Barnacle Geese

I have only ever seen one Barnacle Goose before, a somewhat dubious individual that was frequenting Deeping High Bank last year. I 'ticked' it anyway, but always hankered after a truly 'wild' bird. That hankering was achieved with a trip to Caerlaverock WWT close to Dumfries, there were thousands of them, possibly as many as 20,000!

The area in question is well known for these geese in the winter months where they spend their time feeding on the surrounding fields and marshland in preparation for their journey back to Spitsbergen. An amazing sight and sound as these geese took to the skies in unison as they came to roost close by.

A lone individual

As ever, click on the photos for a larger picture, the flock photos look 'better' the larger they are.

Nuthatch

On arrival at our cottage we both noticed some feeders in the front garden with a couple of bits of stale bread in them, but still being visited by a couple of Blue Tits. We managed to get hold of some peanuts and half coconuts filled with fat to see if we could entice some more birds to visit, I even managed to fix a more natural perch in the form of an old tree branch close to the feeders in the hope of a bird landing there before using the feeders. In the morning the feeders were full of 3 species of Tit, Coal, Blue and Great, all happily feeding away until the arrival of a Nuthatch which caused all the other birds to disappear. He wouldn't sit on that blessed tree branch though, so I am afraid you are stuck with these 'unnatural' looking shots.

Red Kites

Have just got back from some time away in Scotland, Dumfries and Galloway to be precise and have got hundreds of photos to go through and dispose of. Some that I have already looked at are the ones taken on the first day at a Red Kite feeding station close to a place called Laurieston in the Galloway Hills.
The Red Kite has had a breeding programme and release schedule in Galloway for a few years and a feeding station set up on a private farm called Bellymack Hill Farm. This place regularly gets 100 kites coming to meat that is put out at 2 o'clock every day, come rain or shine and is an ideal way to get up close and personal with these magnificent birds. Shame the clouds were thick and the sun hard to come by on our visit, but that was to be the story of the entire week we were away!

More photos will follow of other creatures and some scenery.