Threave Gardens and Nature Reserve

On our last day in Dumfries we visted Threave. There's a stately home with gardens, a castle and a nature reserve. It was a beautiful day, so we stayed in the outdoors! Threave Gardens, owned by National Trust for Scotland, are beautiful, with woodland areas, wetland areas and wildflower meadows.

There are some lovely touches to help wildlife including this bat roost

this area for the bees

and this bee and bug hotel

Some nice sculptures too, including this wonderful piece by Ronald Rae

which has all sorts of detail in it, including ducks, a wolf and a human figure.

this herd of Belted Galloway cattle (a local breed) in the picnic area

and this lovely Japanese style water feature

Again lots of wildlife, particularly butterflies! I have never seen so many butterflies anywhere as we did last week in Dumfries and Galloway! The highlight at Threave was seeing this wall butterfly

After lunch on the cafe balcony at the gardens we drove a wee bit further over to Threave Nature Reserve, which incorporates a pretty walk to the river

 where you can get a boat to Threave Castle

We were too late in the season to see the ospreys at their nest, but we were delighted to see about 8 red kites, which are wonderful raptors to see, so colourful and so large!