Sunday 27th March

Back to wintry weather for most of Wednesday's bike ride and also to reduced sightings.

It started well enough with a nice thrush active on the cycle track, followed up by a couple of goosanders on Lochrutton Loch and, most interestingly, a small number of greylag geese in the fields just past Lochfoot. I certainly haven't seen them there before.

As the colder, rainy weather moved in, the ability and willpower to heep a good lookout faded and much of the ride was about survival.  There were a couple of buzzards around and lots of seagulls.

Sunday 20th February

Things have looked up on the birdwatching front as slightly more pleasant weather reached Dumfries and Galloway over the past 10 days, during which it has not rained at all (!) and some days have proved quite sunny.

I took advantage of the opportunity on Thursday, when I took the train out to Gretna and cycled back at gentle pace to Dumfries hoping to see a few things on the loops off the 'low road' via Cycle Track 7.  I must have missed a signpost as I ended up riding straight to Eastriggs, but on the next loop towards Annan, I noticed a large flock of birds flying overhead and tweeting away merrily before landing on the telegraph wires in the distance.

My first reaction was that they would probably be goldfinches, but on getting out the binoculars I could see that they had nowhere near enough colour about them. Annoyingly they had their backs to me, but I could see they were not chaffinches as they did not have a white wing bar, just a white outline to the tail.  I could see that one bird had some streaking on the side of its chest, and then one of them turned round to reveal a reddish breast.

Linnets On Wire

At this point I realised they had to be linnets.  In another photograph, I could identify that there were 42 on the wire and that was after some had flown off.  This is not untypical for linnets at this time of year but it was the first time I have seen so many together.

From the same place, I had a view of a skylark ascending and on rejoining the tourist route, there was a woodpecker hammering violently in some bare trees but I couldn't get a view of it.

I stopped for lunch near Powfoot Golf Course where a couple more linnets flew over.  After that the wind got a bit more chilly and I rode faster towards home, only hearing some curlew and seeing a couple of buzzards.

On Saturday I was at Cragside House in Northumberland, where there wasn't much active on a still, cool day barring a few small trout.  But there were a couple of duck diving on the same lake and I was able to identify that they were scaup.  If I have seen scaup before I don't remember it or haven't known it, so that was pleasing.

Just before leaving this morning, there was a greenfinch at the top of a conifer, singing his head off.

Sunday 13th March

Wednesday's bike ride was to Thornhill and the approach to Portrack seemed promising.  A lot of singing was heard from the trees,a flock of goldfinches flew high over the trees and a small volley of yellowhammer passed over the hedgerow.  There was also a slightly mottled bird with some tail decoreation that didn't look spotty enough anyway to be a redwing or a fieldfare. I wondered about golden plover as I got the binoculars out just before it made off, but didn't convince myself.

After that there was just a heron standing in a farmer's field (why do they do that?) and a fleeting buzzard.  However, I did get a puncture and after that was more concerned with getting home in a sensible time than anything else.

On Friday I finally got round to my first attempt at flyfishing at Alderneuk Fishery but typically, the sport went off during the day while I slowly learned the art of casting a fly line.  In spite of a lot of water-whipping I didn't get anything in my net until I packed up (see below).

5 lb Catfish?

Today has been considerably warmer and the fish have been belting frenetically round the pond in the garden.  This seems to be a futile attempt at mating activity.  Also got out for a quick walk around Crichton Gardens listening for chiffchaffs, but no luck.

P.s. I forgot to add that last Monday (7th March) I saw my first butterfly of 2016, parading past the window of a friend's living room. It was a red admiral.

Thursday 3rd March

It's really been a case of little to report over the past ten days.  Last week's bike ride was a 'saw nothing, heard next to nothing event' and, to my surprise, so was the walk I went on at the north end of Ae Forest last Saturday.  After four hours all I had seen was a couple of blue tits and a robin and was left wondering whether the new windfarm had anything to do with it.  Then, on the way back to way back to the car, a couple of dippers showed themselves briefly on the Ae Water, which was incidentally incredibly clear so that you could see straight down into a pool about 10' deep - and that it was totally empty of fish.

Yesterday I decided on a long bike ride down the west side of the Nith estuary and it was a similar story.  Even usual bankers like goldfinch and buzzard were not appearing. Then coming back over the moors, I saw two red kites being mobbed by a bunch of corbids a bit north of Fallgunzeon Farm. This is certainly not the furthest east they've been seen, but I haven't noticed them in this area before, which is a good way from their original haunt on the far side of Loch Ken.

Red Kites

Then on the military road just after Milton, there was a kestrel hovering - always good to see but these days you see one where a decade ago you would have seen ten.  At times I wonder if there's just less birds around than even two years ago.

Today however, as if to call me a liar, there was a small flock of goldfinches sitting in the hedgerow as I made my way along the cycle track after dropping the car off.  Then there was a row of dunnocks in the tops of the smaller trees, singing for all they were worth.  A lot of birds were singing in fact, and my thoughts turned happily to spring.