This morning while on early morning survey I had a wonderful sight of an adult female mash harrier we have reports most years of an odd bird passing through and this year I was in the right place at the right time. While I was doing a passerine survey along the edge of the reserve the lapwing started alarm calling a mobbing a large raptor usually a buzzard but this time it was not flying in buzzard fashion more harrier…

Good Morning I thought I would share a bit of interesting news from the Crook. Since I studied ornithology and conservation I have had an interest in the ringing and especially the colour ringing of wildlife and tracking.

On the 27^th April we had three Black tailed godwits on lagoon 1 a male and two females I noted  the male had colour rings red over black and white over green flag. 

Looking through the data it would…

 It has been a harsh couple of months with temperatures in sub-zero and then wind chill coming in at -10. The Crook has had pack ice on the saltmarsh that on the spring tide landed 150mm of ice on the upper marsh, making it look like limestone pavement.

                Figure 1 Pack Ice dropped out on high saltmarsh

 Due to this our redshanks and lapwings have been very slow to get going with at time of writing only nine pairs of…

2018 started quite slow with geese coming in quite late in any numbers and then around mid-January the large flocks of pink footed geese started to come in with small numbers of barnacle geese in the third week. Due to wildfowling most of the geese only used the estuary muds as a roost with some lingering until an hour after dawn. As the month of January progressed into February they followed true to form knowing when…

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Hopefully not lasting to long but the worst snow and Ice since 2011 has hit the Wigtown bay and the Crook this past weekend making life difficult for the wildlife. Both lagoons totally frozen so few birds roosting most hoping to get a feed out on the saltmarsh mud and roosting out there as well. Some flocks of pink footed geese moving about the bay trying not to find wildfowlers at their next resting place, there is the…

Well firstly the footpath is usable unfortunately the first people to use it are dog walkers and within day we are having to clear of dog mess from this new path. It makes me very cross that we have to constantly harp on about this with signs on site to remind people and personally I hate the countryside being littered with signs and as a dog owner my self that comes to work with me I clean up and take it home and bin…

October already were has the year gone since my last blog in July a very wet and miserable summer has passed. August was the wettest since 2012 and made putting in the new western boundary path near impossible September did not do us any favours either with just short of 200mm new money 7and 5/8inches old but the volunteers have persisted and this week we set the final bits of geogrid so now just the tidying up and putting…

It is surprising how quickly the weather can change this week Monday was so hot and Wednesday so windy and wet typical British weather. 

The Crook has attracted a few new breeding bird this year which has made the my job all the more pleasurable, as well as or success with the lapwings and redshanks we have had at least five broods of mallards and this last week three week old moorhen chicks and a parent on field 1 then out…

Good Afternoon

Well the sun is out again giving beautiful blue skies and the young herons are sporting beautiful pale blue plumage and the young lapwings are starting to show the iridescent blue and green plumage. So far we are well ahead on our numbers of young with 22 young lapwings from 11 nests and the herons have 7 young out of 19 birds counted we cannot be sure about the number of nests as well at present as we have…

Well a bit early for the title of this blog. Anyway just an up date on the breeding waders and a few bits a pieces in general.

well on the lapwing side things are going well we have lost a few but until we get a final count of flying young I am loathed to commit to a number but there are still 7 pairs defending young some have made the journey out on to the saltmarsh and others have remained on the lagoons yesterday…

The past month has been both interesting and hectic with the Thursday volunteers doing fantastic work back with the cement mixer putting up new stock fencing for feeding creeps and doing some plumbing they have as always impressed me with their commitment

and drive.

On the bird front our hoped for Osprey return fell short as this young male called and started to nest but gave up he may be back in the future.

The breeding…

I have been asked several times recently about the Wigtown Bay Ospreys. Some of you will remember that our birds were disturbed at the nest around 4 years ago when a new young non mature female had started to be courted by our male EP after losing the female HD the previous year, the following year they returned and things kicked of again but a further disturbance by photographers disturbed them again. The Female DK is from…

We have finally finished the viewing platform ready for Easter it is as wheelchair friendly.  We have installed anti slip strips and a geo grid system to enable easy use by wheelchairs there is a wheelchair friendly picnic table as well

Well on the goose front since the close of the wildfowling season the Crook of Baldoon has been the place to be on Wigtown Bay. Flocks of several thousand pink footed and barnacle have been feeding across the saltmarsh and in field 1 they seem to only be disturbed by the military jets flying through to a exercise in the Luce Bay.

The teal have been using lagoon 1 intermittently number getting to 450 some days accompanied…

With the end of the wildfowling season it is amazing how quickly the geese seem to have lost there fear of Man. As this morning I sat in plain site only a 100m away from the flock and watched them for some time and managed to get this grainy picture of this leucistic barnacle in amongst the 1500 others. 

The terms leucistic and leucism are derived from a medical terminology basically leuc- is a Latin variant of leuk- from the…

So our new viewing platform has started to settle in and the Crook of Baldoon volunteer Thursday working part has started to construct the footpath and ramp so both abled and disabled public can gain access from the car park and picnic area.

Unfortunately in the interest of safety it has been necessary to close the picnic area until the ground works have been done.

We shall be opening the picnic area as soon as it is…

Upland joins forces with ecological designer for project to encourage Wigtownshire bird watching and nature tourism

A leading ecological building designer has worked with six young people to create a state-of-the-art environmentally friendly bird hide at an RSPB Scotland reserve.

The Modern Makers scheme, run by the Upland arts development organisation, was completed at the weekend when the structure was…

Well it looks by the forecast the long dry spell is over but the wild flower meadow back in May needs the rain and some of the ditches need a top up.

The spring and summer has been kind to the nesting birds with improvement to the fledging numbers of Lapwing and a recorded Redshank nest plus three Oystercatcher nests the rewetting of the site has made a difference.

These are aerial…

The second installment of the Crook of Baldoon story from RSPB Scotland's Jenny Tweedie. RSPB Scotland purchased a piece of land known as Crook of Baldoon six years ago and this is how we've been transforming it into a haven for wildlife ever since. Our work here could not have been achieved without the generous help of HSBC, the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund, Dumfries and Galloway Leader,…

The first installment of the Crook of Baldoon story from RSPB Scotland's Jenny Tweedie.

Have you ever wondered how nature reserves come to be? RSPB Scotland purchased a piece of land known as Crook of Baldoon six years ago and this is the story of how we've been transforming it into a haven for wildlife ever since. If you enjoy part I, look out for part II

Since February weather allowing we have been bringing into fruition the planned wetland in compartment 5 immediately south of the car park we are now landscaping the spoil from our diggings and hope to have everything ready to start retaining rain water by July we still have some major work with water controls to be done and the installation of a control weir and the development of the three islands one of which will…

The Ospreys returned in April they are nesting on the Bay unfortunately not on the tree with the camera but on one to far from electrical source so no pictures this year.

We know the EP is one of the pair but as yet we have not been able to establish the identity of the female and she is sitting on the nest.

Our camera nest was occupied by a mallard when they returned so we believe this moved them to a new site.

Unfortunately…

Well another year is here and with the harvest of the willow last September things are starting to move along planning has gone through and we have started to put drainage lines in to clear large pools of water so the contractor can get in as soon as possible to start digging the new water features. It is planned to start on field 5 which is to the south of the steading and car park then move on to field 1 which is…

Autumnwatch was, as usual, a fantastic showcase for RSPB reserves and the work that we do but did you watch it?

I didn’t, at least not live and the reason for that was that my wife and I decided to have a holiday that week and to take in the wildlife sights where I usually work. Not so much a busman’s holiday as a fantastic encounter with nature that just happens to be all around us on our fantastic reserves but that…