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...

Thursday 26th November

The weather has started to become more seasonal with large variations in temperature and occasional storms.

Did manage a ride out a week ago on Wednesday - an uphill haul to Ae against a very persistent northerly wind.  Did however manage good views of bullfinch, meadow pipit and stonechat before getting blinded by the sun on being transported at high speed back home by the same persistent northerly wind.

Went out for a brief run yesterday before the latest storm closed in and managed resightings of bullfinch on Georgetown Road, goldeneye on the Nith at Kingholm Quay as well as, unsurprisingly, numerous goosander at the caul.  There seems to be no sign of any waxwings yet.

November was also the month of the major fishpond tidy up I have been promising since I was too ill to attempt it last year.  The benefit has been a much clearer view of the four remaining fish (three goldfish, one golden orfe) that are currently being fed on the remains of a packet of past-sell-by-date Cheerios.  Waste not, fishes want not.

Tidy fishpond - with Cheerios

Sunday 26th November

Red Squirrel 

True to my word, I headed for a walk around Castle Loch on Tuesday in lieu of Wednesday's cycling.  As soon as I got out of the car, I noticed a flock of goldeneye on the loch just out from the bowling club, making the sightings of the previous week seem less remarkable. Afterwards I started off by checking out the feeders for a willow tit.  There wasn't one as there was a lot of traffic from other tit family members but I did see a tree sparrow moving around.  I would have got a shot of it as well but this little fellow (right) decided to come along and give a gymnastics display on the same feeder, which of course put everything else off.

Further round the east side of the loch there was this rather conspicuous example of fungal growth (left) that seems to have affected a number of the silver birches, though this was the most conspicuous example. I've no idea what it was.

Unfortunately the weather closed in just as I arrived at the castle and the rest of the walk was a bit of a yomp to get back to the car.  Impressively, it is now possible to walk right round the loch without going on the road except for a very short stretch past the ugly rich houses where the petrol station used to be.

Siskins

As Sunday tennis doesn't seem to be happening any more, I decided to try the same trick today and headed for Castle Loch again.  Unfortunately someone had forgotten to fill the feeders so I decided to head for Eskrigg Nature Reserve, thinking that might be the best alternative for a tree sparrow at least.

Once there of course no willow tit or tree sparrow appeared but I did get nice photos of siskins and goldfinches AND I was particularly pleased to get a not very good one of a treecreeper - not easy as it was constantly on the move. One of the goldfinches seemed to have particularly disinctive black and white rump markings, or maybe it's just a feature of the bird I hadn't noticed before?  The one I didn't get on camera today was the nuthatch, but I've had pictures of them before...

There were also a few red squirrels gamboling around and a lady trying to feed them right in front of her so she could get a close up. One red ran past me, went into her target zone and turned its back on her.

Goldfinch

Treecreeper

Sunday 19th November

A couple of trips to England to do with my voluntary work plus a long lasting heavy cold have cut back on my nature efforts recently.

Anyway got out on a bike ride on Wednesday and again did not get past the Nith before seeing these little items opposite the sewage works at Troqueer.  At first I thought tufted ducks but notable no tufts and not much like goosanders.  On inspecting the photo taken when they were at some distance, I think they are juvenile goldeneye.

Goldeneye

This ride was notable for the very large number of jays I heard screeching around and the sight of their white rumps as they took flight before me.  I've never known there to be so many to be around.  There must have been twenty on the way to and from New Abbey.

I stopped off briefly at Kirkconnel Flow to see if there were any crossbills around.  I didn't see any but a couple leaving the moss had seen them fly over.  There were also a few long-tailed tits around by the car park. A long-tailed tit also turned up in the garden this week but didn't show any interest in staying around.

Moving closer to New Abbey I took a bit of a detour on the path by Kirkconnell Hall towards the estuary, which revealed herons, curlew and a cormorant but by that time my hands were so cold I was starting to lose interest.

I don't think I'll go on the bike ride this week.  Apart from an increasing adversity to cold weather, the more I have got into cycling round in high vis gear at some speed, the less chance I get to be close to especially birds. So I think I may make a change and try walking a bit more over the next few weeks.

Back in the garden the coal tit has been turning up again, and a large amount of feathers in the area of the bird table hint that the apparently daft cat mentioned in a previous post may nearly have succeeded.  No pigeon has visited the bird table since, even though I moved it.

The last butterfly I saw was on 23rd October but there was one reported on Dumfries and Galloway Wildlike and Birding in early November.

Wednesday 1st November

Set off for a bike ride today and wasn't even out of the town when I saw a white bird on the edge of the Nith at Nunholm.  My first reaction was 'little egret' but on jumping off the bike it seemed too small so I decided to move on.  Looking through a gap between the houses I caught another glimpse and started to have my doubts. So I stopped again on the cycle track bridge and looked back to see the same bird, having flown up onto the bank.  This time I got the binoculars onto it and sure enough, it was a little egret, dangling it's black legs behind as it made off for cover.

This reminds me that I forgot to write about my trip to Northumberland ten days ago, when I saw two little egrets in successive days.  One was wading in a pond at the back of Cresswell Beach and another on the River Aln.  They must be getting common over there.  Unfortunately I didn't have a camera ready on either occasion, which made today's spot even more disappointing as I was sure I'd have been able to snap it.

The rest of the ride to Castle Douglas was a struggle against the wind and I only noticed a red kite getting mobbed by a couple of crows.

I had decided to look out for redwing and fieldfare on the way back.  I did see a large powder puff moving into the trees in MacAdam Woods, indicating the presence of a large deer but otherwise it looked as though I would be out of luck.

That was until I spotted just three or four birds in the trees going over a moorland stretch.  I couldn't get particularly close but the poorish photo I took was just enough to show they were fieldfares.

Fieldfares

Wednesday 25th October

Well into autumn now but daytime temperatures continue to hold up well.

Last Wednesday I stopped off at Lochfoot, where there was a flock of canada geese in the shallows.  It was quite a surprise as most geese at this time of year seem to be barnacles.

Canada geese

The other thing I always notice at the nice viewing platform at Lochfoot is the board with illustrations

Bream or perch?

by the local primary kids showing all the wildlife that can be seen on the loch. Unfortunately one of the illustrations appears to be the result of a confusion as the fish depicted is supposed to be a bream but very obviously has some features of a perch, notably the spiny dorsal fin.  Both fish are present in the loch but there wasn't a separate diagram devoted to the perch.

Anyway, I rolled on down the road and was heading towards Beeswing, when I caught sight of a large bird of prey flying skilfully in and out of the woodland.  It was too nimble to be a buzzard, had a pointed wing shape in flight and a palish appearance.  I suppose the commonsense answer is sparrowhawk but that wasn't my instinctive reaction.  I couldn't say it wasn't a goshawk, just that it would be very unlikely at this time of year.

Almost immediately after there was a fleeting sighting of a bullfinch and a female reed bunting. On the way home I saw a red admiral at Shawhead, but haven't seen one since.

This week, riding to Caerlaverock against the sun I cursed the lack of sunglasses and more especially binoculars as there may have been a few redwing in the trees before the Canine Rescue Centre.  There were however a couple of siskins going up the hill toward the Craigs and another female reed bunting.

Meanwhile back at home, my attempt to attract more interesting birds to the bird table misfired spectacularly, as did that of a young pussy cat.

Probably not the best way to catch a bird...

Sunday 15th October

It has been a quiet period between the seasons. A lot of my time has been spent on an overdue tidy-up in the garden including much pruning and chopping so the main forms of wildlife I have seen have been the odd spider and beetle apart from the usual infestation of greenfly on transporting things to the tip.

Temperatures have been fine and red admirals have continued to appear on occasion, the last actual sighting being last Monday.  There would have been more given some sun.  Signs of autumn are however encroaching.  The coal tit has started to reappear though less so than last year when it had a sunflower to deal with.  And numerous quckings from on high clearly indicate that barnacle geese are back in the area.

Trips out haven't produced much.  I did get a shot of female stonechat messing around on the moors at Glenkilns on 20th September and a few willow warblers still in the trees on the way up there.  Last week I saw a single swallow on the way to Kirkcudbright.

Female Stonechat

Yesterday I went for a bit of a walk round Dalbeattie Town Wood, hampered somewhat somewhat by drizzle. Nothing noteworthy appeared, just a few mallards and some garden birds.  It was a nice peaceful atmosphere though, almost eerie in its quite stillness.

Plantain Loch, Dalbeattie