland or Glaucous Gull.
Primaries – which were the first thing we noticed that made it stand out very clearly from the others - dark silvery grey, darker grey than mantle but much paler than the typical black of the Herring Gulls. The tips were/appeared silvery white rather than pure white. Tips of a normal size ie more grey showing than white.
The bird was only seen resting on the sea so no leg colour was visible
We doubted very much if this was a leucistic bird, the ones we’ve seen over the years (several) looked more like duff Iceland or Glaucous Gulls.
However, our resident expert came back with this link from only yesterday! which shows a very similar bird, maybe slightly paler and with no head streaking but those primaries are just what we saw. We’re now happy to call it a leucistic Herring Gull, any thoughts of something good and transatlantic being well and truly put to rest. Sadly not one of these from Monika (fourth pic down with less head markigs and more black on bill including the upper mandible - unless one turns up this week not too far away. An interesting bird none-the-less so keep your eyes peeled.
At lunchtime the tide was just dropping off the seawall and exposing the beach. looking south was useless in the bright sunlight and there wasn’t anything on the tiny bit of beach in front of us so we broke the habit of a lifetime and walked 100 yards to the north to look along that section of beach with the light coming obver our shoulder...maybe we should do it more often. There were a hundred or more gulls mostly Black Headed and Commons, but the waders were interesting too. Almost the first bird we saw was a Bar Tailed Godwit and we soon found another – two in a day – double wow! A Grey Plover tip-toed around with six Ringed Plovers. A couple of Dunlins were seen with the dozen or so but increasing all the time Sanderlings. Six Turnstones turned over seaweed on the wall while a few uncounted Redshanks and Oystercatchers scoured the beach and tideline.
Checking the larger gulls we found an adult Lesser Black Back but no amount of grilling the Herring Gulls exposed our ‘mystery’ bird, had it been there we would have found it in the excellent conditions.
Where to next? Back for another look for it tomorrow.
In the meantime let us know what the mystery bird was in your outback.

Useless supermarket

The Safari as expected didn't get further than the/a shop today. What a naff place, full of dweebs over-loading their trolleys with mostly pointless rubbish and that includes us! Worse was to come - after being overcharged to the tune of 20 quid once outside we noticed the major disaster - WOT NO ROWAN TREES!!! This must be the only berry tree free supermarket car park in the world - consequently not a sniff of a Waxwing.

A Tundra Bean Goose was with about 500 Pink Footed Geese in a roadside field less than a mile further on too...isn't hindsight a marvelous thing, by the time we'd turned the puter on it had already turned dark, will we be able to get there though the traffic after work tomorrow?

Where to next? Off to mope!

In the meantime let us know what's in the trolleys in your outback

No pic of any Waxwings today - shoulda gone to Leighton Moss - but you're probably bored witless by them now! So have something summery to brighten these cold dark days up with.

Come on snow - do your worst!

The Safari was woken terribly early by Frank this morning - perhaps Frank knew how much snow there was out there, he loves the stuff. Here's Magpie Wood before 06.00 hrs this morning.

Yep the numptie eats the snow - so much of it he gets his tummy chilled and it makes him shiver - silly boy!
Just seconds after this pic was taken he got wind of a Fox and chased it half way round the estate - silly boy!
Back at Base Camp we had a real rarity - 2 Starlings! Three Blackbirds and a Robin feasted on apples and scattered sunny seeds, The feeder was largely birdless although a Goldfinch and a Greenfinch (just singles of both) were heard. Bird of the morning was a fly over lone Pink Footed Goose. later about 50 flew over whilst yet more wood was being sawn. Not a single Blue or Great Tit today.
Around lunchtime we had an impromptu bin-less visit to Chat Alley. not often it looks like this!

On the way we had about 100 Pink Footed Geese going east over the town centre. Once on site we noticed several small flocks of 'finches' going north and a lone Lapwing. Eventually about 30 Skylarks went past at shoulder height, this time going south.
We didn't go quite as far as Pipit Slab but we did get a couple of Meadow Pipits followed by two then a third Pied Wagtail.
There were plenty, probably approaching 100, Redshanks on the beach following the ebbing tide. A couple of Sanderlings and Turnstones were seen too.
But what made these footprints on the ornamental rock face?
Looking north from the southern end of Chat Alley.

Looking north from just past the top of the last pic.

Looking south from near the southern end of Chat Alley

Did we see any chats? Yes, a Robin was looking cold in the scrat of a garden there.

You might be used to 2 1/2 metres of snow and are wondering what all this fuss is about -well, this 2 1/2 inches is a heavy fall for us! And when we go out before 20.00 hrs and the car's thermometer is telling us it's - 6C outside that's just mind-numbingly cold and going to fall even further overnight. We can't find the record low for Blackpool but we doubt if we've ever had -10C which may happen tonight or tomorrow night.

What do we like about the snow?
1. The chaos it causes

2. The crunch of fresh snow underfoot

3. Frank going doo-lally-tap like a demented puppy - he loves the stuff

4. The gull's plumage showing crisp against the grey sea and leaden sky

5. The burning sensation on warm thighs as a cold gust of wind goes through thin trousers - not too often though!!!

What do we dislike about the snow?

1. Dirty slush

2. Everyone else's footprints

3. Morons deliberately throwing snowballs over the seawall to make the gulls and waders fly

4. De-icing the car for the umpteenth time

5. the scary fact that our wildlife has to spend the long cold nights out there.

Where to next? Might just get a short safari in tomorrow but it is the day of the ultimate shop-athon for next week's mega chompfest, so unless there are Waxwings in the supermarket car park we might not see much at all.

In the meantime let us know who the morons are in your outback