GARTMORN DAM is a haven for wildlife all year round. There are mute swans, mallards, tufted ducks, greylag geese, sand martins, thrushes, and a myriad of other birds that call the dam home.

It is also an important habitat for migrating winter foul, including Canada geese and pink-footed geese.

However, one of the rarest birds ever to be found there was a Desert Wheatear in the late 19th century.

On 19th January 1881 at the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh in Nicholson Street in the capital, a Mr Gibson, on behalf of John Dalgleish, exhibited a bird which had been shot near Gartmorn Dam. It was thought to be a Desert Wheatear which had been killed on 26th November the previous year by a gamekeeper employed by Alexander Bruce, 6th Lord Balfour of Burleigh.

Dalgleish told those assembled that the bird had never been recorded as having visited the United Kingdom, or indeed Continental Europe as it was a native of the dry, arid, and sandy regions of the world, such as the Sahara Desert and Egypt.

The bird was a male with what was termed ‘autumn plumage,’ although it was thought that it was not a ‘straggler’ but a bird that had made the country home, therefore it was put forward that it should be classified as a British bird.

Mr Watt, the gamekeeper, was out shooting on the south side of Gartmorn Dam when he hit the bird. He had never seen one like it before and as it was so unusual, had kept it and given it to the Curator Mr Taylor. Taylor went on to preserve it.

There was some doubt over the authenticity of it being a Desert Wheatear as the plumage was not quite right but was very close and where it was shot was found to be similar to the habitat these birds liked, open countryside or sandy, stony waste ground. It was Taylor who eventually concluded that it was indeed a Desert Wheatear.

Knowing that the bird did not normally winter in Scotland he made further enquiries to Mr Dalgleish and that was when he saw the bird for the first time. Dalgleish also gave his permission for the bird to be shown at the Royal Physical Society.

Today it is rare to see a Desert Wheatear in Scotland, but it does happen.

At Loch Strathbeg in 2012 one was spotted but whether any further sightings have been made at Gartmorn Dam is unknown.