Caerlaverock

 

Caerlaverock is one of the places we visit almost every time we take a break in Dumfries and Galloway, so we made sure we visited last week. The highlight is the Caerlaverock Wildlife and Wetland Trust (WWT) reserve, which is worth almost a full day of wandering around, enjoying the wildlife. There's such a great variety of wildlife here, as well as being an overwintering site for geese and other waterfowl, it's known as a dragonfly hotspot. This visit, we were too early for the wintering wildfowl and too late to see large numbers of dragonflies (though we did see some, including this male Common Darter)

There were also good numbers of butterflies, especially in the wildlife garden area, including Red Admirals (the lower butterfly in the photo below) and Small Tortoiseshells (the higher butterfly in the photo below) 

There are lots of hides around the reserve, including a couple of tower hides, which allow for long views across the reserve. From one of these we had a great view of a Marsh Harrier (only the second time we've ever seen this rare bird of prey). The photo below sadly isn't as great as the view was in real life.

There's also a lovely hide where you can watch a variety of smaller birds coming to a group of feeders

Through those windows you can spy on birds including Tree Sparrows (which are sadly quite rare these days) and Willow Tits (which are even rarer). In the photo below, on the left of the feeder are two Tree Sparrows, on the right, at the front there's a Blue Tit, at the back is a tit, which I think is a Willow Tit, but it's not clear enough and it might be a (much more common) Coal Tit.... 

After exploring the WWT reserve, we drove to the nearby National Nature Reserve, where we were sadly defeated by the mud and so we then went to Caerlaverock Castle  

and walked through the Castle Woods,  

which were full of a variety of fungi, including this rather handsome bolete. 

 

 Note: we don't have a car of our own, we use public transport to get around in Edinburgh. However, we always hire a car when we visit Dumfries and Galloway, as otherwise it would be almost impossible to get around.