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Campfield Marsh is quite a spectacle in May with its covering of Sea Pinks - not to mention the Gorse and May blossom along the fringes. Back to farm and estuary - we continue along the coastal road round the Cardurnock Peninsula. Within a few hundred yards of North Plain farm we arrive at the lay...

Campfield Marsh. Now we come to the 3rd part of the Blog, having dealt with accommodation issues. We can start to describe the main features of the area which is after all what you will be coming to enjoy, be it Spring, Summer or Winter. In the case of birders, winter in the Solway area is of particular...

Beginning of the Reserve in Bowness-n-Solway. Now that spring has arrived and the Summer holiday season will soon be looming, not to mention the opening of the new Campfield Marsh RSPB Visitor Centre later in the year – people are going to start arriving here wanting to know what facilities...

Black-tailed Godwit. After lunch, Judith said to me,”I'll have to get into the garden. These last two days of sunshine and rain have brought everything on. “OK,” I said, “I need a walk. I'll go down the Lonning and see what's there.” Unusually there was very...

Campfield Marsh - early April. 6th April 2013 Sunny all day with a light SW wind. Early morning there were 14 Shelduck with two Mallard pairs out on the mudflats. A small group of Redshank came in with the tide. On the Meadow Pools, Wigeon and Teal were gathering and seemingly pairing up. The two...

Pinkfeet against distant snow-clad Skiddaw. Wall to wall sunshine from dawn, with fluffy Constable-style clouds – completely windless. What a day! We had to go to Kirkbride so set off along the saltmarsh and within a couple of minutes ran into two Little Egrets near Biglands lay-by. They...

Newly arrived male Siskin - 30 3 13 We have to admit that over the past several weeks we have been near to hibernating. Those awful Siberian winds have been battering across the Pennines, sweeping the snowfields of the western slopes and withering the benign Solway Basin. Even the two tides per day...

Badger routings in the orchard - 24 3 13 Our house, garden and orchard lie slap in the middle of the Campfield Marsh Reserve and we take great joy in all the birds and animals that flow across us in their various pursuits. We gaze out across the meadows and moss at the back, and the saltmarsh and...

Across the Meadow Pools towards the snow clad Lakeland Fells - 20 3 13 10th March. Small flocks of Curlew are regularly appearing on the tideline. Watched this Kestrel hunting along the wetlands in front of the hide. It kept dropping down amongst the rushes but rapidly re-emerged...

Checking out the saltmarsh for safe grazing.

Having arrived on 10th, it had been regularly seen somewhere on the Reserve each day since. Today it could be seen preening on the back edge of the Saltmarsh Pool.

A group of Cormorants have been regularly successfully fishing here on the estuary.

A detail of Pinks flock.

Estimated about 200 geese in the flock

Watched this great bird come into land on the saltmarsh round Scargavel Point( NY198617) at dusk today. It landed near the dubs, which it proceeded to hunt in, for small fish and frogs etc. It has been regularly seen most days now hunting on the Reserve saltmarsh, since 1st November and has given a great...

Four leucistic Barnacles, locally thought to be a family group, grazing together with other Barnacles and Pinkfeet, on wetland pastures of North Plain Farm.

There had been a slight thaw in the cold spell. Both Barnacles and Pinks were feeding amicably amongst the long grass and rushes in front of the hide,.

This pic is of the Barnacles - bit of a speciality of the Solway. These little geese centre mostly on the WWT Caerlaverock Reserve whose wonderful work with this population over the years has seen their proliferation and spread throughout the Solway Basin. We seem to be seeing more of them as time...