SOLWAY: The rewards of birding in the west.

June is a tricky month as far as birding goes for me. It's often a case of "making the best of it" when we head up to D&G at this time of year and playing it by ear. So we decided to give the Southerness area a bit of a thrash one day, but it was pretty uninspiring really. We did locate our first local Dippers near Carsethorn (at sea level) though - an adult feeding young in the brook pictured above. A most unlikely place for a bird normally associated with rushing clear water streams.

Ailsa Crag from Corsewall Point.

In truth it's been a bit quieter this year in D&G for us. In fact the western "bit" (the old Wigtownshire) has been more interesting with a nice run of scarce or rare birds this year. The latest of these was an albatross seen in Loch Ryan seen independently by some local and visiting birders. Knowing full well that we had absolutely no chance of seeing this we went for a look. The weather was great so we sat out at the mouth of the loch at Wig Bay for a while. Plenty of Eiders, Gannets, a Black Guillemot, Fulmars and some Sandwich Terns were all we were rewarded with, but very pleasant it was nonetheless.


We searched the sheltered Lady's Bay north of the Wig without luck and then headed out to Corsewall Point where Gannets, Manx Shearwaters and Fulmars were present offshore, but little else.

We decided that it would be a good idea to go to Auchie Glen on the Mull and see if we could fail to even hear the Quail there before calling in at Scotland's most southerly point and miss Puffins. Boy do we know what we're doing! No audible evidence of Quail and nuffin in the Puffin stakes. Full house!

Mrs B. was let loose with the camera, getting good views of some bird crap on the cliffs. Such as shame that a few Kittiwakes, Shags, Guillemots and Herring Gulls made it into the frame to spoil it. A diversion en route back to Southerness took us by a male Hen Harrier and then into the Forest of Galloway where we heard plenty of Tawny Owls, a Grasshopper Warbler and a distant churring Nightjar.
Back on familiar territory we checked out Carlingwark Lock (6 Tufted Ducks - deep joy!) and Southerness a couple of times where Whitethroats seems to be the most common trans Saharan migrant by far at the moment. A Barn Owl near Powillimount was a nice distraction from all this excitement.
I'm helping out with the WeBS counts on the Caerlaverock NNR when possible at the moment. I didn't think a June count would be too challenging but was surprised to find nearly 1500 Shelducks on the Nith and a couple of flocks of Mallards in three figures. Waders were few and far between apart from 23 Ringed Plovers with a single Dunlin at Brow Well.

It was back to the "comfort zone" with some survey work in the Stock Reservoir area near Slaidburn in Lancashire. Drumming Snipe and Skylarks abound in this part of Bowland. A few Small Coppers on the wing this morning too. A reeling Grasshopper Warbler was my first of the survey period in Bowland and Redstarts are still in song so there's still plenty to see ........

.