Today is the first day of spring and also the United Nations Day of Happiness! It's grand to be celebrating both of those occasions here at the Mull of Galloway. It has been a blustery day here but even if all the wildlife is sheltering from the weather there is always something impressive to catch your eye; today the elements were the stars of the show. This morning when I switched on the screens in the visitor centre and scanned around the cliffs below the Foghorn it was difficult to spot many birds . The sea, however, was mesmerising and really held my attention; waves were crashing and smashing onto the lower sections of the cliffs. I managed to find a few seabirds through the cliffcams, some of the shags sitting tight on their partially made nests but otherwise the kittiwakes and auks must have been sheltering elsewhere. This is similar to last year when the guillemots and razorbills seemed to take forever to settle down to their nesting sites, I shall keep watching for further developments.
Looking back through my sightings records since the last blog I see that the full range of 'usual suspects' have put in an appearance in increasing numbers. Spring is really here with the meadow pipits performing their display flights - a rapid ascent followed by 'parachuting' downwards, all the while accompanied by that jingling little bell-like song. The first time I witnessed such a performance this year at the Mull was on a misty morning a couple of Sundays ago and it made my day. You can hear and see this all round the reserve at the moment and it is wonderfully grin-inducing. And of course where there are so many pipits there are bound to be birds of prey and we are seeing kestrels hunting and hovering over the heath on a regular basis, or sitting on top of one of the walls, trying to blend in.
Two female stonechats were darting around in front of the visitor centre last week and seemed to be fighting over our very smart looking male stonechat, resplendent in his breeding plumage. And at the weekend, sharp-eyed Keir Shilling and his grandfather spotted a female whinchat in the willow scrub. The willow scrub is always worth a closer look as many small birds take shelter and feed there at various times of the year, in particular at spring and autumn migration. No sign yet of any wheatears , but with other migrants like the whinchat starting to arrive back from Africa it surely can't be too long before we see the tell-tale white rump of the wheatear flitting around the Mull.
Gannet (copyright Sue Wolfe)
Finally, one of my favourite places to stand and stare out to sea is the Lag Vag viewpoint. Here is one of the best locations to see our small community of puffins when they bob around together and make those strange haw hawing noises. It is too early for the puffins but it is currently a fine location to spot harbour porpoises, a grey seal and of course the gannets swirling and swooping and diving for fish. It is also fun to get a different view of seabirds as you can look down on them flying around Lag Vag. It took me a few moments to realise that I was looking at a trio of eider ducks at the weekend as they flew towards the Foghorn.
The visitor centre is open 10am - 5pm Thursday to Monday inclusive during March. We will be open seven days a week from mid April.