Tuesday 31st January

Mr Henderson gave me a tip as well, when I mentioned that I was targetting twites but thought they were only in the far West of the region.  The result was today's double visit to the Carse Pow estuary at Carsethorn and Southerness Golf Course.

I may have seen them at Carsethorn when a flock of birds went up from a gorse bush with some rather jittery toing and froing but couldn't get close enough to see them with the binoculars as they settled, camouflaged as they were against the brown of the field edge.  The only option was to go closer and most of the flock scattered leaving only two birds on the fence, one of which was unidentifiable and the other a chaffinch.

I patrolled around a bit but in 2 Celsius with a biting Easterly coming in off the estuary, I wasn't for hanging about and went back along the shore, picking up incidental sightings of oystercatcher, shelduck, redshank and dunlin.

A quick circular walk in the surrounding lanes was warmer and produced several hundred barnacle geese, a dozen golden plover (long time, no see) and lone crested duck and pochard on the trout farm - but no twite.

I had no precise area of Southerness Golf Course to target and decided to walk round it clockwise, starting next to the dunes.  There was very little about apart from more waders and for a long time the only birdies I saw were on the 16th green.

Golf courses are bigger than you imagine but even after a half way rest all I could manage was a couple of meadow pipits and a flock of chaffinches next to a farmhouse by the road.

About to give up, I started to follow the track back toward the clubhouse.  After a while I noticed a side track to a farm field in the centre of the golf course, which seemed to have been ploughed up for the cattle.  There were a few rooks around.

Passing along the edge of the field I saw a large flock of small birds go up in the far corner in a similar manner to those at Carsethorn in the morning.

This time I managed to sneak up to the area where they were feeding on the ground without disturbing them unduly and half hid behind a gorse bush, so that they strayed close enough to identify.  There was no mistaking them - buff necks, yellow beaks and long tails - and so it was easy to distinguish them from the few chaffinches mixed in with the flock.  I even attempted a photo which turned into a 'spot the twite' competition.

Spot the Twite (hard)

So another big landmark within a week!  In the past I thought I might have seen the odd twite on occasion but I would now say they were almost certainly linnets.  The only exception was a posse of ground feeding birds I once pursued at Balcary Bay but couldn't identify.  But that was in the summer.

Sunday 29th January

Today goes down as my first ever twitch.  Decided I had to get out at short notice and elected to head for Loch Ettrick, where a great grey shrike has been sighted.

Having gone too far up the road to Polvidan, turned back and saw a guy with a bird telescope on the side of the road.  Got out and asked him if he was looking for the shrike.  He said he was looking at it right now and let me take a look.  Sure enough, there it was, on the top of an old tree trunk in a reforested area.

Turns out it is a bloke called Brian Henderson of SOC who is writing a study on shrikes in Scotland! So he was able to pass me on a load of further information.  Seemingly the shrike has been eating voles and lizards (in January!) and has also taken a coal tit.  It has teeth in its bill to break the neck of its prey, eats the head then leaves the rest stuck on a tree stump for later.  Except in this case, a kestrel stole one of its dead voles.  Brian has been looking for the pellets it regurgitates and sending them for analysis.  He wants to know why they eat the heads of their prey.

He has also told me there are merlins in the area. Overall a very successful day.  I took a quick walk through the forest further South and there is a lot of walking potential.  All of a sudden I know how I'm going to spend the rest of the winter!

On the way back to the car, I saw a kestrel nosing around the woodpile, as if looking for more dead voles.

Tuesday 27th December

As it's a mild winter with no evidence of a waxwing irruption or any twites locally, I've been keeping indoors, but a nice surprise leaving the gym last Wednesday was a flock of around 100 siskins descending onto a small lime tree near the entrance.  They seemed to be finding plenty to eat.  I have not seen such a large flock before.

News of some exotic sightings - notably willow tit, bittern and Bewick's swan tempted me to a walk at Castle Loch today, unfortunately truncated due to steady drizzle.

Did not see any of the above but, having stuggled to identify a mixed convoy of ducks, did see nuthatch and pleasingly 3x treecreeper (first in a long time) apart from tits of all three main varieties. All swans were mutes.

Willow tit was reported near the castle and the area does look promising with many dying trees and dead wood.

Monday 21st November

Brief trip to Clatteringshaws yesterday to check reports of crossbills by the visitors' centre.  I think I may have seen a couple but hard to confirm when peering directly upwards in misty conditions.

Castle O'er Forest walk.  After the trip to Clatteringshaws yesterday a forest walk seemed like a good idea.  Planned an extended route on the main forest roadways as it was wet.  Quickly saw a flock of bullfinches on the edge of the first conifers. Heard but did not see pipit on the moor by the iron age settlement.  Walking north behind the settlement, a lot of small birds high overhead (siskins?), then a few goldcrests in a lone deciduous tree (long time, no see) and two pairs of red deer as the sun came out.  Strange to see bullfinch and goldcrest ahead of chaffinch and blue tit, but these appeared on the NE corner of the route, along with other tits and a single woodpecker at the very top of a pine tree.

Thought this would be the day of no long-tailed tits, but hey presto, they turned up in the last half mile within sight of the car park.  More goldcrests where bullfinches had been.

Pleasantly eerie atmosphere throughout the walk.  No wind, totally silent and so warm the midges were out.  Plenty of mature trees with cones, but no crossbills.

Sunday 13th November

Longer than planned bike ride.  The plan was to continue along the Cairn valley past the Dunscore turn off, following the road (not a recognised cycle route) up into the moors to check for birds and see how steep it got, then turn back with a view to doing a circular next summer via Drumhumphry, Crocketford and Milton and home via the Military Road.

I knew it was only 10 miles to Corsock from the Dunscore turn off, and when the uphill proved to be a fairly gentle affair, it was just too tempting not to attempt the whole lot - so I ended up missing Drumhumphry and doing near on 30 miles while hurrying it a bit to make sure I was back in town before dusk.

Once again there were long-tailed tits all over the place.  As soon as the Cairn sidled up to the road, they were around but also again spotted a linnet (getting good at linnets!) in the top branches of a tree. Shortly after there were a couple of jays.

After that there was nothing extraordinary all the way to the Dunscore turn  apart from long-tailed tits and a young red deer I startled near the estate past the Shawhead turn off, which ran parallel to the road for a hundred yards before making an escape over the pheasant wiring.  I checked for dippers in the shallower bits of the Cairn but didn't see anything more than a heron startled by a farmworker crossing a bridge.  And of course a volley of long-tailed tits in the scruffy hedgerow past one of the farmhouses.

By now the road was in the middle of farmland that looked like it would offer more traces of pesticides than wildlife.  Once I topped the rise into the moorland proper, it was a brilliant downhill ride and looked superb - except that it was stunningly silent all the way to the T junction for the Corsock turn.

I may have sighted a couple of meadow pipits on the way into Corsock (where have all the meadow pipits gone?) but otherwise that was it!  What would it have been like in summer?

However the Law of Irregular Returns was again proved on the road to Crocketford, when I first saw a buzzard and then two pairs of red kites circling the area near Mawhirn Cottages.  This is the furthest I've seen them from their release point on the other side of Loch Ken.  Then just five minutes later, I saw my first fieldfares of the winter, a little group of six on a farmer's field.

Even the unpromising stretch along the military road had a couple of surprises with a lttle series of junior buzzards, and, just East of Lochfoot, another lonesome kestrel patrolling the young trees that have started to grow there, rather as if they were part of some conservation project.

Monday 7th November

There was also a profusion of sparrows feeding in the bushes outside my mother's place yesterday, and making a major racket.

Today set off on the Glenkilns loop via Terregles and regretted it at first as it was cold and misty.  But the mist cleared a bit before Shawhead and the sun got out. Came across a field full of greylag geese and some canada geese at the back.  Slightly further on spotted a few linnets, although I only eliminated twite after looking in the bird books.  The neck is the best distinguishing feature by the looks of it.

There were two small buzzards on successive telegraph poles on the road up to Glenkilns Reservoir, where there were lots more greylags and canada geese as well as some mallards and the inevitable pair of black swans.

I saw a couple of volleys of long-tailed tits in the trees at the back end of the lake (they are doing well) and, almost to order a few stonechats on the way over the moors, messing around in the dead bracken.  Unfortunately, the weather seemed to get colder again as I went down into the Cairn valley from the tops, so I wasn't for hanging around on the way back.

If I'd named two birds I wanted to see today it would have been linnet and stonechat, so you can't really have better than that. And the bright light over the reservoir and the moorland made for some lovely views - great to be out on the bike again.

One bird NOT seen today or on Friday was the meadow pipit, so perhaps they're all away to the merseland.

It made me think that winter isn't too bad a time with days like this. I think my key targets this year will be twite and waxwing, so that's something to aim for.

Friday 4th November

Walk round Geltsdale reserve.  Amazing how often a few birdwatching sightings occur in a short space of time, while long periods on the same trip remain barren. This phenomenon needs a name so I shall call it provisionally the Law of Irregular Returns.

Immediately I arrived a bird of prey flew over that wasn't a buzzard.  It had the build of a harrier but flew too high, too steadily and too fast.  All I could make out in the binoculars before it disappeared was some black and some grey.  It wasn't the white-tailed eagle sighted there in October (which was probably one of the juvenile passage birds that come down from Fife from time to time) so I don't know what it was.  Maybe harriers do fly more purposefully sometimes, when looking for new venues?

Moving on, three ladies immediately stopped me to see if I could tell them what birds they had just seen in a farmer's field.  After consulting the RSPB guide, we agreed fieldfare and redwing were the most likely and, sure enough both have been reported at the Information Centre.

As soon as they left I was pleased to sight a male kestrel perched on top of a tree as they've become a rare sight the last couple of years.  But after that - nothing!

Well, there were a few sparrows by the farm, some coots on the tarn, a couple of blue tits and a few crows, but nothing noteworthy, nothing that you set out to actually see.  The Law of Irregular Returns - QED.

So I spent a couple of hours vainly hoping for a one-off ring ouzel or the reported crossbill (surprisingly reported since there are only a couple of small swathes of conifers).  I was also feeling increasingly tired, having not been out walking for several months and drove off early - just as a heavy downpour moved in.

Meanwhile, I have been noticing quite a few long-tailed tits around the estate and there was a coal tit on the bird table. Glenys was lucky enough to see a sparrowhawk in the garden after she put some bread out for the numerous sparrows.