Friday 17th June

Last Sunday, I went on a late trip up the Cairn Valley to the area I have indentified as being likely for redstarts.  It was a very dark evening, very little about - plus the path to Netheryett lead me through some lush meadow, which quickly brought on a hay fever attack.

I did manage to identify a couple of chimney sweeper moths in the aforementioned meadow.  There were some samll white ones drifting around as well but I'm not good enough on moths to know which of many species they could have been.  Otherwise a heron and a couple of wagtails were about all I saw. I spent some time wondering about the difference between white wagtail and pied wagtail.  I really think I'd need to be with an expert to be sure of it.

This week's bike ride was a bit more interesting.  For the first time, there was a really large number of sand martins on the River Nith and they made a fine spectacle swooping around (unfortunately no picture as was still awaiting new camera).  Then I stopped at Lochrutton to see if there were any birds moving in the reeds.  There were - sparrows and a couple of blackbirds.  But heading along the military road on a fast downhill section, a bird momentarily settled in the hedgerow and, from its profile showing a dark tail with white edging and a mottled breast, I was able to identify it as a female linnet. Not bad for a two second sighting at 20 m.p.h!

Approaching Kirkgunzeon, I heard - not for the first time here - some birdsong I could not recognise and, eyes streaming with hay fever again, the only indistinct sighting I got looked like a chaffinch with wing bar but chaffinches don't sing like that. Stopping at the stream there, oddly known as Kirkgunzeon Lane, I did momentarily think I'd seen a female redstart among the sparrows drinking at the water's edge.  It wasn't.

Wednesday 8th June Part II

Flowers by road

...Having devoted Saturday to other pursuits during we did manage to see some nice flowers (right), we decided on a couple of short walks on the Sunday. The Knowetops Loch short walk probably wasn't a brilliant idea as there weren't many flowers and aas a result very few butterlies in evidence. There was one large brown butterfly that flew across the path at one point (Grayling ???) and a several dragonflies that seemed to me be four spotted darters, plus signs that fish were around. Unfortunately I smashed the LCD on my camera the other week so could not get a decent photo.

So we moved on to the unofficial feeding station near Bogle Bridge, where nuthatch and the three main tits turned up immediately though interest in the nuts I fed them was halting.

Moving on to the Craigadam Woodland area we started to have better luck.  While driving the car along in low gear a willow tit paraded itself on the drystone dyke.  We got out for a brief walk and

Broom

noticed a couple of small heath butterflies floating around. There were also a few carder bees on this plant in the pathway (rubbish photo taken on phone) that I take to be a bit of broom that has spread.

Then to my pleasure, we heard the cuckoo again, probably four or five times. I had doubted but hoped that Malcolm would at least hear one but hereby lies a bit of a controversy as my understanding from the telly was that cuckoos are the earliest birds to leave the country and often do so by the end of May. The RSPB book suggests however that they may be around until August. Could there be a bit of a North South divide on this one? I don't think I've heard cuckoos after June at any rate.

Continuing the second gear journey through the Glenkilns, there was even better luck when we got a view of a brownish bird sitting on a fencepost that proved to be a whinchat, so it was good after the non-appearance of willow tit at Ken Dee Marshes that Malcolm had the chance to see a genuinely scarce bird.

This was quite near where I sighted the whinchat a couple of weeks ago so we stopped there again and there was another probable whinchat sitting on the fenceposts there but it was hard to make out against the light and the brown vegetation in the background.

Further along there were a good number of meadow pipits about but they wouldn't pose for long and weren't parachuting. The skylark was only heard fleetingly.

The other thing we didn't see on Friday or Sunday was very much evidence of birds of prey.  this perhaps confirms the message we got on the goshawk hunt last March, when the ranger pointed out that they tend not to be active  if the wind is low.

We made another brief excurdion along the path from Roukin Bridge as I reckoned it looked possible for redstarts.  We didn't see any but it does.  I may well return.

Wednesday 8th June Part I

Last Wednesday's bike ride turned into a time trial rather than a nature watch but a visit from Malcolm gave the opportunity to make a couple of excursions into birdland.

On Friday we decided on an evening trip to the Ken Dee Marshes Reserve, my personal agenda being the continuing pursuit of summer visitors as well as the chance for Malcolm to see things he hasn't encountered before.  I was also hoping that an evening visit might be more productive than the last couple of late morning sessions.

Frankly, the reserve proved somewhat frugal in revealing its potential.  A possible explanation was the large colony of nesting black-headed gulls that have colonised the islands between the two main hides. Noticeably there was not much non-gull life out on the lagoon apart from a couple of sunbathing tourists on the far bank of Loch Ken. Remarks in the logbook suggested that other species are not best mates with black-headed gulls.

The feeders did at least attract male and female woodpeckers, a great tit and eventually a rather pale looking nuthatch, presumably a female.

On the way to and back from the second hide, I did at least manage to identify a spotted flycatcher emerging from the nesting boxes.  Of redstart there was (as ever at this location) no visible sign and we did not hear the wood warbler singing, though we did both have the experience of thinking that birds emerging from nesting boxes looked too yellow to be flycatchers. Surely not?.. More likely to have been blue tits.

As last year even pied flycatcher seemed to be a bit of an isolated experience rather than the frequent one encountered in past years. ON the feeder at the now somewhat dilapidated hide, woodpecker and nuthatch duly reappeared.

There wasn't anything else on the way back to the car park, where a singing song thrush displaying clearly at the top of a nearby tree kind of ironised the whole experience.