Tuesday 13 October 2020

Two Nature Reserves near Wigtown, Scotland's book town

 We had a very enjoyable break in Dumfries and Galloway, staying in our favourite hotel Friars Carse, a spacious country house hotel, set in it's own extensive grounds with walks along the River Nith and lovely views over wooded pasturelands. 

 

In these COVID times, it's important to feel able to socially distance from other people and the hotel is spacious enough to allow that and the area is full of great places for country walks where you'll hardly meet anyone all day (and it's also an area where people you pass on the footpaths will happily move to a decent social distance to let you pass).

On the first day of our trip we visited Wigtown, Scotland's Book Town. It's a delightful place, full of bookshops. 



We made friends with this elderly cat, who had been sitting in the middle of the road until it came running towards us to make friends



We then went for a walk starting from the centre of the town and going down to Wigtown Bay Local Nature Reserve, where the River Bladnoch meets the River Cree
 


It was lovely to see some late season butterflies such as this red admiral 
 
 
and some wonderful trees, shaped by the winds


After lunch we popped over to the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) reserve at Crook of Baldoon. Another lovely place for a walk! 


There were good numbers of birds around too, including a few little egrets, which are still an exciting sight in Scotland, as they've only relatively recently started visiting. 


We were also delighted to see a flock of twites in the hedgerows


It was lovely to get some sunshine too, after a long wet summer. The paths were all muddy though and from a climate chaos point of view the unseasonably high temperatures are worrying.


5 comments:

RG said...

Beautiful scenes and the blue sky! We have seen little of that lately too!

Looks just like our long gone Kitty Boy!!

Somewhere round about said...

I can't travel atm, so this post is so lovely to read! Thank you!

David said...

If you drive from Edinburgh to Wigtown I recommend visiting a nature reserve just west of Lockerbie. From memory the road to the reserve crosses the M74 and you turn left immediately after the last house in Lockerbie. We visited it last December and the mosses, lichens and birds made the visit worthwhile. Again from memory it is largely the creation of one individual.

Jeff said...

Lovely sights.

I’m now blogging at a new site: www.fromarockyhillside.com

Crafty Green Poet said...

Thanks Rabbits Guy and Somewhere roud about

David, i think I know the nature reserve you mean. We visited it either last year or the year before if memory serves

Jeff, thanks, I'll make a point of visiting your new blog!