Friday 22 December 2017

Drizzle drizzle and yet more drizzle - it's wet out there

The Safari has had laundry 'drying' on the line for over a week and it's still wetter than when it came out of the machine! To say it's been a bit dreich would be the understatement of the year...and today we had thick fog all day too.
Other than having to walk Monty we've barely been outside except to do bits n bobs of Christmas shopping. We've not seen a great lot of wildlife even the garden at Base Camp has been very quiet probably because the temperatures have been well above 'normal' for mid December this week. We did get a very brief surprise visitor the other day though; wee were sat at our desk in the sitting room half watching daytime drivel on the telly, half flicking through Flickr or some other social media on the laptop and half doing nowt in particular at all when by chance we chanced to look up through the window as a Woodcock (Garden #31) flew past the window and up the garden beneath the two pergolas and away over the back fence - the first sighting for the garden and at about 2pm it should have been roosting deep in cover in some woodland. It must have been flushed by a ?cat? from the little piece of rough scrub affectionately know as the Golden Triangle close to the end of our street.
A couple of days later we had a male Sparrowhawk fly through on the same route but this time landed on the back fence and stayed there for several minutes but not long enough for us to grab the camera as we'd not long since put it away upstairs from its normal within-easy-reach place due to a big family birthday meal and lots of guests arriving imminently.
We managed a very early morning walk round Marton Mere to catch up with LR. It was deadly quiet out there even the Robins weren't singing! We did have a Woodcock fly in front of us in the gloom of the pre-dawn as it went to roost in the scrub close to my old cabin. No sign of the Bullfinches later once it had got light - we use the word loosely! There were a good number of Wigeon and Coot on the mere but most of the other waterfowl were still tucked up in the edge of the reeds and mostly out of sight, seeing three Pochards was good - - can't believe we've ritten that, we've made triple figure counts here in the 90s! 
Drake Wigeon
That early in the morning there were few gulls on the water, there's no overnight roost here, so the chances of bumping into the local Iceland Gull were slim to remote. A quick bunk in to the roadside alongside the waste depot was fruitless too...where does that little blighter lurk when it's not being seen?
As always there were a couple each of Cetti's Warblers and Water Rails calling from the reedbeds.
A pre-planned trip down the motorway to Pennington Flash to hopefully find the increasingly disappearing Willow Tits with CR was rained off. We were hopeful that a couple of Yellow Legged Gulls would be there too if we looked through the gull roost hard enough but it wasn't to be.
A wander out today with Wifey and GB along the prom was taken in thick fog, even though the tide was in you could hardly see the sea. We didn't make it as far as Rossall tower, it wasn't far off but was barely visible through the fog.
Plenty of chat but not a lot to see obviously. A few Skylarks flew down the beach looking a bit lost but it seems the Snow Bunting that is sometimes seen the far side of the tower might have joined another and gone down the coast just beyond Patch 2 to where we photographed them last winter, lets hope they stick around down there as the Year Bird Photo Challenge will be on again in 2018 but maybe with slightly different rules.
Where to next? Not sure if we'll get out until after Christmas now but where-ever you are have a happy solstice and a merry Christmas we hope 2018 is a peaceful one for you and don't forget whatever nonsense the humans get up to the wonder of wildlife is just outside your front door so get out and enjoy it.
In the meantime let us know who's the wettest in your outback.

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