Caerlaverock news
Wetland Word of the Week 4
For week 4, our wetland word of the week is...... firth. A firth is a narrow inlet of the sea or an estuary. It comes from the old Norse for fjord. In Scotland, famous firths include the Firth of Forth, the Moray Firth and of course, our own Solway Firth.
25 March 2024
Wetland Word of the Week 3
Our Wetland Word of the Week for week 3 is...... dabchick which is another name for little grebe. It's name comes from the word 'dap' which means to dip lightly or suddenly under water. Dabchicks are known for their fantastic diving, clumsy walking on lan
18 March 2024
Wetland Word of the Week 2
Our second wetland word of the week is...... flobby, a Scots word used of clouds meaning they are large and indicating rain. We get a lot of that down here at Caerlaverock, being in South West Scotland but it definitely keeps our wetland wet! Scots is
11 March 2024
Wetland Word of the Week 1
For our Words for Wetlands programme we are creating a dictionary of wetland words. Our first is merse......meaning the marshy land where the river meets the sea, specifically applied to the Solway Firth. Merse is the word we use when talking about the sa
7 March 2024
We all know what March means...
It’s getting to that time of year: we are nearing the end of daily swan feeds.The swans are getting ready to head back to Iceland for their summer holidays. We are seeing fewer and fewer of them on the Whooper Pond during the feeds and will soon be able
4 March 2024
From yelling 'stick together' to 'it's all about me!'
It’s a day where the distance is hidden, the close is blurry and grey and so as I head down the Saltcot Loaning, I lean more to using ears than eyes. We love to label and compartmentalise times of year but today fits no man-made season: my ears tell me
27 February 2024
Introducing our new feeding station
After several months of planning and postponing and dreaming and rearranging, we have finally completed our first project – redesigning the bird feeder station. The station is along the Peter Scott Trail in an area of wet woodland. This habitat provides
20 February 2024
Willow Weaving
Before Christmas, a fence along the Saltcot Loaning blew over, an unfortunate event... Or was it?It gave us the exciting challenge of creating our very first willow screen. Willow is amazingly flexible due to its fast-growing nature causing a lack in cell
18 February 2024
Observations from the Big Hideout
Excitedly I grab some old binoculars after hearing that we have a certain visitor to our Whooper pond.Although they delight our team and visitors from time to time, I am yet to see one.It is with glee that upon hurriedly reaching the observatory, I am gre
16 February 2024
Put a ring on it
It is uncommon for us to be finding new swan rings at this time of year. Normally by this time, we stop seeing birds with rings that haven’t visited the reserve yet this season. But at the end of January, ZJA was spotted. The ring was old and weathered-
14 February 2024
The crunch of snail shells
I walk down the Saltcot Loaning and hear a crunch as I step. Glancing down, I notice a snail shell under the toe of my boot. I jerk back immediately, worried I’ve just crushed some little creature. I crouch down to look at it and it is just an empty she
6 February 2024
Caerlaverock Bird Race 2024 Final Update
With the end of January comes the end of the Bird Race.The wardens, placement students and our very own site manager were put against each other in a battle of birding to see who knows their fieldfare from their redwing and who mistakes a blue tit for a g
1 February 2024
Going for Gold (Bird Race update 7)
The longer we do the bird race, the trickier it gets. We were seeing three or four new species everyday in the first week or so but now a good day is a single new species. It becomes important that all the regulars are checked off the list and there is on
29 January 2024
Greenshank, twite and snipe (Bird Race update 6)
Another week of the Bird Race and we're approaching the final stretch now. Highlights for the teams this week are greenshank on the Lochar, twite on the saltmarsh, large numbers of knot during the WeBS count and three woodcock in the carpark. Other sighti
21 January 2024
Who would choose that pond?
You see a shallow, muddy-looking pool in an area where there is little to no plant life around. You know that there must be a creature that likes it because there is almost nowhere on the planet that isn’t occupied by one animal or another. But who in t
21 January 2024