Mersehead Recent Sightings 17th – 23rd September
Autumn has arrived and that means that the Wetland Bird Surveys (WeBS) start again at Mersehead and Kirkconnell Merse. At 296ha Kirkconnell Merse is one of the largest expanses of saltmarsh habitat in Scotland. The best place to view the reserve is from the quay at Glencaple looking across the River Nith. A footpath winds its way along the eastern side of the river heading north from Glencaple towards Dumfries. The first WeBS at Kirkconnell was a great success with 1253 lapwing, 764 redshank (including 1 albino) and 101 curlew recorded feeding on the mudbanks of the river. A lone dunlin still in full summer plumage and 1 greenshank were also spotted. Red-breasted merganser are often seen floating along the river, this week we counted 21. A total of 14 grey heron spread along the river bank concludes the highlights from the count.
Adding to the autumnal feeling is the arrival of the pink-footed geese. In last week’s sightings Jonathan reported that a handful had been spotted on the wetlands. This week the numbers have grown and 660 have been counted feeding in front of Bruiach hide. Each morning small skeins of pink-footed geese are seen in the distance over the cliffs at Portling, flying towards Mershead and then whiffling onto the wetlands to feed.
Photo credit: A.Hay
Last Saturday, the oats were harvested and the straw has since been baled and stored in the shed. This has created a fantastic overwinter stubble habitat for farmland birds. Walking across the stubble on Wednesday the field erupted with skylark, there were so many I did not even get the chance to count them all. Now that the oats have been harvested, we can start to increase the amount of water on the wetlands (a ditch runs along the side of the oats field channeling water from the wetlands to the pool in front of the Visitor Centre; we could not allow the water levels to be too high or the combine might have got stuck). Never the less the wetlands are looking fantastic as the Mersehead WeBS count proved. Three species of goose were present with 105 pink-footed, 74 canada and 18 greylag recorded. Teal numbers have increased to 750, along with 114 mallard, 34 shoveler, and 12 wigeon. The first 2 pintail of the season were seen too. Lapwing numbers on the wetlands have been good with 720 counted. On leaving Media hide after counting all the wildfowl a lone red admiral floated past and a chiffchaff sat watching from a branch, it’s that time of year when summer and winter overlap.
The high tide count found 1275 oystercatcher, 455 curlew, 5 redshank and 39 lapwing. Snipe has been a regular sighting as they zoom through the sky. During the WeBS count 48 snipe flew out of the dune slack along with 2 mute swan.
Other sightings from this week are a female marsh harrier hunting over the reedbed on Wednesday afternoon. A visitor reported spotting a green sandpiper and kingfisher from Meida hide. A badger proudly walked across the path in front of me in broad daylight on Tuesday and pushed its way through the hedge to the polytunnel. There has been a large increase in the amount of badger activity around the Sulwath Centre as they have started digging up the lawn in their search for juicy worms. A family of roe deer; male, female and twins have been feeding on the wetlands just to the left of Meida hide in the mornings.
Rowena Flavelle, Warden