Lancashire wildlife

The Safari had a day off work today and was excused the usual early doors Patch 1 visit but we were up too late to go Roe Deer hunting, if it was going to be about we should have been up and out a good hour earlier, Instead we took the opporunity to go Whinchat hunting along the cliffs. Conditions are still good with an nice south easterly helping migrants find the coast.

But after a few hundred yards without a Wheatear it looked a lot less promising. On the walk down to Pipit Slab and beyond we had just three alba Wagtails go over and then two more. Grey Wagtails numbered two too, next over was a solitary Tree Pipit and eventually, well past half way, we found a stonking male Wheatear. A Great Black Backed Gull was the only thing of note in, on or over the sea. At the furthest point we had another much less colourful Wheatear.

The way back on the Lower Walk was a quiet affair with the waves gentle slooshing onto the beach. Our second Wheatear had overtaken us but we caught up with it again. A nice active juvenile Pied Wagtail was skipping about catching flies at the bottom of the seawall. As we watched him doing his thing three other wagtails flew over without calling but had a lot of Yellow Wagtail 'about them' just couldn't get on them quick enough to clinch the deal.

At the boating pool roost we counted 102 Turnstones in various stages of moult and just two Redshanks today.

A selection of Turnstone pics for you...

Still no Whinchats!

A lunchtime short doggy wander up the start of the new North Blackpool Pond Trail saw us count a decent two dozen Speckled Woods. Not much else moving in the heat (yes - heat) of the day althugh a sizeable flock of Long Tailed Tits was heard moving therough the Community Orchard.

Back at Base Camp after a good few errands it was time to sit out in the garden and watch the sky for passing raptors.

Almost immediately we got a high soaring Sparrowhawk, a local bird we think, which plummetted to earth in a spectacular wings tight;y folded stoop when it received a bit too much attention from a passing Herring Gull. A female Kestrel, a rare bird in these parts, passed over headed south. The Sparrowhawk reappeared over the rooftops. Way, way up high, just beneath the cloud base, and sometimes in it, 16 Black Headed Gulls and one Herring Gull motored south; they were so high they couldn't be seen with the naked eye!

Once again the Sparrowhawk appeared. We had a run of Collared Doves every single one of which was going south and there was a steady trickle of Swallows all afternoon which eventually yielded two House Martins.

Butterflies were represented by Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell, Large and Small Whites.

Then, while chatting to a mate who had dropped by, we noticed this little Geometrid caterpillar doing his 'looping' thing. Once we had disturbed him he did this I'm pretending to be a bit of broken twig thing.

A footy walk to Patch 1 with Frank gave us a Great Spotted Woodpecker leaving the trees of the park heading out east, and the Sparrowhawk again. The view north and east from our footy location is exceptional but we didn't see anything moving through.

Where to next? In the morning a trip to foreign lands for a week - Wales! with a couple or three target species to try to catch up with Monika on our Year List Challenge/Race/bit of fun.

In the meantime let us know if it all went to plan or eneded up being a bit different in your outback today.

The Safari’s Patch 1 jaunt wasn’t up to much although there was some more Collared Dove activity – do they think its spring? One blasted through the trees jinking and swerving as if it had an invisible Sparrowhawk on its tail, others were singing if you can call coo-cooo-coo a song. Nothing else of any particular note except that the Blackbirds are becoming a bit more in evidence with them starting to crash round the bushes feeding on the ripening berries.
Patch 2 initially looked as duff as it had been over the last couple of days with a dropping tide and a flat, flat calm, hardly a ripple sea. Oh we love a few days of gentle offshore breezes, almost as much as a raging, goodie bringing hooley.
Barely a gull on the beach and only 14 Oystercatchers. A Cormorant roosted near the still submerged outfall pipe.
Scanning offshore the sea was as dead not even a Common Scoter could be found. Then out of nowhere and extremely close in, actually over the beach once the tide has dropped, a mother and young Harbour Porpoise were seen. Three times they surfaced, each time the calf just ahead of mum; the nearby gulls never batted an eyelid. Then they were gone – where to? We scanned and scanned and scanned some more but never relocated them…how do they do that? Shame the encounter was so brief, but they were close in and it was a lovely serene scene.
All that scanning gave us a flock of 13 Eiders with a handful of young gulls sat on the water a little to the south. Small fishing parties of Cormorants headed out to sea but that was about it as a 1st winter Common Gull edged south above the waterline.
Overhead a little bit of vis mig consisted of two individual alba Wagtails and two Meadow Pipits.
Too many people on the beach at the lunchtime low tide for much to be about other than a roost of sleepy gulls, nearly all of which were Herring Gulls. At sea we found two small flocks of Common Scoters, 50 at most so a lot less than yesterday. No sign of the Harbour Porpoises and no Grey Seals either.
Our friendly neighbourhood fisherman frightening Cormorant was at it again as it struggled to fold and swallow another fairly large flattie. A cull is necessary now – that’s two fish we’ve witnessed it eat in 24 hours. After the substantial meal the Cormorant proceeded to dry its wings whilst paddling around on the water. Looked like a surreal vulture soaring over a very wet Serengeti!
Where to next? Could be a safari for the Roe Deer tomorrow morning.
In the meantime let us know if your outback picked up today.
No pics again today – fingers crossed for some tomorrow.

The Safari had a short trip to Patch 1 yesterday evening and noted the/a Great Spotted Woodpecker was in residence again after an absence of a few days. So was it the same individual or another ‘just passin through’? We think the latter cos after a couple more ‘chips’ it left the trees and flew high to the south, no sign of it this morning. No sign of much at all!
It was a crystal clear dawn, the mountains to the north and east etched sharp against the pink light from the rising sun; far to crystal clear to bring any night migrants down. The only hint of any ‘vis mig’ was a Pied Wagtail heard going over – shouldn’t that really be called aural mig? Hate to say it be we really could do with some cloud cover…nooooooooooo!!!
At Patch 2 things were as lively as we left them yesterday…out to sea…nothing!…On the beach…no more than 50 gulls and two Oystercatchers.
Way to the south and so technically off the patch there were plenty of gulls and six Cormorants roosting up. Monotony was relieved when a Pied Wagtail (suppose we should label them as albas) went over unseen and a few moments later we watched a Grey Wagtail drop below the level of the sea wall and out of sight as it continued its southerly journey over the beach and dune edge…birding doesn’t get much better than this.
Yesterday some lucky so-n-so got a Honey Buzzard going over just to the north of the nature reserve – now why couldn’t this have passed over when we were there all day the day before – not too much to ask to get something half decent once in a while is it?
The lunchtime session was a bit better with a distant Grey Seal bottling amongst several small scattered flocks of Common Scoters, probably totalling somewhere approaching 300.
Six Sandwich Terns put in an appearance sitting on the beach dodging the day trippers...and not a lot else at all.
Where to next? The Rangers say the Roebuck is still kickin about down at the nature reserve but there was no way we were going to see it on Bank Holiday Monday afternoon, but early Friday morning could be promising.
In the meantime let us know how busy or otherwise your outback has been today.
After yesterday's plethora of pictures there are none today, but the sponge haqs been identified as Breadcrumb Sponge. Apparently it smells of burnt gunpowder...shame we didn't sniff it at the time