St Ninian's cave

Leaving The Machars, looking north to the Galloway Hills

High water springs, Port William

Easter Day 2, part 2! The fine weather held and turned into a lovely morning so we headed off to The Machars, aiming for a walk to St Ninian's cave.  This wasn't to see the cave - reputedly the hermitage for St Ninian who was from the Whithorn priory- but for the walk itself.  We had a number of targets for the visit, including the possibilities of early bluebells in the beech wood but most of all there was the lure of wild garlic or ransomes as they are also known.

South from Port William, Monreith's headland in the distance

Last year we visited at this time and the farmer was moving his two young bulls down the valley. They were somewhat playful and dashed about crushing the garlic - a smell that stays with you for a long time. This year we have our own cooker and a chicken ready in the fridge -a marriage made in heaven!

Red-legged partridge

The coast drive along the edge of Luce Bay was colourful, as the ubiquitous gorse was in full flower and mixed with blackthorn blossom, pressed tight against the cliffs by the persistent south westerlies. Gorse in particular is everywhere here, as the area is a classic area of lowland glaciation so there are drumlins, roche moutonee & raised beaches all providing areas of poor fertility for agriculture, ideal for gorse colonisation. It also provides cover for the animals in summer, when the flies start to bother livestock.
At Port William the full spring tide was at it's maximum, and the first yachts of the year were going into the water. The bronze statue at the harbour entrance definitely had a fine view. We headed on south, choosing not to stop at the memorial to Gavin Maxwell at Monreith (one of the nicest I've seen, being a bronze otter -Tarka- overlooking one of the best views on the coast.)

Beech wood with ransomes along stream

wind-formed trees

St Ninian's cave is about a mile from the car park, a walk down a small valley filled with beech trees, and a range of smaller vegetation.  Besides the ransomes there were marsh marigold in the streams, celendines, the remainders of a long abandoned garden (with a large yellow arums) and yes bluebells! These are really early this year due to the unseasonal warm spell in March, and only a few were flowering, but they were there. As we neared the end of the valley the tall straight beeches gave way to shorter more gnarled trees, formed thanks to the efforts of the onshore winds.

Looking north to St Ninian's cave

When we got to the shore we turned left away from the cave and made our way over the large pebble bank to the cliff path. Here there was a range of other spring flowers including primrose, violet, coltsfoot, celandines, and the least common of them all, dandelion! There is a steep climb up to the top and the path follows along the edge of a precipitous drop over cliffs populated mainly by gulls with the odd pair of shags and on the water we spotted a pair of razorbills. The fields to our left were a mixture of gorse, scrub and pasture and were were rewarded for the effort of climbing the path with good views of stonechat, rock pipits and best of all, larks in full song right along the cliff. The sun shone with some light cloud and we could see in the distance the Isle of Man, sitting under a light bank of cloud coating its high ground.

Bluebells

Male stonechat

Fleeting glimpse of female stonechat

Rock pipit

Herring gull

The farmer's two bulls

Map of The Machars

Loch Ryan drive by, 31/1



 More odd jobs round the house and a steady stream of visitors to the feeders - Yesterday's tally joined by the Great Tits and Coal Tits, but no sign at all of the goldcrest :-(. 
The day was grey and dull, and most of all COLD.  The pond had frozen and showed no sign of thawing.

We had to go into Stranraer in the afternoon, so we made a point of leaving along the shore road, so we could see what was about. 


Swirling gulls (mostly blackheaded)

The extremely dull weather meant that photography was a challenge - either a very under exposed black image or slightly blurry aperture shots as the birds never stopped hunting for food.

Redshank

The tide was pretty full- had just started to fall, leaving a narrow feeding strip for the birds.  The Bishop Burn area, where fresh water flows into the loch was crowded with gulls of several species.  I'm not very good at gull identification, but there were blackheaded gulls, common gulls, and herring gulls.


Never slow to spot an opportunity, they quickly noticed the toddlers feeding the mute swans, and swarmed around looking for their share.

Bishop Burn and shell banks

This human windfall however is not the reason the birds gather here.  The shallow loch is covered in weed and large expanses of it can be seen at low tide, while the sand and silt supports a large number of shell fish, as the banks of shells along the shore and round the Burn testify.

Redshanks in plenty were trotting along the shore, and the distictive behaviour of the turnstone drew attention to it, accompanied by a common companion, the ringed plover.

Turnstone and Ringed plover

Out on the water there were huge rafts of ducks. Most were too far off for the lens, but among others I spotted pintail, eider and the more unusual (to this southerner) scaup.
Finaally, in flocks, groups and singly, the whole shore echoed to the calls of the Oystercatchers.


Oystercatcher



Male Scaup





Female Scaup

Sunrise, Sunset

Sunrise

This entry was meant to go up on Saturday, but when I got home I discovered my PC data disk was completely full again, so I had to spend my editing hours sorting out the computer.  I hope it is now all sorted for another few months.  I fear a seriously major sort out is required though!
So: Saturday was a peerless January morning. I'd been in two minds about the walk, as I'd agreed to meet a friend at her house at 9am, but once I saw what he morning was like it was too good to pass up. I reckoned an hour round the north lake to get the sun rise, then a cuppa with Yvonne ... sorry Yvonne I was really late!
It was very cold, causing a mist to settle in the valley and drift across the lake.  The sun rise was crystal clear and the geese were already coming and going - greylag arriving and just a bit later, canada geese fidgeting around before finally, leaving.
I bumped into Keith (not surprising really - he always seems to be around in the mornings) and we walked round towards the hotel, where a variety of waterfowl were feeding - a pair of grebes were facing up as if thinking of a dance, then decided feeding was more important.  Then Keith spotted the first goosander.  There were 2 males and a female, wary as ever, paddling across the lake as soon as we stopped to look at them.  Mostly they were hanging with the Canada geese for camoflage - at least while the geese remained.
Keith then headed south and I went off for my appointement, walking round the hotel to watch the variety of birds still gathered there on my way.






Sunset

To make up for the shorter walk in the morning and to make the most of a lovely day I set out to Willen in the late afternoon to see what was roosting on the lake.  Temperatures has reached the heady heights of 4 degrees C but the first thing that was obvious was the extent of the ice across the lake, covered by a large varied roost of gulls, including one morose looking gang of what looked like lesser black backs.
The cormorants were returning to their roost, teal were squabbling along the reed edges - both beside the hide and also I realised along the edge of the island as the setting sun caught the bright yellow patches. 
Along the wader scrape there was a big flock of lapwing. My first count made it over 50, but birds kept arriving. They settled until the island goats breenged (great Scots word "To move in a rapid, devil-may-care fashion") along the shore and put them to flight.  This time I counted well over 80 flying near me  and there were more to the north - a nice thing to see.



As the sun was setting the temperature dropped sharply and I headed home, finding time to watch a flock of long tailed tits acrobatically hunting  in the bushes below me, and grab a quick shot of the disappearing sun.