Latest sightings

More warblers, butterflies and amphibians

Our glorious spring weather continues and with it, our spring migrant birds continue to flock in, among them sedge, garden and grasshopper warblers and an osprey has been seen carrying its lunch! Mallard pairs have been spotted with their ducklings. As

6 May 2023

Farewell For Now to the Geese

April can be a confusing month at WWT Caerlaverock. On a calendar April is smack bang in the middle of spring and seen in black and white like that it should be clear what to expect when you venture out. Instead it is actually like an airport foyer with w

30 April 2023

Grasshopper warbler, Common sandpiper & Osprey

Throughout the week we have had an influx of invertebrate life grace the site with three really interesting species seen: the ruby tiger moth, drinker moth caterpillar and a water scorpion spotted in one of our natterjack pools near the Saltcot hide. I

23 April 2023

Summer migrants and other recent sightings

This week on the reserve, we have seen an influx of summer migrants that have made journeys from across the globe, with the majority returning from Africa. Hirundines (a family of passerine songbirds), such as swallows and sand martins, have been spotte

16 April 2023

Spring sightings

Spring has definitely arrived in full force as we head into April. There has continued to be lots of chiffchaff seen (and heard!) around the reserve as well as our first confirmed sightings of sand martins and swallows from the Peter Scott Observatory. Mo

9 April 2023

Species spotlight - Tree sparrow

The tree sparrow (Passer montanus) is in the family of old world sparrows. This passerine is easily identifiable due to the brown chestnut cap on the top of the head. Between the sexes there is no difference which is quite unique in birds as the majority

3 April 2023

Chiffchaff sing their arrival

The Folly pond has had an array of ducks this week, with the usual teal, wigeon, northern shoveler and mallards joined often by up to six pintail and shelduck. There was also the odd group of waders using the banks of the pond, such as curlew, redshank, l

27 March 2023

Spring's awakening

Although we are saying fond farewells for now to our whooper swans that have started their migrations back to Iceland, we are welcoming signs that spring is underway. We've been enjoying quite a mix of all four seasons recently, but there are definitely m

20 March 2023

Brent amongst the Barnies

It is quietening down on the reserve at the moment, it feels like we’re at that awkward point near winter’s end, but not quite the beginning of spring.Having said that there’s still been some really nice sightings this week. On Tuesday the volunteer

12 March 2023

Until next time, Caerlaverock

I have spent the last four months working at WWT Caerlaverock and my main takeaway: it’s a little bit magic. For a lot of people, winter is a dark, sad time where all you want to do is wrap up and stay inside to hibernate. And for a long time, I was muc

12 March 2023

Large Flocks of Knots from the Saltcot

We’ve had another busy fortnight at WWT Caerlaverock Wetlands Centre. You can feel spring in the air and there are snowdrops popping up all over the place. However, our wintering ducks, waders and geese are still around in flocks and will be for some we

15 February 2023

Big Bird Challenge Final Update

And the results are in!The end of January saw our reserve staff’s Big Bird Challenge wrap up, where our placement students were put against the wardens in a competition to see which team could spot the most birds in the first month of 2023. The teams dr

4 February 2023

Why is that bird paler than it should be?

Birds are not always exactly the same colour and pattern as they appear in bird guides. Often this is only a slight difference in an individual’s appearance to the typical example of that species. However, an individual’s appearance can be drastically

26 January 2023

Marsh Harrier and Otters

In the last fortnight, we've continued to have a significant number of raptors around: people have been reporting hen harrier, peregrine falcon and kestrel, as well as a marsh harrier! These are a much less common occurrence here than other birds of prey.

22 January 2023

Dawn geese by sound and sight

I am standing alone in WWT Caerlaverock’s car park in the dark, well before first light, being gently soaked by a fine drizzle of rain and I wonder if anyone will turn up … and why I am doing this job.It is a dark Saturday morning and time for a dawn

15 January 2023