The ancient Kirkmadrine Stones ae on display in the doorway of the church
Beautiful studded side door...
..and detail
Trees against a blue sky
Kirkmadrine Church and cross
Cross
Snowdrops
The lane to the church
A rook on the green at Sandhead, probably up to no good!
Oystercatchers in flight
Greenshank
Stones
Grey Plover
Buzzard
I hate balloons!
Pete found this horn preserved in the mud on the edge of the burn. We spoke to a local farmer and he said it was probaby from a Longhorn but would have been there for some considerable time. Not quite treasure but interesting all the same!
Spent a sunny but cold February afternoon sorting the living willow hide. After 3 years it was now tall enough to tie in the top and give it a roof. It will look great when the leaves emerge.
Plenty of geese about
Lovely reflections on the White Loch
A lot of ice about on the waters edge
Black Loch looking beautiful, we saw 4 Jays here but didnt manage a photo
Castle Kennedy opens for the Snowdrop Festival so there were plenty about
Off up the Southern Upland way and we watched this Buzzard protecting its prey, then trying to carry it off but it was too big, a rabbit I think.
Old steading and tree
Starlings, Fieldfares and Redwings were making a racket in the trees and we caught a brief glimpse of a Red Squirrel in the conifers
Wool wrapped around gorse
A Kestrel hovering
Up the top new gates since our last visit I think
Treecreeper
Hundreds of Yellow Pages dumped-someone was paid to deliver these!
Lochinch Castle
Large numbers of geese on the fields
Hundreds of geese flying overhead.
Down on the shore Ringed Plovers were chasing each other about and displaying
The tide was well out so most of the waders and ducks were a long way out so difficult to identify although there were dozens of Shelduck
Back on the Luce a heron was fishing by the rapids
But flew off when disturbed
We could see no sign of the squirrels as another (less caring) dog walker had beaten us to it, Having not been into these woods before we walked a little further and caught a glimpse of several Jays
Then high in the larch we could here a lot of noise but could see nothing. Looking closer we realised it was dozens of Siskins.
A brief stop in Stranraer on the way home to get some shopping and plenty of Black Headed Gulls at the harbour and the sun had come out!
Stopped on the way near Castle Kennedy to scan the geese for anything unusual. There was a mix of mostly greylag with some whitefronts and barnacles.
Off on our walk, the simple but distinctive Southern Upland Way sign
Views not bad today with still some snow on the mountains
Reed buntings, about 6, in the willow trees where we had seen them on a previous visit
Distant wind farm
We crept up slowly on this loch as we had seen large numbers of teal here previously but today it was frozen and no signs of life
A fuzzy hoody hybrid
We then came across 3 roe deer crossing our path. We stopped and whilst observing a dog walker (the only other person seen that day) caught up with us and asked what we were watching. We pointed out the deer and he watched for a while with us whilst his old dog showed no interest and drank from the burn. He then said goodbye and wished us happy birding whilst turning back as he did not wish to disturb the wildlife we were watching-now that makes a very refreshing change!!
There ae lovely dry stane dykes alongside this path, usually alive with wrens, but not many about today
And finally a buzzard seen hovering on our way back.
