Wednesday 23 September 2009

Dumfries part 4

Our last trip in Dumfries was to Mabie Wood. I have to admit when we first got there we thought we might have made a mistake as the place is full of mountain bike trails, which for walkers aren't the best place to be! Luckily we found the footpaths and wandered all over the woods, which lie across some lovely hills. There were lots of siskins around, feeding in the tops of the trees. They're a lovely lively bird to see.

We had a wonderful time in and around Dumfries. Lots of lovely wildlife to see and lots of interesting sights. There were loads of spiders for example, beautiful webs everywhere and spiders fighting over food and one disentangling a butterfly from its web to prevent the web from being broken. Amazingly the butterfly flew away apparently unharmed!

10 comments:

Larry Kollar said...

Sounds like a nice hike, and that's a great new banner picture!

Were the spiders also smart enough to not string webs across the trails at head level? I do appreciate their bug-catching, but spiders here seem to have a bad habit of trying to catch me.

Julie said...

Beautiful! I love the picture. It feels like I could just curl up on that mountain and take a nap:) I would loved to have seen the spider untangling the butterfly. That sounds like a great poem.

steven said...

juliet i clicked up that second picture and a shiver went up my spine and i sighed a deep sigh. that's my comment - i can't say it any better! steven

poefusion said...

glad you were able to find the hiking trails and enjoy some time in the wilderness. interesting to hear a spider released it's prey because it didn't want it's home disturbed. even in nature we can find good deeds being passed along. hope all is well. have a great night.

Janice Thomson said...

Wow - what a beautiful view.

Deb G said...

How beautiful this all is....

mansuetude said...

enjoyed this series, the love of nature ... birds and butterflies. It always seems ancient, older world
"over there" compared to USA ... have seen some lemon yellow butterflies this summer... more butterflies than my whole life.

thanks for sharing it all.

Gillena Cox said...

The new intro photos is nice

glad you're having such an interesting hike

much love
gillena

YowlYY said...

The areas you visited are absolutely stunning - and the wildlife!! I have never seen a red squirrel, maybe one day..
It seems as if now is the time for the spiders to spin their webs everywhere... and even in very urban Nottingham they seem to be quite big (well fed?) and are continuously coming into the house, much to the bunnies' displeasure (hear the thumping when they spot one, promptly captured with a glass and delivered out in the garden!).

Crafty Green Poet said...

Farfetched - yes, sometimes the spiders had strung webs across at head level, ht can be annoying...

Julie - yes it might be an idea for a poem, i took some photos but they weren't good enough to share...

steven, Janice, Deb, Gillena - thanks

Michelle - I think some species of spider will do that quite often, not sure how often the prey survives though

mansuetude - a few people are saying they've seen more butterflies than usual this year, interesting...

Yowlyy - I can just see Miss Eve and neville stamping at the spiders...