The trip started with waiting for the minibus in driving rain, luckily Stuart and I were sheltered from the worst of the gale by Gillian, who was standing in the path of the wind with us safely behind her.
We anticipated squelching around North Cave for the whole day but on arrival at the car park were greeted with warm, dry weather and the enticing smell of sausages, bacon and chips from the butty van. Despite having come prepared with our usual packed lunch a good number of us were tempted to buy a substantial and very enjoyable pre-lunch lunch on arrival.
I was very happy to see some birds with very strange mouths, and was told they were curlews, avocets and shovelers. I certainly don't get those on the bird feeder in my garden in Bradford. Apparently though, I dilly daddled too long en route to the final bird hide and missed even more amazing birds. John's list consisted of:
"Waders seen were Redshank, Ruff, Common Sandpiper, 3 Green Sandpipers, Snipe, Dunlin, Little Egret, an Avocet & at the end a flock of Curlew. Ducks including Pochard, Teal, Gadwall, Shoveler and Dabchick.
Insects = Common Darters, a few Migrant Hawkers's & blue damsels & a Willow Emerald Damselfly. Red Admiral, Small White, Speckled Wood & Comma were the butterflies."
I was very proud of myself this week for identifying a common darter and migrant hawker which I had seen and been taught on a previous trip. The Bradford Environmental Educational Service is really doing a good job with difficult raw materials.
Most of my dilly-daddling was taken up looking at plants and trying to outdo Kevin with remembering the names of some of the ones we had been taught before. We were so chuffed with our meagre success we got the giggles. This week's star for me was Phragmites which was easy to spot, although it is a common plant in wetlands it proved very difficult to remember the name of. I do feel Kevin was showing off a bit with this one. I'll be testing him on the next trip though, hopefully he won't have read this blog and will have forgotten the name by next time. We were disappointed not to see an exuvia, mainly because Kevin and I now have the new word etched into our brains and wanted to shout it out.
For clever people reading this blog, please don't let me put you off joining future BEES trips, most participants are very knowledgeable and everyone is very encouraging. Alice identified a large number of plants and commented: "Over sixty plants still showed flowers albeit sometimes on now fruiting stems. A late showing of centaury and field pansies were a delight. The fruit laden hedgerows show a well-stocked winter larder for the birds."
The ten of us all had a thoroughly enjoyable day.
Angela