Friday 31 July 2015

National Whale and Pipe Watching Week Day 7

The Safari was out with Frank the other night and spotted there was a bit of moon out.
At work colleague big JG has been terribly worried cos he's not seen the Rabbits under the front hedge for yonks, he's afraid the Fox or local cats have had them all. We've not seen them for a while but this morning one was out on the nearer lawn when we drove up first thing.
A look at the sea wasn't productive despite the light offshore wind and overcast sky making conditions much more conducive to spotting blubber.
In the office we learned that a Common Seal pup had been found on the beach at the end of the Prom. Not often they are seen off our shores and when they are they are invariably pups in some sort of trouble often not long weaned and become dehydrated due to not being able to feed in rough sea conditions. 




There was some movement that caught the corner of our eye on the lawn outside the office window, a male Pied Wagtail collecting plenty of insects for a brood of youngsters somewhere.
Taken through the dirty double glazed windows so not the clearest of pics

At lunchtime we had our regular National Whale and Dolphin Watch, just an hour during the week, and had a great group of volunteers from the Cumbria Wildlife Trust to show the ropes too. But there was a huge piece of pipe on a truck right in front of our usual watching point so we had to move down a hundred yards or so. 
The pipe on the truck was a tiny piece of a rather larger one being towed into position by barges on the other side of the wall.
Large! It was huge, about 1000m long, so big it was never going to fit in one frame on the camera.

It was towed in this morning by the tugs from Holyhead in Anglesey after being towed all the way from Norway where it was manufactured.
The action here didn't stop us from hunting down blubber and towards the end of the watch one of the girls found a Grey Seal
The hour was up and we had to go back inside. But the excitement was too much so we nipped out for another look after munching our butties. 
We'd missed the main event of them turning the pipe through 90 degrees and floating it down the channel that had been dug for it...dohhh.
Wonder what it'll look like tomorrow.
We did spot a little wildlife in the form of a few Oystercatchers flying over the pipe as it was being winched/pushed/dragged.inched into position.
Where to next? A longer full four hour National Whale and Dolphin Watch tomorrow from Patch 2, will there be any blubber, if so will it be the tentatively identified Orcas from west Wales - we wish!!! Will it be the Beluga seen off Northern Island yesterday - how bonkers is that only lordy knows how many thousands of miles south of where it should be - what;s going on?
In the meantime let us know who's burying what in your outback.


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