A beach and countryside walk

It's been a funny week. Warm and overcast a bit. 

It's Friday as I'm composing this post and it's pouring rain.

(The river needs it as the last picture will show)

On Wednesday I decided a beach walk might clear a fuzzy head.

I headed east and parked up at Mossyard beach car park.

(I need to go back and find the ring marked rocks, Castle Wilkie and the Standing Stones of Newton, don't ask why I didn't have my map with me ! ))

It was very quiet as I walked east across the rocks and sand.

This fella seemed to be looking for lunch.

There were a lot of oyster-catchers around.

I kept my eye open for anything worth photographing.

This stretch of coastline from Auchenlarie to Gatehouse of Fleet is very popular with holidaymakers.

Cabins and caravan sites thrive in the summer and although there was no activity on the beach I could see plenty of people either setting up camp or doing maintenance on their mobile homes.

Standing over a rock pool, it wasn't my intention to take a 'selfie', but when I saw it in the LCD screen.......................

...................I decided to take another.

Shoreline and rock-pool plants.

Leaving the shoreline I took a short walk through the Cardoness-Estate-Holiday-Park. Here there are 182 owner occupied holiday homes, 38 chalets and lodges and half a dozen sites for tourers. As you drive pass the entrance on the A75, you can't see any of this. It really is a hidden gem.

Alongside and to the west was a path through the woods marked as a nature trail.

I decided to take a walk through for my return to Mossyard. 

Here's a Meadow Brown.

By far the most widespread in Galloway is the Ringlet.

As I climbed up a an incline I came to a bench with a view and a memorial plaque.

I've touched up the photograph of the name plaque, the paint is flaking off.

Apparently Geoffrey was a skilled surgeon and died within ten weeks of Rosemary's passing.

This is the view they enjoyed in the 40+ years they came up here.

Now to get back to the beach. I headed inland until I could identify whether the cattle I saw were bulls or otherwise.

This is a view of Newton Farm with the hill Mill Knock behind.

When I got close I saw they were inquisitive young ladies.

Across another field there were lots of gulls looking for easy pickings behind a ploughing tractor.

Back at Mossyard I saw this female blackbird trying to drum up lunch.

From Mossyard I now took short walk west to White Bay where I had a bite to eat and watched as a couple of youngsters fished off the rocks.

My book says this is a field digger wasp.

So ended my beach walk.

On Thursday I took a walk up to Glenamour.

There's a lot of lillies on the smaller Glengarren Loch

Here's a parasol mushroom and a welsh poppy.

Two pictures together of Glenamour Loch almost creating an optical illusion.

Lots of water lillies on Glenamour loch too.

Back in Newton Stewart the river is low. Normal levels will be resumed after today's downpour.

At least the weather forecast for our group's walk tomorrow looks good.  

Where's the snow ?

It's Friday the 26th of November 2010 and while the north and east have been getting snow storms,here in the south west of Scotland it's been cold but bright.

The first four pictures were taken on farmland close to Kirkcowan as I look for possible ramblers walks.
Flooded fields have frozen over.

This is the Killeal burn.It flows into the Bladnoch close by.
Marked on the OS map at it's confluence with the Bladnoch,are stepping stones.I think the river needs to be quite low to cross.I never took a picture.

There's a few 'des. res.'in need of some modernisation.


The next set of pictures are in Glenamour close to Newton Stewart.
Here's a Great Tit.I like the contrasts in this picture,It looks like one of my collages.

I posted a 'Wet Grass' picture last week.Here's a frozen one.

The burns are still flowing well.


The moss covers tree stumps and spreads all round at this time of year.I can visualise a squirrel in this picture.

Reaching Glenamour loch, I spot this heron.

It's about twice the size of the one that frequents Newton Stewart weir.

It took off soon after.They reckon the wing span of a grey heron is around six feet.I'd swear you could add another foot each side to this one.

Apart from the heron the only other sign of life I saw was some kind of water beetle under the ice.There's not a lot of food around a frozen loch.

I've taken pictures and panoramas here before.
2008
Here's Barncaughla from a different viewpoint.

Another few days before the ice is safe to walk on.It's about 30 millimetres thick at the moment.

Just below Glenamour Loch is the small Glengarren Loch.It's usually quite overgrown in the middle of summer,but there's not much undergrowth now.This is the first time I've seen this boat.In all my time here I've still to come across anyone fishing these lochs.Down by the main road,Old Mill Dam or Wee Loch Glenamour as it's sometimes called seems the preferred choice of anglers.

And this is Glengarren Loch.
No doubt we'll get the snow soon enough.