Crook of Baldoon

Although the weather still feels like winter the signs of spring can be noticed around the reserve. On the warmer days bumble bees and butterflies are now on the wing. Around the hedgerows lesser celandine is coming into flower and out on the merse the first flowers are showing with a display of white from the scurvy grass. On the few warmer evening the first moth survey has begun for the year, adding Red Sword-grass…

After the habitat improvements have taken place, the hope is that birds will find them and stay and breed on site. Therefore, we have to give them the best chance of survival.

The Crook of Baldoon was specifically purchased to create a productive wet grassland/saltmarsh habitat complex which is attractive to breeding waders. Lowland breeding waders have suffered significant declines in populations over the last 50 years…

After a period of mild or but cloudy weather the feel of spring had started to be felt around the Crook. Skylarks were in full song on many of the past few days and the hawthorn around the site were bursting their buds and the tiny green leaves were starting to show themselves. Possibly the first migrant of the year, a green sandpiper, was flushed from the newly created wetland features.

However, the main bird interest…

As many of our humans’ visitors were enjoying the festive season, works were afoot to improve the Crook for many of our feathered friends and a few non feathered ones as well. The second part of our 2022/23 wetland project commenced just before the New Year and over the following two weeks the north part of the reserve was transformed into a myriad of pools and footdrains that has soon filled up with water. So why is…

A prolonged cold snap announced the beginning of winter, following a wet and windy conclusion to autumn. The clear, cold days bring a delight to the eye around the reserve as everything is shrouded in a layer of frost. It glistens in the low sun and the frozen lagoons are quiet for now. The wildlife spends much of it time looking for food and trying to keep warm.

But do not be deceived there is much still to see…

With all the summer birds now left for their winter quarters and winter birds just arriving, there is a small window to carry out improvements to the habitats on the reserve. Over this winter there are plans to increase the water retention ability of the fields by creating a series of footdrains by clearing out existing feature within the fields. Some of the regular visitors may have noticed that the water levels have…

Over the last couple of weeks, the weather has seen a very distinctive autumnal flavour to it as one Atlantic depression after another sweeps across the reserve. The changing light, with the backdrop of the Galloway hills makes the Crook a very atmospheric place to visit at this time of year.

Rainbow with the constantly changing light conditions

Alongside the stunning setting, are the birds. Although not yet at their…

The long summer days are now drawing to a close and there is a distinctive chill in the wind as it announces autumn. The song of many of the familiar birds that rung across the reserve has now faded until next year. The hedges are now filled with the reds and blacks of a variety of fruiting trees. Many of out bird we have become accustomed too over the summer are preparing to leave for warmer climes. Swallows and House…

Whilst carrying out routine monitoring of the moths around the reserve, a small  moth, a Crambidae, one the families of micro moths was present in the trap near the lagoon north of the car park. Being well familiar with the species from working my previous reserve, where it was common I was positive about its identification, so did not realise the significance of the find at that point. however as I had moved to a completely…

The hot weather over the last couple of weeks has liven up the reserve. Whilst the end of the breeding season for the birds has meant the air is no longer filled with bird song, the warm weather has changed the acoustics of the reserve to a gentle buzz and chirp of the insects. If you carefully look at the flowering plants a wide array of invertebrates can be found. The most obvious are the bees and hoverflies (some pretending…

Everyone has got use to seeing the Little Egret around the reserve over the last few years as their population has extended from southern Europe across the UK. However, they are not the only Egret that are on the move Cattle Egrets have now become a regular sight along the south coast and are slowly moving northwards with more counties having them breed. How long will it be before they are recorded regularly north of…

Well, the “longest day” has passed and gone, with the daylight hours going to get shorter heading towards winter. But the reserve is still literally buzzing with life, waders, one of our target species for the reserve, are still present tending young, only this week a Lapwing was seen with week old chicks. With already fledged young present around the reserve it looks like a productive extended season this year. Whilst…

June brings in the start of summer and the new advent of life around the reserve. The hard work finding territories, mates then safe nest site starts to be paid back over the next few weeks. All around the reserve busy parents can be observed with mouthfuls of invertebrates ready to feed the next generation. Out on the water, it is a more sedate time for mother waterfowl as the young can feed themselves from a few hours…

As the spring ended breeding season is in full flow and as the summer sun warms up the reserve a multitude of life is filling the senses. The backdrop of the summer is the Galloway Hills turning a variety of greens as the seasons change and the lagoons are filled with young birds, if you have time to find them. Although the migration has finished until the autumn there can be some surprises still to be had. At the end…

As the chilly days of spring move closer to the warmer summer, the plant life around the reserve has started to flourish. Through the reserve many of our late spring plants are starting to flower. The merse is starting to take on a pink hue as the Sea Pink (Thrift) has burst into flower covering many areas of the short grassland. This Pink is occasionally broken up by splashes of white, this is scurvygrass. However, not…

After spending most of my career working in the south of England, I have returned a little closer to my roots. In February I started my new position at the Crook of Baldoon. This stunning reserve located on the western shores of Wigtown Bay, has a backdrop of the Galloway mountains. The early few months I was greeted with the sounds of the wintering Pinks and Barnacle, but these have fell silent as they have moved northeast…

The Crook of Baldoon was very pleased last month to receive lots of homes for nature from HM Prison Dumfries made by inmates of the prison as part of their Community Pay Back Scheme.

We were approached by Regimes Manager Robert Blackley at the beginning of the year to look into ways that inmates could contribute to the local community and by some constructive method help RSPB support wildlife on our reserves. Personally…

It is an old proverb and I remember my Gran saying it. So that is a long time ago. You would be surprised by how many times over my years that saying has been born out and this year is no exception and now the lion has returned in April hopefully not for to long.

Another proverb which is fairly self evident is

Our geese numbers went through a steep increase during March across Wigtown Bay to around 13000 Pinks and Barnies…

Since my last post we have managed to track down and hire an amazing piece of machinery to cut the rush across the reserve.  

 A fantastic low impact machine. Basically, it is a tractor with tracked wheels that can work on very wet land without marking too much and coping to travel on land that a wheeled tractor would sink in. We hired it for a week and managed to cut 75% of the reserve.

The Picture above shows the cut…

The Crook of Baldoon passed quietly into 2019 having several lovely weather days through the holiday period. We did get 8 people for our Boxing day walk but sadly only 2 on the 2^nd of Jan. Still we did get some great views of a male hen harrier floating along the edge of the saltmarsh with the muds of the bay. Goose numbers were good through Christmas but as usual the second week of January has seen a great increase in…

Since the last post back in October the Crook has been quiet with a slow trickle of passing migrants some staying longer than others and our numbers of wintering birds have increased markedly in the past week.  Of note at present is our group of 7 black tailed godwits that pop in and out with the tide usually with a big group of curlews. The lapwing count has increased with a count last month of 434 after a prolonged spell…

It now seems a dim and distant memory 19 days since the throng of visitors for the book festival at which point I must thank the Crook volunteers for their time covering my dinner times across the ten days it was very much appreciated and so Wigtown is settling into autumn with winter on the horizon.

Down on the Crook however, the wintering birds are starting to arrive with skeins of pink footed starting to arrive and…

Numbers of breeding lapwings unfortunately dropped this year however the number of fledged young increased giving a productivity of just over 3 per pair nesting. The redshank pairs increased as did the numbers of young per brood which is all very positive. The numbers of mallards breeding this year increased as did the number of young produced however many fell fowl of predators we think relieving the predation on the…

Late June saw me off to the RSPB reserve at Inch Marsh for a very interesting course in the art of rope dragging for Snipe it sounds simple but dragging a 50m rope through dense rush is challenging while monitoring what is being disturbed. The following week the volunteers and I managed to do this exercise across the 98 hectares of wet grassland at the Crook with interesting results unfortunately no evidence of breeding…

It seems an age since my last post with all the surveys for the breeding season and other activities so now seems like a good time for a catch up.

The season has gone well although it had patchy start with the local farm operations attracting in hundreds of herring and lesser black back gulls into the two lagoons to wash themselves after scrabbling through the plough land looking for tasty morsels just as the first lapwing…