A trip to Caerlaverock

Friday 29th Oct

We had arranged to meet our friends Irene & Fred from Carlisle for a trip to Caerlaverock WWT site. We hummed and hawed for a while due to the unsettled weather but as we were all up for a good day out we went ahead.  Gretna Gateway was the arranged meeting place where we piled into my little Peugeot 206 which must have been a bit of a come down for Mr & Mrs Bell as they swank about in lovely big Merc.

The weather unfortunately got steadily worse so whether this had an influence on the 12,000 Barnacle Geese that was reported to be flying around I don't know, but disappointingly they weren't much in evidence. Not to be dettered we had a wonderful day just wandering from hide to hide. We started of with a picnic in the lovely sheltered picnic area. After being fed and watered we went to see the Swans getting fed. This was quite spectacular but what really caught my attention was the rats coming out from the undergrowth to feed on the birdseed that was spilling from a bird-feeder. The feeder was attracting lots of Siskins which I haven't seen any evidence in our garden as yet so hopefully they'll be here soon. Fred has been desperate to see a Hen Harrier and was never successful on his trips to Langholm in the Summer. He was absolutely gutted when we met a couple of guys just coming out of one of the hides and said we had just missed one.
We stopped off in Gretna and had a an excellent meal on the Solway Lodge. ( I thoroughly recommend the Cumberland hotpot).
I arrived home in time to meet Mr Tootlepedal at the Archive Centre then for a pint in the Douglas Hotel.