Monday 1 July 2013

Didn't go far again today - didn't have too!

The Safari had a look to see what  Stealth-cam had been watching while we slept. No Hedgehogs but these two were rather entertaining. Hope they weren't fighting over the glut of scram - they'll never eat all that lot!
Patch 2 was useless, apart from a few resident gulls nothing was seen over the sea at all.
But this arvo we were on the beach with a groups of children from Manchester.
All the usual stuff was found along with another small piece of Sea Chervil, never seen it before and now we can't move for the stuff!
We made sure that the youngsters didn't go new the masses of jellyfish but they were fascinated by them. Fortunately almost all were the harmless Moon Jellyfish and some of those were still alive and pulsating.
But what is the extra blob on the right hand side of this one - is it another and they're mating? Never seen anything quite like it.
And this blob of jelly looks like two small Moon Jellyfish think we can see the feint outline of the gonad rings on the left-hand one - are they mating too? Are they too small to be mature?
Here's some footage, sorry about the kids moving round casting shadows - they were excitable but hey that kind of enthusiasm is great and has to be nurtured.
After the beach had been ransacked and we'd done our best to persuade the little ones not to take bits of dead crab on the bus back to Manchester...can't imagine the smell and the driver's choice of words and phrases! - we went on a mission to find our local invisible Great Crested Newts, Water Voles and Grass Snakes. None of the above were found but we did see three Frogs, a bit like the three bears in size. A male Broad Bodied Chaser patrolled his patch but wouldn't stop for a photo.
Our patch of Common Meadow Rue took a bit of finding now the other vegetation has grown up but at least there's a decent stand of it.
We could do with a bit more time to explore this site in more detail, it's so undisturbed there has to be some good stuff to be found here...in addition to the invisible newts, voles and snakes.
On the way out we spotted some unusual litter stashed in the undergrowth...a full case of crappy lager
Who'd chuck away a full case of empty beer cans...but look closely and you'll see they haven't been opened...even weirder, who'd chuck away a full case of beer???
Intigued and now thirsty we picked one up to discover the reason why...
No we didn't!!!
We didn't spot the tiny spiderling until we downloaded the picture either.
No further news of the 11 Bottle-nosed Dolphins offshore so keep those eyes peeled if your at the coast this week.
Where to next? More beachy (and other) adventures tomorrow.
In the meantime let us know what's bizarre in your outback.