Sunday 29th May

A week of contrasts has just elapsed.

I was messing around in the garden on Monday when I was pleased to hear the shrieking of a group of swifts as they skimmed round the rooftops. My first reaction was that it wass early to hear them as I normally think of them as turning up in early June.  Anyway, for the record it was 23rd May.

Wood of Cree

On Tuesday, noting that the weather was starting to break, I decided on a trip to Wood of Cree to check for summer visitors, in particular wood warbler.  Signs were promising at the otter car park where willow warblers were playing by the river and a couple of orange tips drifted by. But on two brief walks I saw neither wood warbler, nor redstart, nor pied flycatcher.  Other birds were calling but not showing and all I could muster in the woods was a wren and, in spite of observing several nesting boxes, one blue tit.

Although the scenery on the way there and in the Wood was beautiful, the only thing I spotted of note was the first small copper butterfly of the summer.  Both Tuesday's walk and the one to Castramon last week were in the mid morning and early pm, so I wonder if my timing wasn't good.  Another notable factor was that on neither walk did I hear a chiffchaff. I am quite surprised not to have seen the pied flycatcher as they would normally be present in some numbers by late May.

Wednesday's bike ride to Dalry brought better fortune.  After an early start I paused briefly to check the sand martins on the River Nith, having forgotten to mention they were already around last Wednesday.

I had decided to go via Loch Urr for the first time and was pleased I did. A strange occurrence just

Suspicious ram with hawthorn attached

before the turn off to the loch was when a small group of sheep were encountered ambling along the road in front of a lady's car coming the other way. I stopped the bike but as they came level with me, the sheep decided to bolt into a big hawthorn bush on the opposite side of the road. One ram, who had managed to get snagged on the bush and a lamb doubled back behind the car and so ended up running down the road for a half a mile in front of me on the bike, as if I was pursuing them, the ram curiously still trailing a large sprig of hawthorn in his wool.

On reaching the turn off, they decided on the Loch Urr route too, so in the end I must have followed them for over a mile before the ram saw sense and lead the lamb off onto the moor, where he continued to eye me with considerable suspicion.

The moor on the way up to Loch Urr was a bit of a revelation as I have never seen as many meadow pipits in an area before, many of them calling and parachuting away in display. Loch Urr itself was a bit bleak and I got pretty chilly in the east wind when stopping for a break. There was however a field full of greylag geese in the field before it.

On the A702 towards Dalry a cuckoos was audible and a couple of red kites were wheeling around. I have never explored this road and there are a lot of attractive niches.

On the way back from Dalry and struggling increasingly against the wind, I made a break up the hill from Bogle Bridge where there is a bit of an unofficial feeding station.  Nothing happened for ten minutes but in the end a female nuthatch and a some coal and blue tits turned up and poked around the leaves a few feet from where I was sitting.  Just as I made ready to get moving, a squirrel ran down the tree next to me before scurrying off.  I noticed it was interestingly coloured, top half red and bottom half maroon.

On the way past Craigadam Woodlands another cuckoo was audible and I saw a quick flash of a siskin flying out of a tree on the outskirts of Dumfries.

Thursday 19th May

It's amazing how interesting species can turn up all of a sudden in quick succession.

Last Wednesday I deliberately planned a bike route through Laurieston Forest that would give me a chance of seeing a cuckoo.  A couple of years ago one of the guys that cycle on Wednesday got a really good view of one just on the Forest edge.

Once up there, a cuckoo was about and easy enough to hear but obviously at a fair distance. On the way back from Twynholm I saw an orange tip butterfly for the second time (first was on a brief ride on the previous Sunday) plus a couple of goldfinches.

Bluebells at Castramon Woods

This Tuesday there were clear signs that the dry weather that had prevailed for over a week was on the way out, I decided on a trip to Castramon Woods in the hope of a pied flycatcher, wood warbler or redstart...

Frustratingly there was plenty of birdsong around but everything was up in the tree canopy and not really showing.  No wood warblers calling at all. Apart from various tits, the birds  I saw most were male blackcaps and interestingly in greater numbers than I've seen before and no females. The disappointment for the lack of sightings was partly made up for by the beautiful spread of bluebells that covered virtually the whole of the woods. Stunning!

On the point of leaving, I heard a cuckoo calling up the valley, but once again at some distance.

Yesterday's bike ride was to Crocketford.  To allow a bit of relaxation time, I decided on the shortest
way their via Lochfoot, not the most obvious choice for potential spottings.

But just after crossing the A75, I noticed a constant churring and grumbling sound coming from the hedgerow and stopped the bike parallel with what I fairly quickly worked out had to be a reed warbler, singing away twenty to the dozen. Of course it took fright when I made to get the camera out no more than three yards away but I was most surprised for it to turn up on agricultural land a good mile away from the loch.  Apparently newly arrived migrants can do this sometimes.

At the loch itself I saw a reed bunting in the reeds.  Although nothing new, it is a while since I saw one.

Part of the thinking in setting out late was to take time on the way back in an attempt to see a cuckoo coming through the Glenkilns where I saw one for the first time.  I duly stopped at the Craigadam Woodland, scene of my last success, and heard nothing.  Moving on to the eastern end of the Craigadam area, I stopped at the far track and found I could hear a cuckoo, again in the distance.  I stayed and it seemed to be geeting a bit nearer, though still back up the forest path.

Eventually moving on, I reckoned I could hear it again.  Looking up I saw a bird in flight that might well have been a cuckoo, probably moving round after the ladies.

Female Whinchat - honest!

At this point I stopped and happened to see another bird, playing around on the dead twigs in the moorland.  It looked very light in colour initially, so, discounting a pipit, I got the binoculars out for a closer look. It hung aroud, retiring to the fence posts and I noticed that it had a strong head pattern and a reddish breast that only showed when the light was on it.  So it dawned on me it was a whinchat, no rarity perhaps but not a common sighting either.

At this point, I heard cuckoo noises again and turned around just in time to see him, settling in a tree just down the road. It was only a brief sighting as it also fled quickly when I got the camera out, but it was a bit closer than when I've seen them before. All I had for a souvenir was a photo of the tree, but never mind...  

  

This tree had a cuckoo on it - honest!

Saturday 7th May

Still playing catch up...

On Wednesday it was back to what has become somewhat usual - a testing bike ride in rather challenging, windy conditions so that the concentration was more on the road on the wildlife.

Loch Arthur

Managed a stop at Loch Arthur for half an hour, where I did however see some swallows and house martins flying over the water surface in the search for flies, plus a great crested grebe and a diving cormorant.  A question arose as to why I did not see any swallows when I was in Italy last week?? And so here's a theory: the birds need to spend more time in Northern Europe than Southern Europe in order to get enough food to feed their offspring and nourish themselves for the flight back to Africa.

Whether this idea has any sense in it, I really do not know. I do however remember comparing notes with a German friend who told me one Autumn that swallows had already left Thuringia when I was still seeing them in Scotland, which struck me at the time as strange. The grebe incidentally was only just developing his crest.

Today took part in a walk from Whitehaven to St. Bees with the Amnesty West Cumbria Group, a total of about fifteen miles.  This is the first and only time I have walked that far, and I had wondered how well I would cope, as I often notice on birdwatching trips that I am quite tired after about six miles.

Guillemots

Well I was fine, although I saw comparatively little in the way of birdlife on the walk.  I think the main reason is that the pace was so much faster than when idling around scanning the horizon for birds. There were a couple of magpies and pipits, some skylarks and the odd cormorant.  And I did get the chance to photograph this guillemot colony, although did not attempt to count guillemots.

Another thing that is prejudicial to birdwatching on a long walk is the use of walking sticks. Although much appreciated in terms of getting through the walk, you really need to keep your eyes on the ground to see where you are going to put them.

I was pleased to manage the walk, but for nature purposes, I prefer to take things more slowly.

Thursday 5th May

I'm playing catch up again here.

Not much more happened mid April until I departed for my planned holiday in Naples.  This should have included a couple of nature outings, but inconsistent weather and poor local cycling limited the scope to get outdoors a little.  The main trip I did manage was to the Parco Virgiliano along the Naples peninsular at Posillipo. This is pretty much an urban Sunday stroll but on the 24th, cooler

Stone Pines

temperatures and occasional showers perhaps reduced visitor numbers.

The approach to the park is lined by rows of massive conifers that I was pleased to identify as stone pines, though I had less luck in identifying subsequent local species of tree apart from some almond willows and some lemon trees already in fruit.

During some intermittent spells of sunshine, a couple of wall butterflies and a red admiral showed themselves but, curiously, it wasn't until I was sheltering under a disused ice cream stand that I started to pick out some of the bird species.

A serin parked itself on top of an unpromising bare treetop a few yards away and shortly afterwards, a pair of hooded crows settled briefly in roughly the same area.  Apart from a very dubious possible

Callistemon

sighting at Balcary some time back, this is the first time I've seen them, so it was a pity they couldn't stay to pose for the camera.

I had been seeing some sparrow like birds creeping around in the hedgerows and tree foliage. Whilst again sheltering briefly next to the ladies toilets (!), I found I was seeing them again while looking up into a shrub with spiky red flowers that I believe was a callistemon.

A little bit of book work in my German Book of European Birds revealed that it was in fact an italian (cisalpine) sparrow, an

Italian Sparrow

interesting species or sub-species depending on your point of view.  The opinion of the German Book of European Birds is that it is a cross between a house sparrow and a spanish sparrow (Weidensperling). Little matter - it basically looks like a house sparrow with a totally brown head.

More italian sparrows and serins turned up at different times and I also identified a couple of mail blackcaps. They looked a bit slimmer and more agile than UK blackcaps, but I decided they weren't sardinian warblers (Samtkopf-Grasmücke). These matters get very complicated in mainland Europe!

Two days later I was visiting Pompeii and, although not on nature alert, was pleased to see a swallowtail and a couple more wall butterflies on the wing, as well as a few wall lizards creeping over the remains.  I didn't allow myself to check out the birdlife, as there is more than enough to see at Pompeii in a day.

Altogether a pleasing result for what threatened to be a non-nature holiday.

Spot the wall lizard