On Monday we decided to spend the day over at Loch Ryan near Stranraer. Our previous trip this year in January had been a bit of a "washout" with terrible weather. The rain, murky sky and windy conditions had made views across the loch rather poor and therefore we had failed to get decent views of any birds on the water and our birding had been mostly restricted to "from the car". So on Sunday evening I called Chris Baines and arranged to meet him at Bishop Burn for high tide and hope to see the immature Iceland Gull that had been frequenting that area of late.Left: Chris Baines birding at the Wig, Loch Ryan 18 February 2008.
We left a cold and frosty Annan, making our way along the A75 for Stranraer with little to stop us on the way. Chris was already waiting at Bishop Burn when we arrived and there were only a few large gulls around the burn.
Bishop Burn, Loch Ryan 18 February 2008.
Plenty of birds around including Red-throated Divers, Slavonian Grebes, Common Scoters, hundreds of Scaup and Eiders and a few Black Guillemots. Dave Bickerton (another Lancashire birder) turned up just after we'd located an Iceland Gull feeding with a bunch of gulls some way offshore on the loch. The Iceland appeared to be a second winter with a mainly "frosty" appearance due to its white underparts, greyish-white mantle and wing coverts suffused with milky-coffee markings. The dainty rounded headed appeared to be white and the small bill pale with a darker tip. Apparently a different bird to the juvenile seen at the start of Feb and likely responsible for the putative Kumlien's report on 19th. Our views were just too distant and hopefully future sightings will reveal the true identity of this bird.
Drake Scaup at Bishop Burn, Loch Ryan 18 February 2008.
After all this excitement we headed through Stranraer and paid a visit to the Soleburn shore. The flat calm conditions looked perfect for locating the Long-tailed Ducks but we failed to find any.
There were a few Pale-bellied Brent Geese near the burn here but plenty more were seen near the Wig. We probably saw about 50 in all. Black-throated Diver, more Slav's (we saw 30+ in all), a Razorbill, adult Gannet and Black Guillemots in various plumages were seen in Wig Bay.
At the Wig itself we spent some time looking into the loch in the direction of Cairn Ryan (plenty of Shags, Mergs and Eiders), on the sands exposed by the falling tide (4 Grey Povers, some Golen Plovers and a couple of Ringed Plovers) and in the fields where we eventually found a flock of 80 or so Twite and 70+ Skylarks. Two Ravens flew over croaking as they went.
Golden Plovers sitting on exposed mud at the Wig.
Our next port of call was the Galderoch landfill site in the hope of Glaucous Gull. We spent about an hour scanning across the tip without so much as a false alarm so conceded defeat and headed off to West Freugh to finish the day.
A D&G year tick came in the form of 8 Gadwall at Clayshant Quarry and a huge flock of Pink-footed Geese could be seen in the distance coming down to feed so we drove around until we found them on the deck. At least 700 were present and we gave them a fair bit of scrutiny before heading back towards Newton Stewart. Another flock of 500 Pinks north of Chris's house delayed our arrival and it was nice to have a cuppa with Chris and Pat before setting off again. 
