02/02/2011

02 02 11

I won't be posting a message every day but at the moment I have a few photographs to hand that I'd like to share with you.

A week or so ago I checked Metcheck weather site and for Gilsland the forecast was glum. Expanding the search a bit further I discovered there was due to be sunshine on the Solway Coast, especially the north side.

There's a square lighthouse at Southerness Point, to the south of Dumfries, that I've been to once before and promised I'd return but never had, this seemed like a good opportunity.


It wasn't quite as bright as expected when we arrived but the lighthouse looked quite nice against the darker sky.
The tide was out and on this part of the coast it goes out a long, long way so any hope of my photographing wading birds soon disappeared.
In places it's a sort of silty mud and others a very fine hardpacked sand and can be a bit messy to walk over.

The sun came out as we walked along the shore, two deer passed in front of us and we were accompanied along the way by the gentle thwack of golf balls from the Southerness Championship Golf Course, just behind the dunes.

On the way back I did get some sunshine sky lighthouse pictures but liked the moody sky best.

This early in the year there was no where open for a cup of tea so we headed back to Dumfries.
You can park near the River Nith in Dumfries, for 3 hours at no cost which makes a very pleasant change.
Parked up and went to look at the river just in time to see two otters trying to sneak up on a group of snoozing Mallard.
The ducks woke up in time to escape and the otters swam off, I managed to get a blurred picture of them.
Something to go back for.



The Heron was a much easier subject to photograph, standing still on a gravel bank in the middle of the river, it was late in the afternoon and the sun was low enough to make the ripples dance with colour.

I wandered up to the weir, looking for Goosanders, they were there but too far away for a photograph so I had to content myself with a shot of the water rushing over the weir, again the light made patterns of colour.


Then it was time to go and find something to eat, but we decided we'd come back to Dumfries within the month and spend a bit more time getting to know the town, it was grand day out.

Double click the pictures if you'd like to view them at a bigger size.

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