March is probably not the best time to visit Dumfries and Galloway but, for various reasons, this time of year was convenient.  I rented a lovely cottage near the beach at Brighouse Bay, imaginatively known as Brighouse Bay cottages.  It snowed and it rained and, for a few hours each day, the unpredictable Scottish weather gave us a break.

I can imagine it is a quite different place to be in the spring or summer when the light is brighter, when the wildlife is more visible and some of the summer migrants have returned.  But, we soldiered on and there was no shortage of people offering us top tips to find some photo opportunities.  We were a couple of weeks early for the return of the ospreys but we made do with the abundance of red kites which entertained us with their acrobatics, a small red squirrel colony within a spit of the cottage, otters in the River Nith running through Dumfries and a few common or garden birds in the Galloway forest park.

If you’re in a foreign land or even in Scotland when home is in Yorkshire, you should never neglect local knowledge.  I had searched the internet for wildlife hotspots before I left home but several chance conversations produced much better results.  We had planned to visit Dumfries for some Rabbie Burns culture but sacrificed our plans in favour of the resident otters we were told about and which are seen almost every day close to the town centre. 

Like most amateur photographers, our endeavours are restricted to the length of our holidays.  ‘Bob’ was on the bridge over the river every day and, no doubt, has some amazing otter pics.  These elusive animals appeared for us just as we were about to head home.  We’d even put our cameras in the car and had to shoot off to recover them.  We managed to grab a few shots before they disappeared just as fast as they appeared.

C’est la vie…