Sue and the Bench

Today's the day ......................... for the natural world

Sue and I paid a visit to the Nature Reserve at Threave Castle near Castle Douglas today.

The land is owned by The National Trust for Scotland (NTS), and managed in partnership with Galloway Glens Partnership Scheme (GGLP), a coalition of several local and specialist organisations. The reserve was once a dairy farm but the project aims to restore the landscape as it was originally - and to re-develop a healthy and sustainable ecosystem which, over time, will transform the estate from a net carbon emitter to a net carbon sequesterer.

It was a delight to be there today and we had it pretty much to ourselves.  Of course, the ospreys that nested there this summer have now returned to Africa from whence they came.  The single chick that they reared has also gone - not with them - but seemingly perfectly capable of finding an unknown (to him) far-off country in which to spend the winter, without any help from anyone?!  It's one of Nature's miracles.

But there were plenty of other things to look at.  The extra is Sue getting a shot of some of the other local wildlife - and the above is her resting a while on one of the Reserve's beautiful carved benches ........................