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The great outdoors

Here you can find advice on camping, outdoor activities and walking in the UK and abroad.

Outdoorsy Shite - April Top Trumps

526 replies

GrimmaTheNome · 01/04/2012 19:01

Rules as before - nature 'spots' fauna and flora, points for rarity (absolute or relative to where seen), seasonality, eloquence of description. Please declare if you're in forrin parts or a mermaid.

Did I cover everything?

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GrimmaTheNome · 14/04/2012 21:06

Hilbre 3rd time lucky

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chixinthestix · 14/04/2012 21:30

ok Grimma here you go www.ukwildflowers.com/Web_pages/smyrnium_olusatrum_alexanders.htm

GrimmaTheNome · 14/04/2012 21:33

ThanksSmile

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violetwellies · 15/04/2012 10:36

Snow, and what appeared to be icecubes from heaven when I fed the sheep. Normally they are waiting and the lambs plait my legs whilst their mothers get their headset in the buckets.This morning not a sheep in sight, I got all the grub in the troughs ( fish boxes ) and then a galloping wave of sheep poured through a gate hole. Managed to get away before they mobbed me, but hands burned with cold for a while. :)

violetwellies · 15/04/2012 11:46

Heads in the bucket, damn & blast auto correct

AIBUqatada · 15/04/2012 15:56

I preferred headsets in the buckets. Liked the idea of sheep zoning out from the cold by listening to their iPods.

GrimmaTheNome · 15/04/2012 18:28

I read headsets and thought it was a good description of curly-horned sheep Grin

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GrimmaTheNome · 15/04/2012 19:32

Anyway - Hilbre Island.

You walk to it, starting from West Kirby seafront. A couple of miles, mostly ripply sand, via the outcrops of Little Eye and Little Hilbre. That of itself is pretty darned good on a glorious clear sun day.

From the island you look over the Dee estuary to Wales - Views of Great Orme and the snow-capped peaks of Snowdonia.

Flora - bird's foot trefoil and lots of sea pinks (both of which I don't think usually flower till more like May).

Bird life - my first swallows of the year, swooping as we lay on the soft grass out of the wind. Oystercatchers, redshank, blackbacked gulls and a heron.

DH was right about carrying the scope and tripod - seals! Out on a sandbank, a bit too far for binoculars. DD counted 25, but apparently in summer there can be hundreds hauled out there.

We were some of the first over to the island (it is a real island at high tide) and must have been the first to go down the steps and along towards the end near sea level. We'd been told there was a cave full of periwinkles - well, as it turned out we didn't go in to look because we found it was already occupied by a seal pup!!!! DD hared back up the steps to get the warden, he reckoned it had got stranded, couldn't flump over the rocks to the sea but would be seaborne again next high tide. It looked plump and alert. The warden wasn't sure if it was a grey or an (uncommon) common - headshape looked like the latter but that might just have been immaturity.

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AIBUqatada · 15/04/2012 19:55

That sounds like a really wonderful day out. I'm v envious.

For the seal-pup discovery I am picturing a scene not unlike the bit in We're Going on a Bear Hunt, when they meet the bear in the cave and do some double-quick backtracking.

Bonus points for the very excellent use of the verb "to flump," and extra bonus points on top for juxtaposing it so nicely with "plump."

LostInWales · 15/04/2012 21:02

Oh, seals. Well I was rushing on to say I'd watched a beautiful heron stalking about in the river about 3 meters from me and then it caught a fish but I think seal pup trumps pretty much everything. Was your seal pup doing anything clever like catching it's own dinner?

GrimmaTheNome · 15/04/2012 21:06

I backtracked pretty quick because I had the dog (on a lead of course, its a nature reserve)

Hopefully pup is safely back in its element now.

The astonishing thing is, its the sort of thing you might hope for in Cornwall or the Scottish coast - but this is maybe a dozen miles across the Wirral from Liverpool.

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LostInWales · 15/04/2012 21:10

Bloody national park home, I haven't seen anything good for ages and you get a great seal pup spot just off the Wirral. I might as well resign from this months competition already Grin

GrimmaTheNome · 15/04/2012 21:12

A heron fishing at 3 metres distance is Pretty Darned Good too.

Pup was just lying trying to look like shingle. Knowing where to look, I was able to see it from the top of the cliff later, but I don't think anyone else noticed it, so maybe that was quite clever.

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Slubberdegullion · 15/04/2012 21:15

The plump seal pup is a wonderful spot Envy

LostInWales · 15/04/2012 21:19

It did have a surprisingly yellow beak

There must be thousands of seals round here somewhere, I'll have to get off my bum and go and find some. I haven't been around the coast since we got the dog, he's not bright enough to not try and fly off after a bird.

whojamaeggflip · 15/04/2012 21:31

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

Heard the cuckoo for the first time yesterday - summer is most definately on its way Grin

[ridiculously excited emoticon]

GrimmaTheNome · 15/04/2012 23:06

Hearing the first cuckoo of spring is like playing a joker isn't it, double points? Grin

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madwomanintheattic · 15/04/2012 23:16

A wobbly (forrin) baby elk with a couple of adults, making the most of the patches of grass showing after yesterday's dump of snow and today's thaw. First baby I've seen this year! Woo for spring!

AIBUqatada · 16/04/2012 10:05

How fabulous! I can't compete with a baby elk but I've just seen my first swallow of the year, looking lonely on a telephone wire.

Also, I know that oilseed rape is crappy and industrial and monocultural (Sad) and makes my eyes itch, BUT, it does gladden the soul to walk through fields of the stuff. It is like walking through Yellow itself.

Grin
ArielThePiraticalMermaid · 16/04/2012 10:06

Seal pup? Seal pup? In April? That's very odd. If it was fat it was obviously ok, bless its little heart. I want a seal pet, but I fear it would be impractical :(

I saw a swallow the other day. It was five miles offshore so it was obviously just dashing over the Channel on its last leg from Africa. Brave little bird.

I haven't heard a cuckoo for years

GrimmaTheNome · 16/04/2012 18:03

It wasn't an ickly white furry one - but clearly not an adult. I was quite suprised too, but I suppose it was born Nov/Dec so ~4months.

DH managed a couple of good photos with no flash, clear enough to see the nose shape which suggests it is a grey (W=grey, V=common).

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violetwellies · 16/04/2012 20:24

Ariel, seals are not only impractical they are extremely smelly, Worse than sheep.

madwomanintheattic · 16/04/2012 20:51

I camped in a penguin colony once. They may smell worse than seals, but I'm betting there's not much difference. Grin they look adorable, though.

GrimmaTheNome · 16/04/2012 21:11

Ah, but I don't suppose seals smell when they're in Ariel's undersea realm Grin

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FryingNemo · 16/04/2012 22:33

A whole flock of storks! Well cool. Although some were very straggledy the overall effect was top.

Seals don't smell at sea.