Happy New year to you all.

The first WeBs count of the New Year provided a couple of interesting birds for the Crook and the wider Wigtown Bay with a Glaucous Gull ans a Long Billed Dowitcher on the Crook and further up the Bay a Icelandic Gull.

The WeBs for Crook of Baldoon

Grey Heron 1 Whooper 23 Pink-ft Goose 20 Shelduck 125 93 Mallard 15 Oystercatcher 231 7 …

Good afternoon

 

A bit out of cinq but because of tides and daylight Decembers WeBs count is early this month so today on the Crook

 

Grey Heron 2 Pink-ft
  Goose 50 Shelduck 33 Wigeon 5 Teal 6 Pintail 25 P B Brent                 27 Oystercatcher 375 Ringed
  Plover 1 Golden
  Plover 1800 Grey
  Plover 5 Lapwing 180 Dunlin …

Good Afternoon Just finished the November WeBs count which was delayed from last week because of the size of the tide and its time.

Anyway I had

46 whooper swan,

6 greylag geese,

216 lapwing,

54 curlew

130 dunlin

30 ring plover

700 golden plover

22 shelduck

21 redshank

2 cormorant

22 pale bellied brent geese

4 snipe

2 Grey plover

The pale bellied brent ended up in front of the car park giving…

Fantastic view of Peregrine sitting on top of gargoyle on Wigtown County Buildings this morning! Let's hope it stay here...

A while ago, a visitor caught me out with a question about ospreys.”When do ospreys find the time to moult?”

I was caught off guard; I new that most birds moult in the late summer/early autumn after the nesting period is over, but with ospreys they have to migrate then. I tried leafing through Roy Denis’ book “a Life of ospreys”, whilst continuing the conversation, but as there is no index I couldn’t find…

I've just come back from a week's leave and found a fantastic level of comments and new photos from so many different (and in some cases new) blog users. This is great! We have a fantastic year long wildlife spectacle to offer, and the blog provides a great place to share it with others. It is brilliant that so many people are taking an interest and sharing their experiences and photos.

My some what morbid but…

 Bill came down to the Crook to day to help with the fencing for a picnic area near the car park and asked if i would post the following.

Paul

"The first sizable flock of Whooper Swans arrived today at the Crook 8 has been our best count up to now - 65+ or as close as makes no difference! Some whoopers were grazing in the sheep field on the right immediately before the RSPB signboard/entrance on Shell Road. Great to…

Today is the RSPB National Feed the Birds Day, but tomorrow, Sunday 30th October I will be making free bird feeders with visiotrs in the Wigtown County Buildings. The Visitor Centre and Osprey Room will also be open and staffed by my fantastic volunteers, so come along and join the fun.

A Long Billed Dowitcher has been seen at the Castlefield Wetlands, Wigtown Harbour.

Anyone else seen anything of interest? Please keep me posted either on here or in the Wigtown Bay Visitor Centre so I can keep my sightings board up-to-date.

Ian

p.s. A peregrine has been seen on the Wigtown County Buildings Tower recently, perhaps we might have a peregrine project to compliment the ospreys next year? Fingers crossed…

It was our monthly wetland bird’s survey yesterday and have a few bits that might be of interest Wigeon over 2000, Pintails 42, Whoopers 8, Curlew 206, and with the spectacle of their flight 1300+ Golden Plover.

There were others but then it becomes a list. 

Re-wetting of the Crook.

Since the Book Festival (thanks to those that came along and introduced themselves) I have been busy with Eric and his big digger …

I'm getting reports of 5 Whooper swans being seen at Wigtown Bay.

I saw four Whoopers doing a flypast near NTS Threave Estate Castle Douglas this morning, and I was down at RSPB Mersehead yesterday where they had 1000 pinks arriving, 500 + Barnacle Geese and a male Goshawk, great to see!

Please keep me posted of your recent sightings in the Wigtown Bay area.

Ian

Great news from Billc that the Council have agreed to repair the access road to the Crook of Baldoon Reserve.

I figured it was such an important issue it deserved a Blog Topic of it's own, so Bill and Paul can keep us up to date with progress.

It seems rather late in the season, but I have just received a report of an osprey seen flying northwards from Garlieston over Wigtown Bay at mid-day on Tuesday 4th October, unfortunately it was unidentifiable whilst in flight.

Could this be one of our birds still around the area, or are we still getting highland birds passing through? 

If anyone has any more recent sightings of ospreys in the area, please let me know…

This afternoon I had the pleasure of taking a group from the Wigtown Book Festival down to the Crook on a walk. They had attended Mathew Curry's talk about his poetry and how Galloway had inspired him.

We came across a nice party of 5 Ruff in the saltmarsh pools feeding as we walked down Skylark Walk always a delight to see them and five is my personal best and as far as I know the Crooks.

Tomorrow I have another…

A  number of waders have starting to coming

67 Lapwing

10 Black tail godwits still showing summer plumage

several hundred Curlew

dunlin, several oystercatcher

Ducks wigeon,mallard,

black headed , herring, great black back Gulls

Small passerine Linnet 60+, Goldfinch 50+, Pipets and wagtails

a quick summary of half an hour lunch break

Things will get slowly better as we go into October along with the weather I hope…

This was a question posed by Original Goldfinch in another discussion, but I figured it deserved it's own one!

I haven't had, or heard any exciting goose or swan reports yet, apart from Billc (one of the Wigtown Bay Osprey volunteers) who saw an Australian Black Swan last Tuesday (13th) from the Wigtown Bay LNR Wetland Hide; although I severely doubt it was a lost migrant from Down Under, more likely a local…

The Wigtown Bay Ospreys seem to have definitely gone, I have received no more sightings of Ospreys over Wigtown Bay since the 1st of September. Just as well with the weather we are currently experiencing, lets hope they were safely to the South before it arrived!

Apparently there are still this year's two chicks and Black 80, the 2006 Glaslyn born adult male, still to be seen at NTS Threave Ospreys, the next nearest…

It seems that the Wigtown Bay Ospreys have gone, they were last seen at the nest on Thursday 24th August, and we haven't had any recent sightings of ospreys over Wigtown Bay since Paul Tarling saw one on Thursday 1st September.

There are still ospreys been sighted in Dumfries and Galloway, I saw one just last night over the Northern end of Loch Ken. It was probably a passing migrant, as it would be too far away…

There have been no sightings of the Wigtown Bay Ospreys since Thursday, 24th August when H/D and JD were seen on CCTV camera at the nest site, so we are beginning to wonder if they have all migrated?

A visitor reported seeing an osprey flying near Wigtown on Monday 29th August, which was presumably one of our birds, and they have been really elusive this season, so who knows whether they are still around or not.

…

I was pleased to see that both JD our Wigtown Bay 2011 chick and H/D his mum were still around yesterday, and hadn't migrated yet. I assume EP our adult male is still here somewhere too. They had all been rather elusive recently, but when I came into the Wigtown Bay Visitor Centre at 3.30pm, JD was happily munching on a flat fish that the visitors said an adult had brought in. He was sitting in the nest, then flew…

This year's Loch Garten osprey chicks have just started their migration to Africa, with one embarking on a celebration zig-zag-tour of Britain and flypast of our reserves. Every year the chicks are fitted with satellite tags so we can follow their migration.

Tore

Last Wednesday morning (17 August) the three-month old bird, christened 'Tore', was still at its parents' nest at Loch Garten, in the Highlands. But by…

Horray! I have created a temporary fix for the Wigotwn Bay Oprey Website!

I have finally managed to upload a clip onto youtube and link it to the Wigtown Bay Ospreys website! 

I know all you techies will be wondering what took me so long, but for me this is real progress, I still don't really understand what I am doing but it seems to work!

Thank you to everyone who has tried patiently to try and explain computers…

Does anyone know who Cirrus65000 is on youtube, and Cirrus on the RSPB Loch Garten blog is?

I need to contact them to ask how they put clips onto youtube.

I have very high resolution CCTV footage from the Wigtown Osprey Project (i.e. a few minutes is 1GB) and I need to reduce the quality to post it onto the internet. What file size do I need?

I hate computers! Can anyone out there help me?

Ian Brown, Wigtown Osprey…

It's getting to that time of year again, when less and less is seen of our ospreys, EP, H/D and this years chick JD.

Still no reports of our missing chick, JC either, I think she must now be presumed dead.

I had a brief glimpse of JD in the nest today with a fish, unfortunately it was just as I arrived in the visitor centre and just as he was leaving to eat his lunch. He took the fish and flew away to eat it out…