Conservation Manager, Stuart Benn, is back with a new blog...

New Life

Meet Brin, our new puppy – just 15 weeks old and with a whole lifetime of walks and sniffs and adventures in front of him.

On the very day that Brin was born, a pair of eagles were putting the finishing touches to their eyrie in the Cairngorm Mountains, making it ready for their two eggs.  And though we’ve just had the coldest spring for…

 Trainee Ecologist, David Freeman, tells us about a recent trip to Corrimony nature reserve...

In the heat of the morning

One of my most recent and so far most rewarding reserve visits has been to RSPB Corrimony. In particular I was working in the stunning, but at times tricky to navigate gorge the river Enrick runs through. The gorge is located in the east of the reserve and is  surrounded by a large area of beautiful…

An update from our Seabird Tracking and Research (STAR) team on Fair Isle.

In the path of an Atlantic depression

Fair Isle is arguably the most remote inhabited island in the UK, sandwiched between slices of the Orkney Islands and mainland Shetland in the North Atlantic. Measuring about 3 miles long by 1.5 miles wide, its breathtaking cliffs and fading afternoon light can reduce the hardiest of observers to outbursts…

Jim Densham, Senior Land Use Policy Officer (climate), says nature can provide solutions to some of our most pressing problems...

Natural solutions to living in a changing climate

View across Loch Insh by Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)

If you travel to Inverness or Aviemore by train or up the A9 by car you speed past the RSPB’s Insh Marshes nature reserve (you get a better view by train). The reserve is a huge…

Chris Knowles, RSPB Nature Counts Trainee Ecologist, has been out and about at our Baron's Haugh nature reserve near Motherwell...

A hidden gem

A ‘hidden gem’, an ‘overlooked treasure’, perhaps even a ‘best kept secret’, these metaphors might be clichés, but they all go someway to describe the Baron's Haugh RSPB reserve near Motherwell.  After spending the last few weeks…

Conservation Manager, Stuart Benn is back with a new blog...

Cathedral Thinking

Have you ever sent one of your mates a text or email and then got really annoyed because they didn’t reply immediately?  Or skipped a track on your playlist because you couldn’t wait the three minutes it would take to get to the one that you wanted to hear right now?  Yep, me too – we can be a pretty impatient bunch.

I got…

Davide Scridel, Research Assistant with RSPB Scotland, gives us an update on his research work in the Outer Hebrides.

Look what the wind blew in...

It is nearly a month since I started here and I have now completed the first round of visits to each of my 1x1km² survey sites surveying for twite. For the majority of the time the weather has been quite dramatic. Low temperatures and strong gusts of NW winds up to 50 mph…

In places like this, traditional farming and crofting create a landscape of stunning natural diversity. It’s a way of life – and a way to make a livelihood - for many people across the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. It’s High Nature Value (HNV) farming.

RSPB Scotland Trainee Ecologist, David Freeman, has been out surveying moss on our Loch Leven nature reserve...

Up the Hill Backwards

One of the first tasks I have undertaken as a Trainee Ecologist was to look at some of the more common bryophytes growing in the birch woods at RSPB Loch Leven. The woods themselves are situated on the slope of Vane Hill. They start on the edge of the Loch, spreading up the hill eventually…

Conservation Manager, Stuart Benn, is back with a new blog about the State of Nature.

25 not out

Last week, Alastair Cook scored his 25th Test century for England, I completed 25 years of working for the RSPB and the State of Nature report was launched by 25 conservation organisations – and there’s no doubt which was the greater landmark.  Health checks have been produced before on birds, butterflies, mammals…