Wetlands and wildlife

Dumfries and Galloway holiday 1

I've recently returned from a holiday exploring the south-west of Scotland, an area known as Dumfries and Galloway. As it's only about a three hour drive from here, there was no rush to get there so I decided to break the journey at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Reserve at Caerlaverock. I hadn't expected it to be as quiet as it was... Even the café was closed and I had to make do with a cup of tea from a machine. The reserve comes to life in the winter, when thousands of geese, swans, ducks and wading birds overwinter there. It was a baking hot day too and the water levels were very low, so perhaps that was the reason people were staying away. There are, however, wild flower meadows, wildlife gardens and ponds to see, so there are dragonflies, butterflies and normally plenty of woodland and garden birds, though I think they were taking cover to escape the intense heat. 

The WWT reserves (there are ten across the UK) were set up by Sir Peter Scott, the son of Antarctic explorer Captain Scott who, in his dying letter, urged Peter’s mother to 'make the boy interested in natural history'. She obviously did! The first reserve, at Slimbridge, was opened in 1946 as a centre for science and conservation, and the charity has grown in size and importance since then, now welcoming a million visitors a year across the sites. There's a bust of Sir Peter outside the observatory named after him. 

Despite the heat, I managed a bit of a walk through the woods and the wildlife garden (below).

From a hide on one of the ponds, I watched a snipe. I don't really have the right camera equipment for wildlife photography but with a heavy crop to my photo you can just about see it! 

There were swallows and housemartins swooping around in front of the hide and one of the swallows kept doing a fly-past quite close. It took me a while to realise she was trying to access her nest inside the hide! Once I spotted the nest, I left quickly so that she could get to her babies. 

From another hide, I saw a roe deer and her fawn - in fact there may have been two young ones but I could only properly see one of them. I was a long distance away (another cropped photo!) but I think the mother was perhaps aware of my scent and was very wary. 

It's a very flat reserve, on the edge of the Solway Firth. 'Not much doing' (as they say) on such a hot day and it was too hot to walk far but nevertheless I enjoyed my visit.