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.