Home Sweet Home

A curse upon Chopwell Woods!   I keep visiting in the hope that it will produce some reasonable sightings and invariably come back disappointed.

On my last attempt about three weeks back, the main notable event was the almost total flooding of the southern path into the woods from Blackhall Mill. 

I only managed to start the walk at all by scrambling through the puddles next to the bushes and the best thing I actually saw were a few clumps of snowdrops by the River Derwent after getting off the bus.

In spite of wandering around fairly extensively through the western part of the woods, it was pretty much like a desert with hardly a thing to be seen and precious little to be heard - just a couple of blackbirds, the odd pigeon and a few blue tits.

Even when I strayed into Chopwell East Field during a burst of sunlight, the only change was a slight increase in the amount of bird song.  You would usually reckon to see a squirrel or two somewhere, but absolutely zero - just our canine friends and their captive humans.

A couple of bike rides - to Bolam Lake and yesterday to Corbridge produced nothing at all either.

So once again my interest has been tied to what happens in the garden and nearby.

Red kites have been active over the village and on one occasion right over the house as I drove into the front drive.  Coal tits and long-tailed tits have been doing well, the latter being the second most-spotted tit visitor and interestingly both are more prevalent than great tit, which seems to have dropped down the rankings for some reason.  A pair of blue tits inspected the nesting box, but as in previous years, did not pursue their interest.

Robins have visited frequently and I noted that two of them were untypically tolerant of each others' presence.  Then it became apparent that some mating behaviour was starting and one day I suddenly spotted THREE robins on the gravel within an area just one metre square - but of course it only lasted a couple of seconds or so.

As well as the regular dunnocks, a wren has been seen twice. 

Marsh tits have been past occasional visitors - meaning literally once or twice a year - but last week one actually turned up on three days out of four.  After several attempts when it proved nervy, |I finally managed to get a reasonable photo of it on its last visit.

Marsh Tit

It hasn't been seen since, but of course that doesn't mean it hasn't been back.

Overall though, my campaign to up the level of bird sightings this winter hasn't been a great success and I'm now looking forward to the return of butterflies and bees over the coming weeks.

Which reminds me that at by this time last year, I had already seen my first red admiral.  What a difference a year makes!

Catching Up

Dear, oh dear! I'm well behind with all this, partly because I took the liberty of going on holiday and partly because I've seen some things that have proved tricky to identify.

Let's start in the garden - about three weeks ago.

Sadly my forget-me-nots are now finished but the male bullfinch continued his visits to them and was last sighted raiding very close to the house.

Greedy Bullfinch

The same day, while taking a break in the summer house, I discovered this strange looking wasp crawling around.

Strange Wasp

I believe it is a form of ichneumonid wasp, without being able to identify it further.

The mystery bee mentioned in my last post continued to turn up in the same place and the nearest I can get to labelling it is that it MIGHT be an orange-tailed mining bee where the colouration has been faded by the sun.  One or two sightings suggested an orangey tinge on the tail and it has occurred not far from here.  I also considered a honey bee drone but the abdomen is too solidly black.

Suspected Orange-tailed Mining Bee

A few days before all this, I fitted in a trip to Prestwick Carr in temporarily overcast weather.  I went late in the day, hoping to catch up with a short-eared owl which duly failed to appear.  However I did get a nice view of a wren, and a chance one of a willow warbler, which I had first thought was a whitethroat!  At the feeders there was a willow tit and a tree sparrow I didn't even notice seeing.

Wren	Willow Warbler
Willow Tit	Tree Sparrow

Well I did say the light was poor! It certainly made the only speckled wood butterfly seen look a bit sombre.

Speckled Wood

I reckon Butterfly Conservation NE will record a record drop in Speckled Wood numbers this year.

More about my holiday shortly...

After a slight delay..

Unfortunately nature activities have been suspended over the past month due to a bereavement followed by a loss of broadband connection, broken boiler and lengthy powercut in the wake of Storm Arwen.

As a result I've seen very little beyond what has turned up around the garden.  I only got out on one trip, a bike ride to Corbridge when, after seeing a single low-hovering kite early on, I spent some time peering into someone else's garden.  Apart from trying to transform a chaffinch into a brambling as someone once amusingly put it, there was nothing of any significance.  

There hasn't been that much in my garden anyway.  A couple of weeks back I glimpsed a queen wasp

Long-tailed tits

passing by the mahonia but no early bumblebees, which might have been a possibility.

I've spent some time thinking about the long-tailed tits and how gregarious and shy they are.  I moved the suet balls they obviously like onto the plum tree to see if they would come closer.  Apart from one occasion they didn't so I put them back near the fence and about six visited shortly afterwards.  It's a case of feast or famine though.

For a while a dunnock with no tail visited the bird table, moving uptypically slowly. The first time it even stayed there motionless for about an hour.  Presumably it had been attacked.

A wren has also visited on a couple of occasions.

My occasional visitors have sometimes noticed tawny owls calling from the trees by the stream.  I don't usually but there was one evening, quite early, when there was one calling from fairly close by.

A sighting of a furtive jay in the same area had me wondering if one would visit the garden again, but nothing so far.

Monday 8th March

Recent paucity of nature news can be blamed on poorish weather and continuing lockdown, hopefully better is soon to follow.

A slightly bright nore has been offered by several appearances of a male nuthatch in the garden and, on one sole occasion that of a woodpecker.  Yesterday I planted some wild flower seeds at the back of the garden as it is only now that frosty nights are starting to look less likely.  Part of the thinking here is that the copious amount of garlic mustard that used to grow in the same area hsn't yet appeared.  Maybe I was too radical when knocking it back last summer.

I've done a couple more walks in Chopwell Woods, whose main success lay in finding further routes that avoid the heavily-used car park and ice-cream van.  During the first one, there was at least some birdsong to be heard and evidence of jays in the trees, but that was all apart from a grey squirrel, the odd robin and a single wren.  Last week the second one was a return to the baffling near total absence of birds.  I can't understand it.  You'd think among so many trees there'd be treecreepers and even a crossbill or two.

One thing I did come across on the way in was a heron on nearby farmland.  This evokes the question I wondered about often in Dumfries.  Why do herons visit farmland in winter - to seek out worms and insects or because of fishmeal compost?

Heron

This one is obviously next to some flooded land but I can't imagine it would hold fish and it seems to be looking elsewhere.

More interesting was a visit with Malcolm to check out some of the lakes maintained by Wansbeck and Cramlington Angling Club during a brief warmer spell.  Walking up to Milkope Lake there were a good number of skylarks in the fields.  They were flying low in pairs rather than soaring alone and it looked like this was some sort of pre-mating activity.  On actually reaching the pond, a good number of people were fishing and catching small stuff.

On Horton Lake nearby, one elderly angler took about half an hour to land a near 6lb bream on fine pole tackle and a visit to Brenkley Lake established that it had recently produced a 19lb carp.  We've taken out membership and I hope to report on some fishing activity before the end of the month.  I had wondered if it would soon get warm enough for butterflies to be seen early but the weather quickly deteriorated over the weekend

A bike ride the Monday after started in mist temperatures of 3C rather than the anticipated 9C but at least led to the sighting of a group of tree sparrows huddling in a tree,  I was out riding again today in warmer but windy weather and did get a closer than usual view of some tufted ducks at Bradley Pond on the way home.

Tufted Ducks

Wednesday 27th January

There has been a surprise visitor to the garden last week - a chaffinch.  Not the rarest of birds by any means but another example on one that isn't seen too much up here. 

I was over in Dumfries at the weekend and did a walk round the Mersehead reserve.  On a pretty cold and bright day, the low sunshine meant the scenery was beautiful but made it hard to identify and photograph the birdlife.

Heading for the beach there were some canada geese in the fields and a little egret flew past overhead.  When we got there the tide was as far out as I've ever seen it and there was a clear view across to Skiddaw on the other side of the Solway.

Skiddaw across the Solway

Several flights of barnacle geese flew in from the West and landed on the reserve.  It was also very still and the only bird of prey we saw was a buzzard on a dead tree who steadfastly showed his back to us.

We went along the coast towards Southerness some distance in the hope of spotting some merlin after small birds but in vain as there werfe only a few corbids in the fields.  All we saw on the shoreline was one of several robins encountered and a wren.

On moving back inland we encountered the first of two groups of deer.

Roe Deer

Moving through the woodland strip we did see several throstles feeding in a field.  It was hard to make them out properly but on careful observation they seemed to be mainly fieldfare and some mistle thrush.  We didn't see any redwing in the group.

Tits and chaffinches were visiting the feeders on the way to Meida Hide but nothing more exciting. The hides were still closed and almost all the wetlands still frozen and the only ducks were too far away to be seen with binoculars.  Nevertheless a very pleasant walk.

On a brief exercise bike ride today there were some nice bullfinches on the way to Greenside and by Blaydon Burn.  Back home three long-tailed tits were on the peanut feeder at dusk.

Tuesday 22nd December

It continues to be a period when I'm seeing more activity in the garden than on my trips out.

A trip to Holywell Dene only revealed a few tits and a walk at Wallington Hall some more tits and a single nuthatch.

Long-tailed tit

However my garden nuthatch still visits the bird table often, and several long-tailed tits often appear though generally just for short raids.  Coal tits are still the most frequent visitors, ahead of blue and great tit and the larger birds.  Wren, dunnock and blackbird have all turned up plus the 'not quite right' greenfinch (see previous two posts).  The long-tailed tits have started feeding a good deal on the fatballs, which have been neglected right through the autumn period for whatever reason unless I had removed them from the feeder and put them somewhere else.

There has also been a surprising first - a goldfinch.  Although common locally, I've never seen one in the garden before.  Overall, it seems the shorter days and the need to feed intensively around the middle of the day is the main cause of the increased traffic.  

On Saturday I did take a trip to Swinsty Loch in North Yorkshire for a socially-distanced walk with daughter and fiancé with slightly better results, starting with a good view of a red kite over the village as I set off.

The walk around Swinsty Loch is advertised as a gentle stroll on a gravel path.  Unfortunately the youngsters had decided instead on a hike through the moors to Badger Dyke Loch, which unbenown to them proved to be a tour of the local swamp grounds and quite hard on both lungs and legs.

However we did happen on this couple of peacocks on the way.

Peacocks

They were wise to shelter in the little hollow as a full-scale pheasant shoot was underway at Badger Dyke Loch.  Apart from dead pheasants we managed to see several score of wigeon at the peaceful end of the water and a handful of tufted duck on the way back down the other side.  In the fields a few fieldfare and redwing were around without showing too well.

To be honest I was slightly disapponted by the wigeon as I had thought I had spotted some pochard in the group.  At least I felt well-exercised and wholly justified in not doing any exercises at home the day after.

Sunday 31st March

The magpies have continued their nest building efforts. Though at times I was thinking any of the three little pigs could have done a better job, it does now look reasonably stable though not fully visible through the bushes.  So far there is no sign of chicks.

Perhaps also looking for a nest site, two or three fat tree bumblebees have worked their way through the garden.  More amusing however have been the antics of some of the pigeons as they seek to feed on the ivy berries out the back.  One even looked like it was having an ivy bath.  A wren has also visited and I got a nice shot of it singing from the 'dreadlocks' bush, so called because I don't know its real name.

Pigeon

Wren

On a bike ride last Wednesday I heard my first chiffchaffs of the year as soon as I was out of High Spen and they are now around in the woods at the back of the garden.  Between Wylam and Matfen skylarks were about and on the River Pont in the village there was a dipper that was spending so much time underwater I started to wonder if it was a small duck.

On Friday there was a Nature Walk at Whittle Dene Reservoirs.  Quite a few birds were seen but mostly at very long distance, notably wigeon, teal, goldeneye, curlew, cormorant, grey heron and greylag goose.  

Towards the end of the afternoon the wind dropped and we did get a few better sightings near the Southern Reservoir.  There were a couple of feral pigeons at the farmhouse, a few pied wagtails and a good view of a meadow pipit on the fence.  I thought I'd seen a warbler but others disagreed. The best thing we did see was a quick flypast by a sand martin, the first hirondine of this summer.  From all that, the only decent photograph I got was this heron.

Wednesday 13th February

Blue Tit house hunting

A bit of a landmark moment occurred last weekend when the first blue tit (that I have seen anyway) undertook a fairly detailed viewing of the nesting box on the side of the summer house. So far there hasn't been a second viewing but it's a step in the right direction. Robins are starting to become tuneful as another sign of the approach of Spring. A red kite flew straight over the garden yesterday as well just after I had got of the bus around 4.20 pm. I've also seen goldfinches when walking to the bus stop.

Last Wednesday I was out on a bike ride and saw three or four bullfinches along the cycle track just west of Rowland's Gill and as good a view as I've had of a jay, plus a couple of grey squirrels and a buzzard and a kestrel later on.  The kestrel was actually hovering low over the left-hand side of the road as I was approaching Whittonstall.  For a moment, I thought it was going to let me ride straight underneath it.

This was all largely eclipsed by an excellent trip to the Big Waters reserve with the Nature Watchers group

Iceland Gull

this Monday.  There were a number of bullfinches on the way to the first hide, where a number of ducks and geese were quickly identified, including wigeon, teal, tufted duck, canada and greylag geese.

Gulls aren't really my thing but it was interesting to see a herring gull on a well-frequented island straight in front of us.  One of our more expert members also pointed out an iceland gull that clearly dominated the others. Later a number of lapwing landed there too, giving an excellent display of iridescent plumage in the bright sunlight.

The second hide was even more productive.  A number of reed buntings were passing through the reeds and eating the heads, as were incidentally a couple of blue tits.  A wren also passed through, low down into the reeds.

There was also an area of cut grass with a large number of bird tables and feeders to the rear of the hide, which attracted a very wide variety of visitors after a time, including bullfinch, great tit, blue tit, reed bunting, tree sparrow and yellowhammer.  This was not however where I would have expected to see a water rail, which strutted over the lawn on a couple of occasions and appeared to be relatively tame.

Reed Bunting

Water Rail

Yellowhammer

Both the water rail and the iceland gull were first sightings for me.               

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.

Thursday 25th January

Thankfully househunting activity has ceased now but has again seriously impeded my nature activities over the past month - as will doubtless the actual move once it comes about.

I got out on the bike on New Year's Day, more for my health than anything else but did encounter a field full of geese that I stopped to observe through the binoculars.  I swithered over whether they were pink-footed geese or greylags but the resulting photo decided in favour of the former, betraying the decisive 'heads dipped in chocolate' appearance.

Heads dipped in Chocolate? Pink-footed Geese

A couple of weeks ago, I started another bike ride from Ken Dee Marshes and encountered a group from the South who were looking for the Greenland White-fronted Geese there. On a cold morning, I wondered briefly whether to join them.  The reward for not doing so was a close up of the rear end of a roe dear but there wasn't anything else that day apart from hearing a woodpecker.  Service was slow in the pub and I had to do a Tour de France effort to get back in time for other commitments.

There have been one or two other minor compensations.  A wren has visited the garden twice and there was definitely a now rare kestrel resting by the A75 on a cold househunting day.

On a break from house hunting in Chopwell Woods, a woodpecker could readily be sighted and there was a goldcrest feeding on the ground near the path.  This was interesting as a lady has posted on Dumfries and Galloway Wildlife and Birding that a goldcrest has regularly been feeding on her lawn. I surmise that they are struggling to find the small insects they eat in the trees just now.

Thursday 28th December

A long lapse has been brought on by an outburst of househunting and so no nature activity.  The one thing I did notice was a casual visit to the garden by a wren.  I'm sure this must have happened before at some point but I can't remember the last time I saw one there.

But yesterday I needed to get some fresh air after Christmas and set off to Mersehead following a couple of reports of bramblings in the area, notably on the feeders at the Visitor's Centre which seemed a good idea on a chilly day.

Greenfinches

I duly arrived and found a profusion of birds around the feeders, the first being a yellowhammer that was not to reappear later.  It was nice to see a couple of tree sparrows quite quickly too. The low, bright sunlight made it difficult to see colour and I at first thought there were some bright, small birds that might be of some note. The photos showed some birds obviously had a yellowish tinge and on finally using the binoculars I could see that they were female greenfinches and almost all the others were tree sparrows.

This was in itself interesting as I would never have expected the scene to be dominated by these two species and have never seen either bird in such large numbers.  There were some tits, dunnocks and blackbirds plus a fair few chaffinches but at times every second bird was a tree sparrow or a greenfinch.  It also seemed to me that the female greenfinches were a bit smaller than the males, something I hadn't observed before.

Meanwhile I scanned the chaffinches for anything that looked a bit different, i.e. a brambling but no brambling did appear.

After some time I set off for a wander towards the hides.  Apart from the barnacles, various flocks of which were honking all around the pace, there was a big cluster of birds motionless in one of the bushes on the path to Bruaich Hide.

Linnet

Again the light was difficult but I took them to be linnets.  They sat motionless as I gradually approached as if saving their energy on such a cold day.  In the end they did reluctantly fly off apart from one, presumably their PR Officer who stayed on his/her perch and allowed me to get a close up. 

Apart from that there was precious little to be sighted in the distance on the wetlands and I was having a bit of trouble focussing my binoculars, which got steamed up with the change of temperature on leaving the visitor's centre.

So I decided on a yomp across the beach before returning to the feeders just before dusk.  It was all very enjoyable in the sunshine, very still and quiet but again nothing to be seen (apart from a single heron over the wetland).  The reason in my view was that the tide was extremely far out, and so all the waders, birds of prey etc. move out with it.

Mersehead - very pretty, but no birds in sight!

At the end of the day I spent a good hour watching the feeders until the sun started to disappear.  Still no brambling...

Monday 2nd January

I managed a mid-festive season walk last Thursday and decided to try one of the walks between Moniaive and Dalry I have noticed while cycling.

Unfortnately the experience was marred by the weather, which although reasonably clear around Dumfries, turned to light drizzle and a fairly substantial mist at my eventual selection, the Margree Circular.

In any case there seemed to be fairly little to see and all I managed to spot in the first hour was one large buzzard disturbed in trees near a lochan and a couple of wrens. As I continued round the forest path, a coal tit started an amusing game of hide 'n' seek as it kept fleeing along the trackside ditch and trying to hide behind any vegetation it could find.  But every time it lost nerve when I drew level and flew on again.

Then there was a small flock of finches in some sparse trees, though the light was so poor it was not possible to pick out any colouration on them at all beyond the white rump in flight.  I supposed that they were bullfinches, though brambling may have been a possibility.

Shortly after this it became apparent that the occasional signposts for the track had become completely non-existent, so there was no way of confirming whether I was on the right road at junctions.  With conditions deteriorating and darkness approaching, I decided to retrace the whole of the route covered so far, at which point the walk became a minor safety exercise and all attempts at spotting were abandoned.

Although the walk was a relative dissapointment, there was one noteworthy feature of the day.  On the drive towards to Moniaive I saw a red kite hovering over the road just a mile or two out of Holywood. Kites have been seen in the Lochmaben area but this is definitely the furthest East I have ever seen them.

Sunday 29th May

A week of contrasts has just elapsed.

I was messing around in the garden on Monday when I was pleased to hear the shrieking of a group of swifts as they skimmed round the rooftops. My first reaction was that it wass early to hear them as I normally think of them as turning up in early June.  Anyway, for the record it was 23rd May.

Wood of Cree

On Tuesday, noting that the weather was starting to break, I decided on a trip to Wood of Cree to check for summer visitors, in particular wood warbler.  Signs were promising at the otter car park where willow warblers were playing by the river and a couple of orange tips drifted by. But on two brief walks I saw neither wood warbler, nor redstart, nor pied flycatcher.  Other birds were calling but not showing and all I could muster in the woods was a wren and, in spite of observing several nesting boxes, one blue tit.

Although the scenery on the way there and in the Wood was beautiful, the only thing I spotted of note was the first small copper butterfly of the summer.  Both Tuesday's walk and the one to Castramon last week were in the mid morning and early pm, so I wonder if my timing wasn't good.  Another notable factor was that on neither walk did I hear a chiffchaff. I am quite surprised not to have seen the pied flycatcher as they would normally be present in some numbers by late May.

Wednesday's bike ride to Dalry brought better fortune.  After an early start I paused briefly to check the sand martins on the River Nith, having forgotten to mention they were already around last Wednesday.

I had decided to go via Loch Urr for the first time and was pleased I did. A strange occurrence just

Suspicious ram with hawthorn attached

before the turn off to the loch was when a small group of sheep were encountered ambling along the road in front of a lady's car coming the other way. I stopped the bike but as they came level with me, the sheep decided to bolt into a big hawthorn bush on the opposite side of the road. One ram, who had managed to get snagged on the bush and a lamb doubled back behind the car and so ended up running down the road for a half a mile in front of me on the bike, as if I was pursuing them, the ram curiously still trailing a large sprig of hawthorn in his wool.

On reaching the turn off, they decided on the Loch Urr route too, so in the end I must have followed them for over a mile before the ram saw sense and lead the lamb off onto the moor, where he continued to eye me with considerable suspicion.

The moor on the way up to Loch Urr was a bit of a revelation as I have never seen as many meadow pipits in an area before, many of them calling and parachuting away in display. Loch Urr itself was a bit bleak and I got pretty chilly in the east wind when stopping for a break. There was however a field full of greylag geese in the field before it.

On the A702 towards Dalry a cuckoos was audible and a couple of red kites were wheeling around. I have never explored this road and there are a lot of attractive niches.

On the way back from Dalry and struggling increasingly against the wind, I made a break up the hill from Bogle Bridge where there is a bit of an unofficial feeding station.  Nothing happened for ten minutes but in the end a female nuthatch and a some coal and blue tits turned up and poked around the leaves a few feet from where I was sitting.  Just as I made ready to get moving, a squirrel ran down the tree next to me before scurrying off.  I noticed it was interestingly coloured, top half red and bottom half maroon.

On the way past Craigadam Woodlands another cuckoo was audible and I saw a quick flash of a siskin flying out of a tree on the outskirts of Dumfries.

Wednesday 16th December

I'm enjoying this time more than usual but it's still a bit depressing to see how little decent daylight we are getting - a maximum of around four hours here. No wonder primitive man thought the world was coming to an end.

Went out for an experimental walk yesterday in the area of Barwhillanty Forest and Loch Roan, experimental in the sense I had no idea how attractive the area would be in any respect. Initial impressions in terms of wildlife would have confirmed the notion that the world is coming to an end as nothing was around for the first 45 minutes at all.  In terms of scenery, it was however an extremely attractive stretch of mixed wood and moorland and profoundly still.  I would imagine it to be a beautiful area in the summer and the numerous ponds would probably mean lots of dragonfly and insect activity.

Loch Roan

After nearly an hour I did manage to see a couple of pairs of bullfinches - or possibly the same pair twice about half a mile apart.  They seemed almost to be unwisely limbering up for the mating season, perhaps a reflection of the ongoing mild temperatures that have produced only one frost to date.

Apart from that there were only a few coal tits in the conifers and a couple ofwrens muttering in the undergrowth.

On the way back from Loch Roan (private fishing only) as dusk approached, things did liven up a little.  A reluctant buzzard shuffled around the trees, and half a dozen pipits emerged from the rushes to circle around a bit overhead as if irritated by my presence.  Just I was reflecting that I hadn't seen a single crow or gull all day, a crow wandered lazily across the skyline as the car came into view.  The last bird I saw was a single dunnock.

Thursday 11th December

Bad weather has all but put a stop to trips out, gale force winds making cycling dangerous this week.

Did attempt a viewing of the Gretna starling roost yesterday after a matinee cinema visit, but only reached Rigg a half an hour after sunset, not having realised that "Mr Turner" was 150 minutes in length.  Apparently Rigg is where they have been settling, although it does seem to vary from time to time.

This morning marked another sporadic appearance of a coal tit around the garden, but more interesting was a strangely marked sparrow I have seen once before.  It has two white wing bars and the first time I saw it I thought for a moment it was a chaffinch.  Perhaps it is slightly leucistic.

This afternoon, took a walk round the Threave Estate, where I was greeted by a wren that was so light brown that I thought it was a butterfly flying across the path in the cold.  Then it sat in the hedge just in front of me like a huge chestnut.

On arriving at Blackpark Marsh lower hide, the whole area was flooded and a first look suggested no birds at all on the total expanse of water.  A second look with binoculars confirmed this, but maybe the birds knew what would happen next.  Contrary to mild weather forecast, a severe storm blew in from the west, turning to hail that was even accompanied by a couple of thunderclaps and sheet lightning.  A flock of barnacles passed by overhead as if disorientated.

Spot the bullfinch

As soon as the storm subsided, birds started to appear but the poor light made it hard to distinguish any colours until I managed to pick out a few widgeon and a several lapwings .  The next thing there were as many as 200 lapwings circling above the marsh, more than I have seen together since the early sixties, when lapwings commonly follwed the plough at harvest time.

Eventually fleeing the hide as it grew colder, I spotted a bullfinch playing in the undergrowth and four dark-coloured deer on the farm field but not much else beyond a few dunnocks, tits and a couple of geese and swans.

Wednesday 5th November

Another fine day of low sunlight interspersed between days of rain for bike ride to Beeswing via Troston.

Butterflies seem to have finally disappeared and the talk in the cafe was that the first fieldfares have been sighted.  I didn't see much beyond tits and chaffinches.  Stopped to check some sliver birches for suspected goldcrests but I couldn't get a view before they dispersed.  Apart from that, more wrens, a couple of thrushes and a dead red-legged partridge as well as a dead badger at the roadside.

Thought I also heard some long-tailed tits in town while waiting for a bus.

Where have all the birdies gone?

Thursday 23rd October

A fairly quiet week on the nature front as the autumn thermocline sets it and makes everything seem less attractive.

Wednesday's bike ride revealed nothing new but what was interesting was the number of magpies seen quite far west while heading towards Dalbeattie from Crocketford.  There was a legend thathooded crows replace magpies in Dumfries and Galloway, which was always nonesense as you would need to visit Wigtownshire to have much chance of seeing them.  But the magpies do seem to be gaining a foothold in areas where they were previously scarce.

Several wrens flew in front of the bike, one for several seconds providing a good close-up view. Otherwise geese and buzzards were heard but not seen, the usual array of goldfinches and chaffinches and a couple of cormorants.

Collar doves have reappeared on the garden bird table, two of them as ever, and so did a particularly foolhardy kitten from next door but one, which clambered up to find the table was bare.

Saturday 30th March

Yesterday two greenfinches in trees next to Oakfield Brae.  Must be the breeding season.

Trip to Castle Loch for attempt on willow tit again.  None seen, none heard, though a nature watcher with huge camera and camouflage jacket told me he saw six on the banks of the Annan the other day.

Did however see nuthatch, treecreeper, long-tailed tit, red squirrel, wren, tufted duck and reed bunting (first one this year).  Wren caused me to think how long it is since I saw a goldcrest.

Inspired myself to take a run up to Poldivan area but all quiet.  No goshawk noise.  Sum total of sightings:  dead shrew, two crows on the trees that used to be favoured by great grey shrike and one unidentified raptor flyover.

On the way back a couple more probable redwings (didn't stop to confirm) and one meadow pipit by Amisfield Moor.

Tuesday 30th October

Walk at Threave Castle yesterday, nominally looking for willow tits.  Sort of broke the bind of hearing but not seeing birds as saw redwing, possible woodpecker and fieldfare in the high trees, several wrens, whooper swans, a couple of dunnock (are they another species that has gone down in numbers? - haven't seen one for ages) as well as blue tits and chaffinches.  Detoured back through the wood and also saw jay that had been screeching earlier. No suspect willow tits.  One bench near stepping stones hide is almost out of view of passing birds.  Several blackbirds went very close to me on way to tree nearby.

Very similar result re willow tit today on bike ride through Castle Wood - in fact only saw another jay, some wrens and incidental curlew on way back.  This area looks very attractive with lots of fallen trees, dead wood and damp patches for willow tit, but haven't seen much on several visits. Perhaps it hasn't settled down yet after recent makeover, although this is now two years ago.