Looking Up

After our foraging expedition we visited Hadfast Valley wildlife reserve near Cousland and walked the figure-of-eight route, which passes beneath this pylon. According to the noticeboard this has been a bird ringing site since the early 1970's and was one of the first in Scotland. We did see a couple of pheasant and a robin but there was little evidence of anything more exotic, for example a goldcrest, such as that trapped here in 2013, 40 days after being ringed in the north of Sweden, 1595km away.

Our foraging results were once again thwarted by trimming of the trees or poor crop in our usual and alternative areas but also by the crop being already diminished by feeding birds. This seems untypically early so perhaps this signifies a cold winter to come - we shall wait and see, duly fortified by elderberry rob.