SOLWAY: May Bank Holiday Weekend.

Dawn at Southerness Point, Dumfries & Galloway.

Headed up to D&G for a long weekend's birding on 2nd May, starting at Redkirk Point just west of Gretna on the Solway. With a fresh SW wind hopes were raised of a bit of overland skua passage but with plenty of time to spare until high tide we kept on the move. A pink-flushed adult Little Gull with another first winter bird amongst Black-headeds was a nice start as Little Gull is a rarely recorded bird here. Not that they are really that rare of course - just a lack of observer coverage, but then that's the attraction of the area for me. Three Arctic Terns in the same channel as the Little Gulls completed a nice set of birds and helped us forget about the blustery conditions for a while at least. Quite a few Whimbrel about too. We saw at least 7 in the Redkirk - Browhouses area with plenty more encountered over the weekend.
Browhouses was pretty quiet but another Timed Tetrad Visit was completed with at least 4 Whitethroats seen. No Lesser Whitethroats though (this stretch has produced them in recent years). We spent a couple of hours at Newbie just prior to high tide but it was disappointing with just a single pale phase Arctic Skua through. No skuas were seen from the Cumbria side this evening either. A small flock of 14 Pink-footed Geese were the only notable birds at Priestfield as we made our way to Southerness Saturday evening.


I seawatched from the point at Southerness early on 3 May. Conditions were not ideal with the wind north of west but there was a bit of movement in the Solway. A single Pomarine Skua circling off the point at 06.30 was the pick of the bunch but other totals included 12 Manx Shearwaters heading west, 13 Whimbrel west, 2 Fulmar, 8 diver sp. east and plenty of waders shifted by the incoming tide. Feeling fairly confident that it wasn't to be a classic on the sea I headed inland by car stopping to scan the ploughed fields where 8 Wheatears were in one field and very mobile (passing through to the next fields and perching on fence posts and hedgerows) as if recently arrived. Sedge Warblers had arrived in force since our last visit and a distant Cuckoo could be heard on the hillside.


A quick trip to Gillfoot Bay at Powillimount before returning to breakfast produced a Barn Owl hunting at 08.45 and a Raven overhead. A nice start to the day.
Mersehead RSPB was our next stop where Mrs. B. located a smart female Whinchat. No sign of the Marsh Harrier reported over the last couple of days although a Common Buzzard sis a fine job of raising hopes as it "quartered" the reed beds with its wings held in a shallow "V".

News of 3 Garganey at Caerlaverock had us scooting round the Nith to the WWT grounds after lunch. We only managed to find one drake on the Whooper Pond (Mrs. B. coming to the rescue as I was about to give up again!) and that soon disappeared into a reedy pond out of sight after a short while. Couple of Whooper Swans still around and single female Wheatear were the only birds troubling the notebook later in the afternoon.


This morning's conditions (westerly wind f6-7, squally showers) looked good for seawatching off Southerness Point. After nearly two hours gazing at the waves I decided to leave with nothing more than decent numbers of distant (mostly unidentified) divers, a few Manxies, an assortment of auks (Guillemots and Razorbills - no Puffins), a handful of Kittiwakes and 29 Common Scoter under the belt. I'd hoped to witness some of the skua passage most readily seen near Annan this morning and maybe I left just a bit too early (see later).

Drake Garganey with Mallard on the Folly Pond, Caerlaverock 4 May 2009.

A quick drive along the Nith revealed that a few Pink-feet (175 to be exact) were still around near Drumburn and half-a-dozen Scaup had come in on the tide too. A fortunate check of my e-mails over breakfast broke the news of a Wood Sandpiper at Caerlaverock, a bird that would be a D&G lifer no less. Astounded by the news that the sandpiper was still present we left the reserve centre rapidly but no waders could be seen from the Folly Pond Hide. A dash up the Farmhouse Tower was in order (you can see behind the island from here) and there it was!

Wood Sandpiper on the Folly Pond, Caerlaverock WWT 4 May 2009.

Conditions were pretty awful as we stared through a rain-soaked window but it was great to see Wood Sand' in D&G. Caerlaverock has a good track record for scarce birds in May and I doubt we'll be passing the ground again this spring without at least a cautionary visit.

Wood Sandpiper (above) and Garganey (below) on Folly Pond, Caerlaverock 4 May 2009.

The 3 Garganey were on view as well, the lone drake rather flighty and commuting between Folly and Whooper Ponds whilst the pair were quite happily feeding on a smaller pond in the corner of the complex.


Skua passage had been heavy this morning (how many did I miss by leaving Southerness early?) so we headed for Newbie despite high tide being two hours earlier. Incredibly only seconds after pulling up we watched 4 pale phase Pomarine Skuas heading up the Solway towards Annan! Hopefully the conditions will prevail to enable us some more skua watching later this week?