Latest sightings

The Nesting Season at Caerlaverock (and recent sightings)

The nesting season is well underway and our site hosts a wide variety of resident and summer migrants raising chicks which will hopefully fledge in the coming weeks. Species like great tits will use the natural landscape such as old woodpecker’s holes

22 May 2023

A reserve alive with busy insects and birdsong

As the days lengthen, the reserve becomes more and more alive with birdsong and the constant humming of busy insects. Although certainly quieter than it is in winter time without our enormous flocks of barnacle geese, teal and wigeon, there is a kind of p

13 May 2023

More warblers, butterflies and amphibians

Our glorious spring weather continues and with it, our spring migrant birds continue to flock in, among them sedge, garden and grasshopper warblers and an osprey has been seen carrying its lunch! Mallard pairs have been spotted with their ducklings. As

6 May 2023

Grasshopper warbler, Common sandpiper & Osprey

Throughout the week we have had an influx of invertebrate life grace the site with three really interesting species seen: the ruby tiger moth, drinker moth caterpillar and a water scorpion spotted in one of our natterjack pools near the Saltcot hide. I

23 April 2023

Summer migrants and other recent sightings

This week on the reserve, we have seen an influx of summer migrants that have made journeys from across the globe, with the majority returning from Africa. Hirundines (a family of passerine songbirds), such as swallows and sand martins, have been spotte

16 April 2023

Spring sightings

Spring has definitely arrived in full force as we head into April. There has continued to be lots of chiffchaff seen (and heard!) around the reserve as well as our first confirmed sightings of sand martins and swallows from the Peter Scott Observatory. Mo

9 April 2023

Chiffchaff sing their arrival

The Folly pond has had an array of ducks this week, with the usual teal, wigeon, northern shoveler and mallards joined often by up to six pintail and shelduck. There was also the odd group of waders using the banks of the pond, such as curlew, redshank, l

27 March 2023

Brent amongst the Barnies

It is quietening down on the reserve at the moment, it feels like we’re at that awkward point near winter’s end, but not quite the beginning of spring.Having said that there’s still been some really nice sightings this week. On Tuesday the volunteer

12 March 2023

Large Flocks of Knots from the Saltcot

We’ve had another busy fortnight at WWT Caerlaverock Wetlands Centre. You can feel spring in the air and there are snowdrops popping up all over the place. However, our wintering ducks, waders and geese are still around in flocks and will be for some we

15 February 2023

Marsh Harrier and Otters

In the last fortnight, we've continued to have a significant number of raptors around: people have been reporting hen harrier, peregrine falcon and kestrel, as well as a marsh harrier! These are a much less common occurrence here than other birds of prey.

22 January 2023

Goosander and Flocks of Winter Waders

We’ve had a great start to the New Year here at WWT Caerlaverock! Our Big Bird Challenge started on the 1st of January with the placement students being pitted against the wardens to see who can spot the most species of birds before the end of the month

6 January 2023

Water Rails and Frosty Weather

As we approach the end of the year, it’s been pretty quiet at WWT Caerlaverock, especially when the big frost came. Everything was iced over for a week and there was a significant decline in waders and geese numbers (with zero barnies seen on the 12th o

21 December 2022

Cetti's warbler, Hen harrier & named swans

A recent highlight here was that a Cetti's warbler was heard from the Sir Peter Scott trail. This is one of only a handful of sightings for this species in the region.Cetti's warblers are rich chestnut-brown above and grey below, with a pale throat. They

25 November 2022

Species spotlight - Little grebe

The Little Grebe or ‘Dabchick’ is a common resident and winter migrant of the UK with around 16,000 individuals present each winter. Although they are common, Little Grebes are elusive. Opting to stay hidden amongst vegetation on the edges of lakes, p

23 November 2022

Bevies of Whoopers & Gaggles of Geese

We are seeing larger numbers of our migratory wildfowl now. Our peak count for Whooper swans on the Whooper pond for this week was 38 although we probably had days this week with a total of 40+ on the site itself. More Barnacle geese seem to have made

16 October 2022