What a lovely time we had out in the Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park. There are no stars to be seen in Singapore, or darkness either so this was a strange experience for my visitors involving both darkness and stars. They though that I was very courageous venturing out into the dark on my own and were happy I was with them.

It was a bit cloudy and we did get a few glimpses of stars I could talk about but no significant gaps in the clouds. We lit our campfire and did some cooking while we were waiting for more stars to put in an appearance.  The chocolate bananas and campfire scones went down a treat but still no stars. We waited a bit longer and told star stories to pass the time and waited some more. Eventually we decided to start for home. 

As we were driving through New Galloway I thought I glimpsed some stars. I was driving so I couldn't really look so I asked my passengers to look out for me and let me know if they could see them. Once we were out of the street lights the shout went up"Stars". As soon as we could we stopped and looked properly and wow were there stars! The stars had not let us down there was a full Galaxy of stars to look at and a few bonus shooting stars too. It was a real wow moment, not just for them but for me too.

​Jessryl sent me a message "When we were back yesterday we just kept talking about the amazing experience we had and ended up sleeping at 5.30am and I kept bragging to my mum that I saw shooting stars!"

​P.S. This is the third time I have written this blog so fingers crossed that this one is not deleted by the vagaries of the computer and internet

We looked at several different types of bat boxes that had been put up over the years. The wooden ones were a bit worse for the wear and didn't have any bats in however the newer woodcrete ones had bats roosting and some even had bluetits nesting in them. How the birds managed to get in such small entrances is amazing, let's hope that the chicks manage to get out!

As we were conducting a survey of the boxes to find out what species were using them we got a close up look at the bats themselves which was a great privilege. To tell the difference between a Soprano pipistrelle and 'common' (bandit) pipistrelle you have to look at their noses. At dusk when they are flying around they echo locate at different frequencies which can be picked up on a bat detector so it is much easier. 

"Do the pointy thing" was the saying that I will remember most from my stargazing night with a group of American and Canadian travel journalists. I was out on a cool and cloudy night with them at Knockinaam Lodge over at Portpatick. With the sea in front of us and the hotel behind it was an ideal setting. The lights in the hotel grounds had been turned off specially and apart from fishing boat close to shore with an annoying bright white light it was dark. As we were waiting for the moon to set and for it to get really dark we enjoyed looking at first the moon then the planets using the astronomy binoculars. Jupiter and its moons made a wow moment for everyone then the redness of Mars and Saturn looking lumpy with its rings.

My laser pointer impressed the self appointed 'Junior' Dark Sky Rangers enabling us to pick out particular stars as they appeared from behind the clouds. Everyone was really enthusiastic and, with the US/UK time difference, wide awake when the clouds disappeared totally and the stars came out to play. With a predominance of Leo's, one of whom had the same birthday as me, it was great when the constellation of Leo made its appearance above Jupiter. 

All in all a great night out and as I left at 2.30am everyone was still wide awake and settling down to a late night cheese board and whisky tasting. To add to their walls of certificates that they have accumulated on their trips around the world everything from Salsa dancing to wine tasting I am now working on some 'Junior' Dark Sky Ranger certificates to give everyone to commemorate their stargazing night. We also have a special Dark Sky Ranger salute, which we can use to measure the distance between stars...... each clenched fist measuring 10 degrees so from the end of the big dipper (America) or plough (British) to the North star, Polaris is 3 hands. ​

​I got the chance to see Dumfries and Galloway from 'the other side' recently when went over to the South side of the Solway. It wanted to meet up with the Cumbria Wildlife Trust Trainee Marine and Coastal Conservation Officers at St Bees to discuss an event they are holding later in the Summer.

I had a great time checking out the sand and raking some patterns, it is a perfect for it. While I was raking some patterns I got some slightly strange looks from people out walking their dogs, some dogs even came over to join in. I got a lot done as the tide was out and the trainee I was meeting was visiting lots of places on the caost before meeting me, she joined in when she arrived trying out her raking skills.

One of the things I like about sand art is that it is transitory and after a while the art is washed away returning the beach to normal. We were so intent in what we were doing and chatting we forgot about the tide just getting of the beach in time otherwise it would not have just been the sand art that got washed away

I saw an amazing sight the other day, a red squirrel walking up the wall of a house. The house had rough cast on it and a squirrel feeder in a tree at the bottom so this seems to be a regular occurrence there. Unfortunately for this squirrel it also saw me and it let go in surprise falling a good 20m or so. It didn't seem to do itself any harm and I could see that it was young with no ear tufts when I got a chance to look at it a bit closer. I would have loved to get a video of it but what are the chances of it happening again? So unfortunately you will have to make do with this one that I took from the new wildlife hide at the Kirrochtree Visitor Centre in the Galloway Forest Park, still a wonderful site.