Main photo credit Richard Taylor Jones
Autumn is now with us and so are the geese! The first pink-footed geese arrived mid-September with many continuing their flight south to Lancashire.
The first 29 barnacle geese arrived on the merse on Saturday the 17th of September but had only built up to 36 by the 28th. They are the early arrivals and as soon as the winds turn to blow down from the north, which looks like being the first weekend in October, we will get a big influx of geese to join them.
Photo credit Brian Morrell
The barnacle geese will not fly into the wind on migration as they will use up twice as much energy. Their flight south from Svalbard is 3,000km (1,800 miles) with most of the journey over the sea and they only have so much fuel for the journey stored as fat in their abdomen from a summer feeding on Arctic plants.
One of our osprey chicks is carrying a satellite tag so that we can follow him as he flies south to Africa for the winter. At the time of writing he is hoped to be flying over the Sahara but he is in a zone where we are unable to get a signal from him. Fingers crossed he will make it. This is an exciting joint project between FCS & WWT.
The long staying great egret delighted visitors throughout September showing well feeding on the merse and flying in to the Folly pond for a drink and a bathe.
Numbers of waders on the Solway and the ponds continue to grow with increasing flocks of dunlin, knot, golden plover, lapwing and curlew. Numbers of black-tailed godwits approached the 200 mark and were joined by greenshanks, ruff and snipe. Two flying barnies photo credit Alex Hillier
Wigeon, teal, shoveler and shelducks are all arriving daily with flocks of pintail building out on the Solway.
Peregrines hunting over the merse are now a daily sight and up to three marsh harriers were seen in September. The raptor count should go up as we go towards winter with hopefully merlins and hen harriers.
Little Egret photo credit James Lees
We have lots of special events going on throughout the autumn and winter from dawn and dusk flights, photography courses and our Halloween pumpkin carving.
Check out the website at www.wwt.org.uk/caerlaverock for more details.
We are open every day from 10am to 5pm and our daily commentated wild swan feeds are at 11am and 2pm.
Our refurbished coffee shop will be providing light meals, soups and our delicious range of home-made cakes every day.