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.