Wednesday 30th November

Of course I should have realised that the unidentified waders in the last post were in fact turnstones. I'm really not quite sure how I missed that as I've seen them before. Perhaps the photo made them look bigger than I was expecting.

Last week mainly avoided the great outdoors in view of ongoing cold snap, but on Sunday visited Northumberlandia with my sister - a surprisingly barren place for birds in view of the fact that it's been established for a few years. Just two swans on one lake and a couple of crows and seagulls. More exciting was a kestrel hovering over the edge of the huge opencast mine next to it.  It made me remember how rarely we see them now in Dumfries and Galloway.

I have spent some time out looking for waxwings but couldn't find them at the ice bowl or in where sitings had been reported, nor around St Michael's churchyard, where they often attack the yewberries.

Waxwings in Georgetown

Heathhall

Then following a lead on twitter I amended my planned bike ride today and found them just a few minutes away on the main road out of the estate towards the Craigs. They seemed to be still roosting. Also it looked to be a bigger flock than reported elsewhere.  I counted them and there were about thirty.

Had a bit of spare time so took a detour to Caerlaverock WWT and quickly saw a stonechat moving across the road.  I then regretted not having brought a pair of binoculars as there were a couple of birds that were hard to identify at distance, including the statutory barnacle geese (no binoculars needed).

Returning through the same area, I then did spot a kestrel, making it two in four days.  Very pleased after my wistful thoughts about kestrels on Sunday.

Whooper Swans

To top that there were about 100 whooper swans in a field just past the Brow Well riding east - not a totally rare sight, but pleasing nevertheless..

I returned through Heathhall, but two groups of waxwings on the same day was asking too much.