Hi all thanks for the info took advantage of the good weather last Friday and went up the borders and with the kids being on there hols there came as well. Well I did not want the make the birding too easy! My oldest daughter chloe volunteered to be bookkeeper she recorded 70 species over 36 hours .1st stop was hawick riverside park lovely place. plenty of birds to be seen kingfisher, goosander, treecreeper, nuthatch, g/s/woody, dipper, swallows, heron, grey wagtails, and a buzzard soaring high above. We then moved on to alemoor res goldeneye, g/c grebes, and 1 whooper swan on the water. siskin, mistle thrush, pied wags in the forest but no sign of the crossbill.next stop was hopehouse in the Ettrick valley seen our 1st wheatear of the year and seen 6 in total plenty of buzzards and a few oystercatchers sitting on nests if that what you can call them. We camped in a forest and seen a crossbill just before sundown also 4 smooth newts was found in a puddle don’t see many of them these days Up at the crack of dawn to see other buzzard fly over low and headed to the grey mares tail waterfall stopping off at st marys loch redshank reed buntings and snipe seen next to the loch .had our breakfast at the grey mares tail while the kids knocked the ranger out of bed asking if the peregrine falcons were there yet! They were there but not nesting as yet as the ranger keeps an 24 hour watch on the nest via a camera. During our egg and beans we heard the unmistakable cry of a peregrine falcon and there it was soaring high above the waterfall. We climbed the mountain up to lock skeen stonechats, wheatears, dipper,and the star of the show the peregrine chasing meadow pipits also ravens seen on the peaks. We also seen mountain goats next to the falls All too soon it was time to head back home a mute swan in a large pond in someone’s front garden/field (its actually the place I am going to buy when I win the lottery as I have had my eye on it for about 20 years) was our 70th bird. it would have been 71 if we had seen a robin heard but not seen
Thanks again we are going back in may to beat 70.
as i do not own a £2000 camera the pics are not the best only one bird pic taken of a pied wag
