The Crook is a special place and most of the time it looks very ordinary but at certain times and conditions it is magical.

I was closing down the moth trap on Saturday and looked up and saw this beautiful sight with the Curlew and Redshank calling and a slight mist rising the worries of the world disappear.

Well Friday night and Saturday morning proved most worth while lots of Pipistrelle bats and some interesting moths the cold weather did not help the flight of moths and should imagine that the bats did not do as well as they might in this unseasonal weather. Actually saw bats in day light on the way home at 4:30am after closing down the moth trap.

The eleven visitors that came along for our walk on Friday night identified…

Today we held our 2nd Remarkable Raptor days in Wigtown County buildings.  These family events are running every week on Tuesdays - your chance to find out about our local raptors and for the kids to have some fun with arts and crafts.  Today, children made their own prints with finger paints or made osprey masks and peregrine puppets.  Some VERY colourful peregrines to be found in the Visitor Centre!  The real thing made…

Good Evening one and all hope your all well and not suffering to much from rising damp. what a couple of weeks we have had what with the euro and banks and floods and one of the worst summers I can remember the rainfall on the Crook is double last year for June and July is heading along the same lines.

We have been trying to move things along at the Crook, and in the Wigtown Bay Visitor Room Alexa has been very industrious…

Your chance to get the inside story on two of our local reserves, Wood of Cree and Crook of Baldoon. 

Join Paul Tarling on a guided walk about Woodland Pasture at Wood of Cree from 10 till 12; followed by a Walk on the Wild Side exploring the Crook of Baldoon from 2 till 4.  Phone Paul on 01988 402130 for further information about meeting points and to book a place on either of the walks, or both!

Next Saturday will see the start of Wigtown Community Festival - a buzzing week of activities for the local community.  As part of Games in the Garden on Saturday 7th, local children will have the opportunity to help local insect populations by building a bug hotel. It is hoped that the hotel will find a permanent home in the town gardens.  The children will also be able to plant their own wildflower seeds to take home and…

Apart from occasional views of an Osprey down on the Crook, our most regular bird of prey in the area is a Peregrine Falcon.  Over the last few weeks we've been lucky enough to have regular views of the peregrine sitting on the bell tower gargoyles of the County buildings in Wigtown.  This bird has been seen flying back to the tower with freshly caught prey from the merse and plucking it on it's perch, sending feathers…

Been down on the Crook most of today with one of our volunteers  removing old fencing on the new piece of land the Society acquired back in April and was please to see a male hen harrier ranging across the fields but more notable were the number of starlings with young foraging across the upper saltmarsh around 50 juveniles and ten or so adults good to see that some wildlife has done well despite the weather we have had…

It's a real scorcher here today and has been all week, with forcast good for the weekend too.  Get out the sunglasses and drop down to the Crook to listen to the skylarks.

Further to my blog about World Oceans Week, I'd like to bring your attention to the World Oceans Celebration taking place at Port William on the 10th June (11-4).  It should be an exciting day, with guided walks, games and activities for everyone…

All this hot sunny weather makes me think of hitting the beach for a spot of rockpooling and maybe even a swim!  On the 4th June, as part of our programme of activities for Leader, I'll be bringing the shore to the County buildings in Wigtown for some family fun for World Oceans Week.  The visitor centre will be open from 10am till 4pm with quizzes, arts and crafts, so bring the kids and find out about the fascinating world…

Well I must say The Book Festival team have done it again great weather and a great program of events fun for every one they are an inspiration the Samba band were good to listen to while sitting in the sun after walking around the market.

looking forward to tomorrow's line up building daleks and the planetarium talk and one on Cairn Holy and Alexa is in the visitors room all day dissecting owl pellets.

On Tuesday Galloway reserves staff and several volunteers went out to monitor the breeding sea bird colony on Ailsa Craig this is something that is done each year. This year I was luck to witness something I have read about in Bryan Nelson's books and scientific papers but never witnessed the furosity that these enigmatic birds fight with. I have seen small scale disputes when I studied them at RSPB Bempton but never…

Thanks to Paul for introducing me.  It looks like it'll be a quiet year on the Osprey camera, still no sign of the birds returning or new ones coming in.  A pair of Ravens have been hanging out on the nest, giving us a close view of these enigmatic birds.  And you may spot a tree sparrow diving into the twigs of the nest itself.  These little birds have nested within the ospreys nest for several years taking advantage of the…

Good Evening All

I firstly would like to welcome Alexa Seagrave to the Wigtown Team. Alexa has come to us from Perth to be or Community and Wildlife Officer working in Wigtown County Building and around the area on the World Oceans Week and the local agricultural shows and such like.

Secondly, 25 April is our free film show at the County Building 7 - 9pm. There will be a tea and coffee intermission plus raffle.

Well the weather smiled on us through a cold breeze but in the sun it was very nice we did not have hundreds of visitors for the Crook's first open day but every one seemed to enjoy the day and I know I did it was good to talk to so many interested visitors and describe some of our ideas for the reserve.

With exhibits from local artist Lisa Hooper a local artist form Port William and her beautiful originals and…

Well only three days to go for the latest return of the Wigtown Ospreys, time is getting on and we have only had site of single birds on the Bay and none on the nest. The ones we have seen might be birds moving through to other sites and just stopping for a feed or only one has returned there is another possibility that the ravens have put off the wigtown birds and they have decided to move their nest to another another…

The 15th of April sees the first Crook of Baldoon Open Day.

We have invited SNH, SEPA, Cree Valley Community Woodland Trust, Scottish Fisheries Trust, Galloway Fisheries Trust and Lisa Hooper a Local Artist for a small exhibition in one of our sheds.

and there will be guided walk and staff and volunteers on hand to answer questions about our hopes and plans for the Crook.

Paul

We have decided to have another free film show on the 25th April this time about the re-introduction of the Sea Eagle into Scotland it will be 7 till 9pm with a tea break and raffle.

Good Evening just a short note to say the live pictures in the Osprey viewing room are back and working again so if you are in Wigtown do pop up and have a look and hopefully they will be back soon

We are pleased to say that Wigtown has secured a place for one of 6 showings of “Born to Fly” – a cranes story in Dumfries and Galloway and a film on osprey

We will be showing the film at Wigtown County Buildings on the 6^th March.

Personally I am very pleased that we have been selected as one of the places to show this interesting film on the re-introduction of Common Crane into the Somerset Levels…

This morning from the Car Park nice view of a little egret hunched over trying to forget about the cold southerly wind.

Paul

For those of you that are not familiar with the RSPB characters in  our Wildlife explorers club Owlbert is the owl.

So we occasionally set up remote cameras to see what is about when we are away from the reserve and we leave them for several day at a time to allow the the human scent to disappear a bit.

Well we have seen a Barn Owl hunting in the area of the Crook for a couple of months so over Christmas and up till today…

A bit of a windy day for standing out but this mornings dawn flight produced the most geese so far this winter with over a thousand out on the bay at roost and another thousand coming from Gate house bay area they headed south west over Garlieston. Those on the mud's at the Crook joined them flying almost south.

It may be that the food that has been holding them in the north and east of the country is running short…

The Glaucous Gull still present also a Jack Snipe and 30 Twite around midday sparrowhawk made a kill of a pigeon and then another sparrowhawk came in and attempted a food pass or was trying to nick the pigeon the bird with the kill hung on and few one way the other the other.

still very quiet for geese only 9 barnacles flew over and 20 pinks about an hour later.

Paul

The Glaucous Gull is still present on the Crook.