RSPB Conservation Scientist, Nick Wilkinson, tells us about fieldwork and searching for ring ouzels near the Cairngorms.

Rain, rain, and more rain (with the odd snow and hail shower thrown in for good measure); probably not quite the summer jaunt that some people envisage when they hear that you’re departing the confines of office life for a few months of fieldwork near the Cairngorms. More frustration than fieldwork…

Stuart Benn, our Conservation Manager for the Highlands, discusses the elusive Scottish wildcat.

Highland Tigers

Despite a quarter of a century walking and travelling throughout the Scottish Highlands, I reckon I’ve seen fewer than a dozen wildcats.  Most were animals crossing the road at night or at dawn, caught in the headlights, but the last sighting was the best.  I was eagle surveying in the hills east of Loch…

After reading Stuart's blog about selecting flowers to attract bees to the garden, we thought we'd ask our Twitter followers for their suggestions.  Here's what they came up with:

Lavender, buddleia, sedum, scabious, coneflower (Echinacea), globe thistle, verbena, rosemary, thyme, knapweed, cotoneaster, sunflowers, asters, wallflowers, zinnia, sea holly, laburnum, borage, Japanese ornamental quince, cuckoo…

In a new series, Stuart Benn, our Conservation Manager for the Highlands, shares what inspires him about nature and our plans to protect it.

R&B

What makes us change?

I’ve been a birdwatcher all my life but never gave rooks a second thought.  Then I read Mark Cocker’s Crow Country and I’ll never look at or think about them in the same way again.  I love watching their ragged winter flights to roost…

Climate change is a major threat to wildlife in the UK and across the world.  We urgently need to take action to reduce its effects.  That includes the development of renewable energy, such as windfarms, to reduce our green house gas emissions.  We know that badly sited or designed windfarms can be harmful to some bird species.  That's why RSPB assesses individual windfarm proposals to ensure they would not harm important…