Not much ado about nuthing

The Safari once again drove down the prom with one eye fixed firmly on the sea, and what a sea it was with grey skies (= no shadows) and barely a ripple it looked bob on for seeing stuff.

There was doggy disturbance when we were passing Piedy Puddle so no birds there today.

Within a few minutes of arriving at work we had the scope on the wall and were scanning. Sadly the conditions were far superior to the fare on offer. It wasn’t long before we found two Grey Seals bottling fairly close together and then a third well away from them in the middle distance and that was about as good as it got! A few Sandwich Terns blogging about and a couple of Cormorants went past hardly warranted the ink in the notebook...all somewhat disappointing.

Still we looked forward to lunchtime and our next session with the scope. This was a little better. Conditions were still pretty good and we could see a long string of Common Scoters sat out close to the horizon, very difficult to count with any accuracy but we estimated between 1000 and 1500 were out there rolling around on the gentle swell.

The Sandwich Terns were still blogging about, the light so good that we could see the yellow tip to their bills at an enormous range! A small flock of Sanderlings flew south followed by a single Turnstone that may have been flushed off the outfall pipe by the rising tide but that was about the size of it. Of the earlier Grey Seals only one could be found...why couldn’t the conditions have been like this last week when we saw the whale sp? Woulda got a crippling views!

No chance to look around the gardens today although we did check the pond and found seven 3 Spined Sticklebacks – they’ll have to go next week!!!

Where to next? Bank Holiday weekend promises to be a wet one – nothing new there then but at least (at the moment at any rate) Sunday evening/night looks OK for our moth n bat night in the Rock Gardens.

In the meantime let us know what wasn’t happening in your outback.

We almost got away with a pic free post but walking up the front path at Base Camp we spotted a little green thingy on next door's window frame, so we leaned over the wall and potted it...a...

...Hawthorn Shield Bug nymph.