Out ferreting again today, I was amazed by the sheer quantity of geese that are out and about at the moment. From what I can gather, the pink feet have been forced down from Islay and the west coast of Scotland by all this hard weather, and there are now record numbers of geese on Continue reading

Despite the fact that I have been surveying the Chayne for wildlife over the past year, I have never seen any actual evidence of hares until quite recently. Discovering some small round droppings in the heather laboratory got me thinking, but it was only when the snow fell and continued to fall over the past Continue reading

When I was at school, the word fluke applied to a moment of extreme luck or good fortune. It was a good thing to be described as “flukey”. In the context of rabbits, however, the application of the word fluke is decidedly less positive. I posted something about liver fluke in rabbits a few months Continue reading

Ten days after putting out feeders for the stray pheasants in the windbreak above the farm buildings, I have to report an uncertain outcome. All of the maize I scattered around the wood vanished very quickly, but I think that I can put the majority of that down to chaffinches, which, when I visited again Continue reading

Having criticised the law defending barnacle geese in a post on this blog last week, I decided to head down to WWT Caerlaverock this afternoon to take some accompanying photographs and to have a closer look at some wigeon and teal. Caerlaverock is literally smothered in wildfowl at the moment. Within seconds of pulling up Continue reading

Over the past few weeks, squirrels have become more and more noticeable. It doesn’t seem like long ago since they first started to appear on the Chayne after last winter, but then the leaves came out and they vanished again. I would see them for a second along the topstones of a dyke before they Continue reading

Exactly 13 months ago, I visited Caerlaverock wildfowl sanctuary to find out a bit more about wigeon; the most fantastic species of wild duck to be found in Galloway. Caerlaverock has several resident birds which don’t head north to Scandinavia and Northern Russia, and I managed to have a look at one or two of Continue reading

What with all I’ve had on recently, I haven’t had the chance to get up to the Chayne for the last ten days. Driving up this afternoon, I disturbed a red kite and two corbie crows who were dining out together on a hen pheasant which had been squashed on the road. The past few Continue reading

I have been told that my ferrets are extremely overweight. They are certainly consuming a tremendous quantity of food at the moment, but I hadn’t realised their chubbiness until it was bluntly pointed out to me by a fellow ferreting enthusiast. In order to get them up to fighting fitness, I have cut down their Continue reading

As I learned a fortnight ago, toadstools have excellent names. Discovering a colony of the awesome “sickener” in the woodcock strip had me examining the ground very closely before stepping anywhere else, and the more I have got into the habit of looking for fungi, the more I have found. It makes me look dull Continue reading