The Stewartry Birdwatchers

The Stewartry Birdwatchers always welcome non-members at our meetings.

Carrion crow and male hen harrier photographed by Maisie Welsh, a member of the Stewartry Birdwatchers

About halfway through any talk we have an interval when all can enjoy refreshments, have a chat and put any questions to the speakers.

Our next talk will be at 10.30am on Thursday 14 March in Balmaclellan Village Hall. The speaker will be David Pickett, site manager of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Caerlaverock Reserve.

The reserve is a wonderful place to visit to see thousands of barnacle and other geese as well as hundreds of whooper and mute swans, and many species of ducks and waders. These can all be viewed from a comfortable heated modern hide! The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust are developing the management of the reserve to increase the wetlands and the biodiversity in the face of a changing climate.

Our excellent talk in December was by Chris Rollie titled Donald Watson’s birds in a changing landscape, which was illustrated by many of Donald’s beautiful paintings. It was all rather depressing to see how much of Galloway’s wonderful countryside has disappeared under blanket forestry and to know that nowadays so much more is going under blanket windfarms and blanket silage fields.

Donald moved to Dalry some 50 years ago and enjoyed Galloway at its best. I was lucky to know him and many years ago walked the 15-mile length of our hills, the Rhinns of Kells, with him and two other friends. Almost at the end of the day Donald identified a rough-legged buzzard for us – a real surprise.

I only appreciated the smoke from his pipe when we spent many hours amongst Galloway’s hordes of midges trying to locate the nest of his favourite bird, the hen harrier!

The last talk of the session, at 7.30pm in Balmaclellan on Thursday 11 April, is about hen harriers, which were once widespread in the UK but have now fallen victim to habitat loss, land use change and continuing persecution.

The results of a recent national survey of these birds will let us know how they are faring in Scotland. Artist, ornithologist and author Donald Watson made a special study of this species and his important book The Hen Harrier, illustrated by the author, was published in 1977 by Poyser. Many changes will have taken place since then.

Joan Howie