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.