Wednesday 21st February

A couple of minor outings this week.

A sudden rise in temperature to maximum 12C encouraged me to take a walk along the Nith south of Kingholm Quay on Monday, where I saw the sedge warblers and the redstart last summer.

Conditions were pretty boggy and the main things that made themselves noticeable were an immense number of oystercatchers, mainly in the fields on either bank.  There must have been several hundred of them, far more than I have seen together at any one time before.

Further down there was another submerged field where there were a few whooper swans taking the air.  On looking more closely at some corbids in front of them, I also noticed that there were a couple of shelduck too.  I did not know they could be found on agricultural land but the RSPB handbook does say "visits farmland near the coast."

Whooper swans with preening shelduck

There were a few mallard, a couple of pipits and some barnacle geese in the distance near Glencaple before I got fed up with the flood debris on the path and turned back with a single whooper swimming up and down the tide flow.

Shelduck

The main group of whoopers took off from the field as did the shelduck pair, the latter turning up again further upstream.

Two days later temperatures were falling but the sun was still bright, so I chanced the bike ride to Loch Arthur over Troston.  There were a couple of song thrushes and a few redwing mixed in with a flock of starlings.  Also a couple more whoopers and a small group of goldeneye (again!) on Loch Arthur itself.  Three woodpeckers could be heard drumming but not seen.

I went back via Kirkgunzeon in the hope of yellowhammers but didn't see any and narrowly missed a flight of geese coming in from the west.

Later, there were also a couple of bullfinch pairs, one male showing well next to road up from the Lochfoot roundabout.

But the main thing about this trip was the tremendous effect the bright, low sun had on my new tinted lenses on the way out.  The sky in the West looked turqoise instead of light blue and Loch Arthur looked blue rather than grey.  The colouration of the trees was also much richer.

There were however some negative results as it was often harder to identify the birds - as well as the existence of potholes in shaded areas!  It even had me wondering if I should leave the glasses off in similar conditions.

Saturday 17th February

A wren appeared in the garden one morning as I was getting up.  Perhaps it is coming regularly.

The weather put paid to even a short bike ride on Wednesday, so the day after I took a trip to Threave Castle as I've seen hen harriers there at this time of year.

On the path to the castle there were two great tits obviously hanging around for any titbits of food, just like the robin on one of my previous visits.  I had really meant to keep my eyes open for willow tits on the way to Stepping Stones Hide but sort of forgot.  I visited the hide briefly as a large flock of geese gradually circled in to land on the other side of the river, just mear enough to see through binoculars that they were pink-footed geese.  I've seen a lot of them this year.

Leaving the hide I noticed a single goldeneye being propelled downriver by a flood tide but still managing to dive for food.

There wasn't much going on as I made my way up the river, having stopped for a brief look at the new and old osprey nest sites.  But there was a small flock of long-tailed tits passing through the trees on the way up to the other hides.  I would like to get a snap of one some day but, as usual, they moved on fairly smartly.

The slim pickings continued during three-quarters of an hour spent in the lower hide.  As I half suspected, the nearest part of the marshy grassland was extensively flooded, which I think decreased the likelihood of harriers passing by.

A buzzard or two flew past and a red kite wheeled around for a bit a good way off.  In the far distance it was just about possible to distinguish some wigeon on the deeper water, but otherwise all was quiet.

All quiet from the hide - apart from a single swan

A nice little foray nonethless.  On the way back to the car, there were a couple of roe deer hanging around the edge of a field for quite some time.

Sunday 11th February

Some nasty weather and other concerns meant that I didn't venture out on the bike for a couple of weeks, so I decided on a bit of self-discipline and set off for a round trip to Bankend and Torthorwald last Sunday.

Just past weekend I saw the pink-footed geese in exactly the same field where I saw them last month and another skein on the other side of the road proved to be barnacles.  The rest of the ride didn't produce much but there were quite a few snowdrops around, though these I took a couple of weeks ago at Ken Dee Marshes.

Snowdrops

Part of the reasoning for the trip was to get ready for a longer ride on to Dalbeattie on Wednesday. I started up The Glen and immediately saw a huge powder puff heading into the undergrowth next to the road, evidence of a disappearing roe dear.  Then there was a male bullfinch flying into the hedgerow, after which I saw a female in the hedgerow on the other side of the cycle track.  I hope I wasn't disturbing anything.

Crossing the road after Kirkgunzeon there was a sole magpie, still not a common sighting west of Dumfries.

The weather was bitter and my hands were freezing under two pairs of gloves so the ride took on more the aspect of a survival challenge.  A frequent sight was loan buzzards perched on telegraph poles, perhaps hoping for enough wind to get airborne without undue effort. Most looked like immature birds.

Then today, after flogging round Mersehead before Christmas and several times keeping my eye out for them, I finally saw a single brambling on the way back from the shops with the Sunday paper.  It was a definite sighting, confirmed by another nature lover who passed by.

Of course I didn't have my camera in my pocket.  I returned with it a few minutes later but the brambling made off and I was left with just a couple of poor distance shots of a bullfinch and a goldfinch near to where it had been.

Bullfinch

Goldfinch