Post-storm beachcombing

A very rewarding couple of days beachcombing in the aftermath of Storm Frank's winds hitting the Dorset coast.

Harbourside park was home to well over three hundred Barnacle Geese and large flocks of Starlings, Canada Goose, Oystercatchers and Crows feeding on the waterlogged grass.

Studland on New Year's Eve as the tide began to recede left a treasure trove of oddities, many of which I've yet to identify.

Starting with this jellyfish. Very purple, the size of a child's hand. The patterns were not similar of the Barrel jellyfish, a few of which were seen washed up on the shore, six months after they first turned up in Dorset.

This is perhaps the most exciting find, a Sea Mouse. Referenced in an article from a finding in 2013 in Devon here. Not normally found hereabouts as it tends to be buried in the sand deep under the sea.

Mermaid's Purse

Several Mermaid's Purses found, plus Dog Whelk egg sacs aplenty.

A strange squashy orange organism, that originally looked like a piece of discarded satsuma but there were many of them in different shapes and sizes.

Finally we came across several Otter shells, siphon tube extended for feeding as the tide went out.

Trip to Poole Park

A most fruitful afternoon visit to Poole Park. Ostensibly it was for a play in the park but a wander round the smaller lake yielded a sighting of a bat, at 3pm in the afternoon. It had quite long light brown wings and spent a while hunting bugs close to the water's surface. It flew up over the bridge, within a couple of feet of us, and off towards the main lake.

That was followed by a sighting of a Kingfisher hunting from the walkway onto the main lake. It sat on the railings before diving into the water after an unsuccessful attempt and then back up to the railings. The wander then included sightings of Blackheaded Gulls, Herring Gulls, Grey Heron, Oystercatcher, Little Egret, Redshank, Mute Swan, Mallard and Tufted Duck.

Buzzard at Holes Bay

Heading along the pathway at Holes Bay gave us a beautiful close sighting of a Buzzard.

No wildlife, just planes at the Air Festival

Beginning with the Red Arrows

Then the Vulcan making its final visit to Bournemouth

Bognor Regis seafront

Nothing special. Just a bit of Bognor.

Wildlife at Hambledon on summer's afternoon

On a recent visit to friends in Hambledon the sun was shining and the wildlife was rife.

 Admiral butterfly

 Pair of Peacocks

Puss moth (Cerura vinula)

Barrel Jellyfish Royale

Sandbanks beach today saw a monster Barrel Jellyfish wash-up still looking fresh and causing quite a stir on the beach. This one was nearly 2 feet in diameter!

Spiders and Jellyfish

Now is the time when the badger cubs can be expected to be exploring the big wide world but as yet we continue to be visited by the loan adult male. He's perfectly relaxed, slowly munching the peanuts, unperturbed by the neighbourhood cats strolling past. He's even quite happy to lie on his back and do a touch of grooming. Once in a while he is joined by a mate but that seems to be quite rare these days.

With the warmer weather more developments in nature are afoot. The conservatory windows have become a nursery for balls of baby spiders.

In Poole Harbour, along the shore at Harbourside and Baiter Parks there were four Barrel Jellyfish washed up on the beach. It's only a guess that they are the Barrel Jellyfish as these have recently been sighted in the harbour again, and the ones found were a good size in diameter.

Birding in Pagham

Birding and camping to Pagham with John. Started off with a long hike around Pagham Harbour at first light as the tide went out, before visiting Selsey Bill and the new RSPB reserve at Medmerry. Great weather and plenty of birds spotted, in excess of 50, and the opportunity for some pretentious macro-photography on the pebbles at Selsey.

Turnstones at Selsey

Sunrise in Poole Harbour

Early rise for a kayak over to Arne.

Eclipse at Arne, a damp squib

Having decided to experience the solar eclipse from the kayak I paddled into Poole Harbour and sat in the channel off Arne. Heavy cloud disguised the location of the sun, the sky darkened slightly......and that was it. Still saw two Shelduck, a Curlew and Little Egret on the shore and then a Great Blackbacked Gull on the paddle back.

In other news, two badgers were in the garden a week ago and neither looked like Big Boy from last year. The larger of the two had a huge, wide, long tail which dragged an inch or so on the ground, has to be a male. The other one had a noticeably smaller body than the male but it's tail was still quite large, although not quite as long. The male badger had quite a distinct style of peanut snaffling, almost pouncing every time, really burying its nose in the grass each time.

Solo birding at Blashford

In an all too rare solo birding outing I visited Blashford Lakes near Ringwood to see what was going on with the winter visitors. The reserve has a decent range of landscapes so with a diligent couple of hours you could probably gather 30-40 species in one day. The large Pintail flock reported earlier in the week was nowhere to be seen on the lakes I visited but that still left Tufted, Pochard, Wigeon, Goldeneye, Coot, Mallard, Mute Swan, Moorhen, Little Grebe, Cormorant, Buzzard, Blackheaded Gull and a fox chancing his arm along the shore. Over in the woodlands there were good sightings of Greater Spotted Woodpecker, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Dunnock, Longtailed tit, Blue tit, Great tit, Robin, Song Thrush, Blackbird and a Goldcrest.

Unexpected fox encounter

Additional nature updates:

New year's day, having watched the Poole Quay bath tub race we wandered along the shore and came across a freshly dead cuttlefish. Regrettably no photo was taken but you could clearly see the arms and tentacles and a purple mottled pattern on its back.

2nd January - found and identified a whelk egg-sac on the shore at Branksome Dene Chine. It's now in the back garden and looks like this one.

From WildaboutBritain.com

On the evening of 2nd it got better. Out in the garage, stood just inside the door and turned around to see an adult fox 2ft from me. It stood its ground, sniffed the air and only trotted off when I moved. It had a sniff around the flower beds and wandered off down the patio.

New year update

A new year and an update is in order after a particularly barren period borne of laziness rather than lack of action. The badgers have continued to come throughout the summer and into autumn. It's now about 8pm that there's a visit and usually it's just the one and it looks like it's Big Boy. We did have one night with three of them and one looked noticeably bigger than the other two so we assumed it was a male, female and a juvenile, but that's a guess. No more sign of the fox after those few sightings in late spring. Bird life in the back garden remains limited, most of the action happening out front with regular visits from the Jay, Starlings, Goldfinches and House Sparrows. The pond has been re-landscaped in an effort to eradicate the algae so we'll see what a clean pond does for wildlife.

Out for the new year's first wander and the first bird spotted for the 2015 list was a Turnstone at Poole Quay. Beyond that there were Blackheaded Gulls, Herring Gulls, Oystercatchers, Brent Goose and Pied Wagtail.

The new year's eve morning frost afforded the opportunity for frosted landscape photographs in Windsor.

Yes, I did get carried away.