While we're on the subject of dolphins

This week as people look forward to their summer holidays some of them will be hoping to swim with captive dolphins - - PLEASE DON'T

World Week of Action for Captive Dolphins
01 - 07 Jul 2009
World Day of Action for Captive Dolphins (4 July)

Don't let your dream holiday become part of a dolphin's nightmare.
A week of action to highlight the suffering of dolphins and whales in captivity.
Cetacea Defence came up with the concept of organising a World Day of Action for Captive Dolphins (4 July) in 1992, and the following year the last dolphinarium in the UK closed down. However, many British tourists still visit whale and dolphins shows while on holiday abroad and, in addition to supporting campaigns in countries where dolphinariums exist, Cetacea Defence is encouraging people to act as 'compassionate travellers' and avoid funding animal cruelty while on holiday.
Behind the dolphin's 'smile' lies a world of horror. Most dolphins in captive shows have been taken from the wild, ripped from their families, often as part of the notorious 'dolphin drives' where some dolphins are killed for their flesh and others sold live to zoos.
Once in captivity, the dolphin's whole life is reduced to performing in concrete tanks that prevent them from communicating or diving properly.The opportunity to swim with dolphins in captivity causes even greater risks to the animals as well as to people.
World Day for Captive Dolphins is on July 4th each year - find out more here.To learn about the cruelties of dolphinariums and swimming with captive dolphins, see Marine Connection's informative website.

Sir David Attenborough once said, "It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living."

Lets try not to reduce our appreciation of the natural world to a few lonely, captive individuals in an artificial environment, or worse; pictures in history books.

Right political rant over, the safari is off out to survey the local butterfly populations before it starts raining again and hopefullly before the Horse Flies (aka Cleggs - Tabanidae) have got hungry!!!!!!!

In the meantime let us know what's biting in your outback.

The wanderer returns

Well the safari has returned to civilisation if you can call traffic jams, mobile phones and emergency services’ sirens civilisation.
Our remote location in a deep wooded valley in the heart of South Wales lacked all these…it was a hidden piece of tranquil heaven. Apart from the loudest Song Thrushes I have ever heard that is! The entrance gate is about a 5 minute drive from the cottage along a narrow woodland track.

The alternative way in involves a steep overgrown decent and crossing a narrow ford.
Putting out a crayfish trap overnight in the stream at various points either side of the ford revealed no crayfish. We were hoping for the native White Clawed Crayfish and not the dastardly North American invader, Signal Crayfish (which, had they been found, would have ended up on the BBQ) but could only find young Brown Trout despite a variety of tasty baits being offered.
What about the Red Kites?...missed them! Saw plenty on the drive down through the Cambrian Mountains, more numerous now than Buzzards which are more common than Kestrels, how times have changed! But the only one I spotted whilst not driving I missed taking a picture of as I was waiting for a Spotted Flycatcher to visit its nest site. Snap and be damned; there won’t always be another one soon.
The Spot Fly itself was a nightmare. First photo of the trip, through an old and dirty pane of glass but at close range. It took another couple of days to get another half decent shot, not through the glass this time but at a greater distance. I think the first shot is actually the best.
We had a few trips out. The first to Pendine Sands, home of the land speed record for many years where Donald Campbell broke the 150mph mark 84 years ago in July 1925 (a record that would only last a few months being broken at Southport, just over the river on the safari’s South Side). Frank was never going to break any speed records as he lumbered after his ball through the thousands of Lugworm casts.
A lone, but rather large jellyfish, turned out to be an Octopus Jelly, a species I’ve never come across before. Apparently this isn’t a big one! This Hermit Crab is a little beauty, what a superb pincer. We found him trundling quietly along the beach.
Having never been there before I hadn’t realised there were cliffs and rock pools to explore. The cliffs held a small colony of Fulmars, their stiff winged albatross-like gliding flight easily picking them out amongst the Herring Gulls. A family of Peregrine Falcons could be heard yikkering in the distance and gave brief but distant views.
In the rock pools there were a fair number of these little Cowrie like shells which we don’t get on our beach. They look almost tropical, but are in fact something quite different – the internal shell of a Sea Slug, Acteon. These bizarre strappy horseshoey type thingies are broken bits from a spiral of Sea Slug eggs maybe from Acteon, maybe not as apparently there is no key to Sea Slug eggs – you do surprise me! Many thanks to Kathryn at the Fylde Coast Marine Life Survey for the IDs I struggled with.
On the north coast of south Wales is the small town of New Quay, famous for its connection to the writer Dylan Thomas, and more importantly to the safari, Bottle-nosed Dolphins and other marine mammals. A boaty ride had to be taken. While we waited for the boat to be brought to the harbour wall we were lucky enough to see two, possibly three, Dolphins messing about round the boats right in the harbour itself. Impossible to get photos of, lots of shots of out of focus boats but not a sniff of a cetacean. I need to get some tips from expert dolphin photographer Monika .

Don't blink or you'll miss it!

Boat ride took us past very interesting rock formations were you can see the stresses and strains of the millennia in the twisted and buckled strata. The cliffs provided excellent nesting ledges for Guillemots, Razorbills and Kittiwakes. Once again my photographic skills were sadly lacking and this Guillemot is the only decentish pic I got – I blame the heavy swell for rocking the boat and spoiling my aim.
This Cormorant was in perfect position until it decide to take flight when I pressed the shutter. Fortunately a Gannet, from the big colonies further west, was much more obliging. My first and only attempt at a picture of this species.
Did we see any more Dolphins?...of course we did. Blink and you’ll miss it! There was a small calf with this female and they put on a splendid show of synchronised swimming for about five minutes…excellent stuff indeed. Poor Frank got rather hot on the way back and a way of trying to keep him cool had to be improvised. A couple of Grey Seals were seen briefly but the swell made spotting them difficult.
Back at (temporary) Base Camp a young Song Thrush started sunbathing on the shed roof while a young Robin picked insects from the moss. Unfortunately they didn’t offer a decent shot of them in frame together. Not easy this wildlife photography m’larky!
Around the fishing lakes the warm sunshine brought out a selection of dragonflies and damselflies. The bright blue damsel is Azure Damselfly, look for the ‘Honda’ logo on the segment below the thorax, Common Blue has Barrett’s, the builders, oak tree logo instead. I wish we could get a pair of Large Red Damsels doing this back at our base camp pond! This teneral Darter dragonfly could be Common Darter, but could just as well be a species I’m not familiar with…anyone any ideas/confirmation? Pairs of a rather large species of Pond Skater were enjoying the hot sunshine. Much bigger than the puny ones we are used to up in Safari land.

Finally, one of my favourite bugs, the iridescent, and well named, wasp Chrysis ignita, the Ruby Tailed Wasp. Ruby Tailed Wasps are 'parasitoids' meaning that they eventually kill their hosts: the larvae of burrow-dwelling solitary bees.
What happened to the promise of Badgers…those mythical beasts are just that. Although a sett was on site close by seeing them proved impossible. A concerted effort one night just led to a multitude of bites from a field guide’s full of insects. One morning the BBQ was not where we left it, but later, baits put out to attract the stripey faced critters weren’t touched. As for the Otters…even more mythical but the owner, another David, reckoned one had been active most nights in one of his fishing lakes as every morning it was well churned up. But we didn’t find any evidence of fish being taken and eaten.
Eventually it was time to repack the Land Rover and say good bye to our little piece of Welsh paradise. As Arnie sort of said…’we’ll be back’!
And no more Kites on the way home…shoulda took that photo when waiting for the Spotted Flycatcher.

Reading this back it looks like we didn't see much, but that wasn't the point - it was to go somewhere new and have a mooch round and enjoy what we found, which is exactly what we did...brilliant stuff!
Where to next? Back to more familiar haunts…butterflies to survey near to Base Camp…National Whale and Dolphin Watch is coming up soon, closely followed by National Marine Week...so there will be lots of goodies to report on.
In the meantime let us know what you have found in the outback you have visited for your hols.

We're all goin' on a summer holiday...no more......

The safari heads off down south in the next couple of days to a stunning little oasis in (for Aussie readers - original) South Wales. Where we hope to be able to take a boat trip out into the bay to look for these superb marine mammals in one of their few UK hotspots.

This super photo of a Bottle-nosed Dolphin was taken off the prom just over the road from work by my mate, who I've not seen for a while and I hope he doesn't mind me using his pic. If I'd have stood on the desk I could have seen it from the office window. What a local patch tick...well chuffed, not seen one since off our coast but I keep looking.

So no more posts for a while but hopefully the safari will bump in to lots of goodies from a part of the world we've not been to in the summer before, which we'll share on our return.

In the meantime let us know what you have found on your far flung holiday outback adventures.

The good...the bad...and the sad

The safari had a mixed weekend. The good...a muggy, warm, windless night had the Base Camp moth trap bulging at the seams. Well almost...and some of them put the butterflies to shame.

This little chap is Small Magpie.

Followed by one of the three Brimstones we caught. Even brighter than the butterfly of the same name.

This one is the diminutive Green Pug, all of a centimetre across, if that. The fluffy stuff it is on is an egg box.

Pick of the bunch was this rather splendid Lime Hawkmoth. Again the gratuitous on the finger shot.

After the moths had been duly recorded and sumptuous sausage barm cakes had been devoured the land Rover was filled with biodiesel and pointed at the hills.

Where the prime target was something bad and scary. Scary enough to close public footpaths, not normally an easy task.

No; this Heath Spotted Orchid is certainly not scary enough.



And nor is this fish, which I think is a Salmon smolt.

Was it this clear felled hillside...danger from falling trees?



Certainly some serious dangerous machinery been at work here, but don't worry it's not as bad as it seems - an 'industrial' conifer plantation has been removed to make way for a new woodland of native trees as part of the programme to re-forest large areas of the currently almost treeless Forest of Bowland. A 'forest' in this sense being a mediaeval hunting area for kings queens and other rich bods...nothing much changed in the intervening 1000 years then.

The white sticks are freshly planted saplings.

Could it be this little Common Lizard...hardly a Komodo Dragon is it...Something bigger and scarier looks to have tried to grab it because it looks like it has lost its tail at some stage.

What about this load of old bullocks...well hardly old...

This is pretty scary, no not our Extreme Photographer but the fact he's standing in freezing cold water looking for White Clawed Crayfish with big pincers...but still not scary enough!

No we're thinking something with bigger teeth and much more attitude...Wolf? There is a Wolf Fell and Wolf Hole Crags up here - this was the last stronghold of the Wolf in England.

Five kilometres up the track it lives here. Nearly there and Extreme Camera gear is beginning to weigh very heavy - the 20kg bag feels like 40kg after the last steep climb, but its down hill all the way now...the quarry is in sight.

Made it... but what lives in an old landslip like this?

Getting closer...but what is it??? You certainly can't tell from the pic at this stage.

This is as zoomed as I could get...and you're still none the wiser. From the annotation the critter is obviously a bird and probably quite a big one..
The bird in question (and shot) is a young Eagle Owl. You'd never have guessed from these pics, maybe the Extreme Photographer's will be better on the next post. They deserve to be after he lugged a lens as long as your arm up the hill.

Scary??? Yes apparently the Rangers and the Police have been attacked by th parents when they have been near the nest site taping off the footpath. one of the police officers was hospitalised needing stiches when dad came out of nowhwere with all talons blazing. An angry 3 foot tall bird armed with 8 razorsharp daggers is going to pretty scary to most folk.

These landed gentry, or at least their servants have all the fun. They can drive the remote hills excersising their Land Rovers in their natural habitat and don't have to carry their very heavy shotguns.

While the rest of us get back ache, leg ache, neck ache humping heavy gear up a perfectly servicable road. Now if I were the farmer I'd be running a tractor and trailer up and down from the village at a pound a throw and earning me a few tax free dollars.

But then we wouldn't have seen the fish, the Lizard, nor heard the Cuckoo or the Red Grouse, or had the opportunity to spot the only orchid in the valley. So I guess walking is really the only way to travel on safari proper.

So that was the good and the bad...the sad was that back at Base Camp our little cat Pippin (aka The Pipster) had to be put to sleep today after a short but terrible illness. Sweet dreams Pip. We'rd like you to remember her as she was only a week or so ago spaced out in the summer sun - see post 'No need to go far'.

Where to next? Hmm tricky one...how do you beat the UK's third largest raptor. Off to the depths of Wales soon so Kites, Otters and Badgers will abound...not
In the meantime let us know what is too well camouflaged or too distant in your outback to photograph properly

To bee or not to bee...

Enough of Billy Waggledagger as we used to call him at school. How many bees?

Well only 17, so probably not bees as in the insects.

These...

...as in Bee Orchids. That's far more than we've found so far but they are in flower and that makes life a lot easier. Still tricky when they are secreted amongst taller vegetation.

Most had only one flower but this one has three and another bud looks like it gonan open during the next bout of summer sunshine.

Cute wee things I really like 'em.
And you get a cunning pollination strategy the 'bee' really does imitate a bee - even smells like one - to attract passing male bees. Trouble is we don't have that species here in the UK so how does it reproduce? Well it does a bit of self pollination and relies on some other dumb insects that don't kmow they're not bees. If you're thinking I just regurgitated that info straight off Springwatch I have to tell you I already knew it.

Little belters aren't they. One of my favourites; never tire of looking at them.

Support for the Bee Orchids came in the form of a lone Orange Hawkweed, its alternative name of Fox and Cubs is much more fitting. Another one of my favourites.

Where to next? Weekend safari to distant hills I think.

In the meantime it's orchid time - let us know what orchids are about your outback.

Garlic and bread?

More pics from Raf's Extreme Images, this time from the garden at base camp.


A male Blue Tailed Damselfly is watching over his mate laying her eggs in our pond.

Laying an egg...

Getting deeper...

Submerged...

All this action only 10 feet from the kitchen window.

But up on the garage roof a Herring Gull gets to serious grips with a chunk of stale garlic bread.

A totally handsome brute...

Whilst taking these pics we noticed a dollop of Fox doo-doo on the garage roof. A good leap required to get up there. Baited up with a chicken carcass for a photo opportunity but it disappeared during the dark hours.

Where to next? A trip out coming up soon.

In the meantime let us know what's been chomping your left-overs.

Oh it's hot hot hot

A hot day saw the safari wheel down south of the river to try to find the Sand Lizards. Guess what we failed miserably, but then in three years I worked on these dunes I saw one once and that only fleetingly so what do you expect in an afternoon. We did find some tracks, how did we know they were lizard tracks?...Seen loads in Australia.

We also found a lizard egg laying burrow but for some bizarre reason we didn't take a photo...

Another dune speciality is the Natterjack Toad. It lays its eggs in the seasonal dune 'slacks' to avoid competition from Frogs and Common Toads. But it is a risky strategy because the slacks can dry out before the tadpoles have had a chance to develop sufficiently to leave the water.

Frank did his best to flatten them. Poor dear was on his paws all day in that heat and the Hippo in him just came out.

There are some crackin' plants in the dunes too. Early Marsh Orchids were abundant but finding a decent specimen proved to be hard work many were either going over or had been squashed.

Northern Marsh Orchids, on the other hand, were looking at their very best.

And we came acroos this Helleborine which due to its position high on the side of a dune could well be Dune Helleborine - one of the worlds rarest plants, only found at a handful of sites in the country and nowhere particularly numerous. Unfortunately this individual has had its flower buds nibbled off, probably by a Rabbit, or perhaps a Slug.

White Satin moths were emerging all over the stands of the low growing Creeping Willow. There were thousands of them, all except one were female. This is the male with his featehry antennae.

Couldn't resist the on the finger shot.

This is the caterpillar

A Drinker moth caterpillar was a nice find. A biggy at about 75mm long (3 inches)

As well as moths with it being hot there were plenty of butterflies on the wing including a good number of Common Blues.

A movement on the ground drew our attention and at first we couldn't see anything but we did notice the little hole. Then after a couple of seconds this Wasp reversed out dumped a tiny pile of sand and disappeared back down to continue digging.

In a few places throughout the dunes we came across small groups of the rare Northern Dune Tiger Beetle. This species is only found on one other dune system in the UK but is still fairly common in Europe. Infuriatingly they have exceptional eyesight and the annoying habit of leapfrogging along the path in front of you just out of camera range. Patience was required to get any sort of a shot off.

An excellent day's safari and soon to be repeated I hope.

Where to next? Back on to more familiar territory I think as 20+ Bottle Nosed Dolphins were seen off shore recently...got to be worth a scan!!!!!!!

In the meantime let us know what is rare and exotic in your outback.