Having decided to start at the car park above Glenkilns reservoir in beautiful weather, a bird I had never seen before landed on the remains of the stolen Henry Moore statue - a common sandpiper.
It was a day when I reckoned to watch and listen for cuckoos and so set of over Speddoch Hill in anticipation. there were green-veined whites and orange tips, but no cuckoo.
Heading up towards Loch Urr it was a good day for stonechats and pipits and I reckon I must have seen about five stonechats on the ride overall. On the run down to the loch itself there was a good view of a male wheatear, just when I started to wonder if one would turn up.
Then I flushed a roe deer out of the undergrowth of the moor on the right hand side. So it stupidly decided to jump the fence onto the road in front of me and started trying to batter its way through the fence on the left hand side of the road as I slowed in the hope of stopping its panic. Eventually it climbed clumsily over.
A bit further on, a ewe and lamb decided to jump out onto the road too and then ran on ahead in front of the bike for about half a mile until there was a gate across the road and they faded away through a gap to the left.
By that time I was running late and had to push the pedals quite hard for the rest of the day. During a brief rest, I spotted yet another flower I wasn't familiar with:
Greater Stitchwort
The last part of the trip was my old favourite cuckoo haunt between Bogle Bridge and the reservoir, but not a cuckoo to be heard.
Riding back up to the car park, I caught sight of two or three black swans on the reservoir and as soon as I got of the bike, heard a cuckoo singing from the hill right next to it!
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