Solway coast is bird watchers' paradise

Some of Britain's rarest birds live in the vast mud flats and sands of Solway on the Dumfries coast. Anthony Toole reports

The coastline of Dumfries and Galloway follows a tortuous route from Gretna to Loch Ryan. The direct distance is less than 100 miles, but the meanderings to north and south more than double this.

Around a backbone of low hills, the rivers Annan, Dee, Cree, Bladnock and the waters of Urr and Fleet, as well as numerous smaller streams, have filled the valleys with alluvium.

Since the retreat of the Ice Age glaciers 11,000 years ago, tiny particles of sand and clay have been carried incessantly from the north, and deposited where the rivers meet the weaker sea currents. And the process continues, creating an ever-shifting sequence of mud flats that extends in some places as far as three miles from the land.

South-east of Dumfries the sands of Powfoot face across the narrowest part of the Solway Firth toward the Cumbrian coast and the mountains of the Lake District in England.

Buried in the mud are ragworms, snails, crabs, shrimps and shellfish that in turn provide food for large numbers of birds.

Throughout the year, waders such as golden and ringed plover, lapwing, curlew, oystercatcher and dunlin can be seen here.

These are often joined by shelduck, and in winter, scaup.

West of Powfoot, the boundary of the Caerlaverock National Nature Reserve stretches along the coast for nine miles, past the estuaries of Lochar Water and the River Nith. It then moves south to Carsethorn, before turning back east along a line some four miles out into the waters of the Solway.

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• By : Anthony Toole
• In : Best of Scotland
• Issue : 23
• Page : 42
• Words : 1,037