The shore of the Inner Solway at Browhouses, 16 May 2008.Panama was great but it felt good to be back in the UK again so after a day's rest Mrs. B. and I rushed up to Dumfries & Galloway once more for a break. First stop Browhouses on the Inner Solway between Gretna and Annan for a quick look at the shore there. The tide was dropping when we arrived but there were still a few things of interest like 6 Kittiwakes, 30+ Arctic Terns, 10+ Common Terns and summer migrants like Whitethroats, Swifts and Sedge Warblers appeared to be well established but no sign of any Lesser Whitethroats.
2nd winter Iceland Gull, Loch Ryan 17 May 2008.
The next day Mrs. B. and I planned a trip 'out west' towards the Stranraer area. We started at Loch Mochrum (a new site for us) where we found our first D&G Spotted Fly' (this is our first year here in the spring - all our past trips up here in the last 20 years have been in the winter!)* and Cuckoo was calling too.
We then drifted round to Bishop Burn at Loch Ryan where we found this nice white Iceland Gull and teamed up with Chris & Pat Baines for a bit of a chin-wag too. The bird life at Ryan has changed a lot since our last trip - hardly any winter duck at all and Chris put us onto a site nearby for our first D&G Garden Warbler nearby.
The lighthouse at the Mull - Scotland's most southerly point.
Our final site of the day was on the Mull of Galloway where we checked the bays and fields without finding anything of note. At the tip we saw plenty of Guillemots, Kittiwakes and a Black Guillemot around the cliffs. I had a single Manx Shearwater near the foghorn but Mrs. B. likes heights about as much as I like being out on a boat so her concentration was elsewhere.Our last day was pretty good with a nice Lesser Whitethroat at Mersehead RSPB as well as Spotted Fly'. The wetland here is drying up fast though and a decent wader this Spring looks unlikely now.
* OK, that's a lie - we went up for the White-tailed Plover last June.
