morning flight

Last night I bivvied out near Caerlaverock, on the merse north of the Solway. It's the winter home of many thousands of barnacle geese. From BBC Radio 4's Living World:

"After a long summer spent raising their young in the Arctic, barnacle geese need a safe place in warmer climes to fatten up before the breeding season begins again. Every winter the whole population of Svalbard barnacle geese make their way to one place in the UK; the Solway Firth on the west coast of Scotland. One of the best places to see them is the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust centre at Caerlaverock. Each day the barnacle geese gorge themselves in the fields around the centre. Just before dusk, quiet falls over the feeding birds, signalling it is time to return en masse to roost in the salt flats out of the way of opportunistic predators".

At sunrise, the geese start moving again and by half past eight this morning, they were making their way inland to Caerlaverock once again. By this time, I had packed up, taken all my stuff back to the car and set off to climb Ward Law hill. That's where I was when these geese flew overhead.

It had been a peaceful night out on the merse and the stars were amazing, the Milky Way stretching out overhead of me as I fell into a dreamless sleep. Although there was a slight frost, I was snug and dry, and slept until 7am.

The extra is the view over the Solway towards the Lake District from Ward Law.