As you may have read in my previous blog “Frog Blog” we have some common frog Rana temporaria tadpoles living in our visitor centre, or at least growing in our tank until they are released back onto the bog! Watching these amazing amphibians change throughout their lifecycle, from frogspawn to tadpoles to eventually adult frogs (they have back legs now) is a very interesting experience. We have 2 other amphibian…

International Dawn Chorus Day at the RSPB Forsinard Flows nature reserve.

International Dawn Chorus Day is a world wide celebration of the wonderful sound of the dawn chorus. We have an unusual dawn chorus here at Forsinard. Many of the species are fond of remote and wild places, so they can be difficult to locate over 200, 000 hectares and as the sun rises very early, the birds are up nice and early too! Although we…

Night life of the black lakes by Mark Hancock (Senior Conservation Scientist)

Forsinard reserve and the Flows of northern Scotland are famous for their 'dubh lochs' - literally 'black lakes': so named because their water is naturally stained by the peat, to be the colour of strong tea. As part of our research work at some of these lochs, we've been setting up camera traps - cameras that automatically take a photo when…

Frog Blog by Anna Jemmett

In the visitor centre at Forsinard we have a great aquarium display, with a tank, information boards and species ID cards, but it has been empty over the winter. So last week, I decided to collect some common frog (Rana temporaria) spawn from one of the pools on our Dubh Lochan trail. The aim was to watch the tadpoles grow in the tank until they reach the frogling stage and then be released…

It has been a wee while since we last posted from Forsinard, but we have been extremely busy over the last few months and now that the spring is here (mm...tempting fate!?) we will be bringing you more stories from the far north. We have been seeing lots of our breeding birds arriving back including; greenshank, golden plover, curlew, pied wagtails, lapwings, meadow pipits, skylarks and today I noticed our first pair…

Staff and volunteers after a successful day at Forsinain

Last Saturday we ran an event at Caithness Horizons in Thurso, making bird feeders and encouraging members of the public to take part in the Big Garden Birdwatch. We had great fun and it was great to meet the adults and children who came along and to hear how the birds are doing in gardens around Caithness. But how are the birds doing across the UK?

Volunteers (Louise Senior, Naomi Boult & Kirsty Godsman) & Staff…

Why not pop into Caithness Horizons Education Room inThurso on Saturday 18th January and make a bird feeder from natural and recycled materials to take home. There will also be information on feeding garden birds and building bird boxes for your garden. Come and speak to our friendly staff and volunteers and find out how you can take part in the biggest wildlife survey there is - the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. (25th…

As we start to run out of days in 2013, I just wanted to pass on a message from all of the staff and residential volunteers at Forsinard Flows; wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year!

A big THANK YOU to all our volunteers, visitors and supporters for your help and interest in our reserve over the last year. We hope to welcome many of you back next year and to meet lots of new people in 2014!

The…

It started last night and by this morning we have had our first dusting of snow for the winter. Nothing major, but enough to warm our volunteers up as they clear the car park. Also a good day for them to refresh some winter hill skills...more on that later.

** Trail Notice **

Visitors using the Dubh Lochan or Forsinain Trails should exercise caution. 

Due to the current wintry conditions there will be areas of…

So recently a couple of people have asked me if we are “quieter” in the winter or “what do we do after the breeding season is over?”

Every reserve is different and at Forsinard we have a wide variety of tasks over the winter; including Forest to Bog Restoration, habitat management (such as rush topping), data entry from summer surveys, deer surveys and the list goes on...

I thought as an example…

Ok, so this is a photo from last winter and things have not quite got that bad yet, but we are now into the Winter Season at Forsinard. The visitor centre is now closed and will open again in April 2014.

Both the Dubh Lochan and Forsinain Trails are open all winter, but please wear suitable clothing and be prepared for some changeable and often extreme weather. There is often flooded sections on both trails and over…

We get lots of different people volunteering for us at Forsinard and coming from a wide range of ages, locations and backgrounds tends to make them an interesting group of people. They often have hidden talents that come to light over the time that they spend with us and so this blog is dedicated to the hidden talent of  the rather modest Sam Watson; one of our current residential volunteers. It turns out that Sam is an extremely…

Our latest blog comes from short-term volunteers Paul and Tripta Schur...

Volunteering for the RSPB is an enjoyable, fulfilling and educational experience.

We started volunteering because we feel that man, being a part of nature, should learn to live with nature rather than attempt to control it. Hence our support for conservation projects and organisations.

The RSPB is a particularly good example that demonstrates…

Have you ever wanted to get an idea of what our largest nature reserve is like? Well check out this short film and see how we are Giving Nature a Home!

We managed to get a couple of GOPRO cameras on loan from RSPB Scotland HQ in Edinburgh and over two weeks managed to get enough clips to put together this short film; we hope you like it.

This film shows some of the peatland environment that we are working to protect…

We have been fairly lucky over the last week...

Firstly the weather has been mainly dry, with quite a bit of sunshine and enough of a breeze that has kept the worst of the midges away (although the clegs are much more hardcore!). Secondly we have had RSPB staff photographer Andy Hay on the reserve.

Andy has a huge wealth of photography experience and has been an RSPB staff photographer since 1993. Although the reserve…

Why not come along to our FREE Nature Reserve Open Day at Forsinard Flows and help us celebrate International Bog Day.

Experts will be on hand from Plantlife and Bumblebee Conservation Trust as well as the RSPB to help you discover some of the plants and wildlife we have on the reserve.

GO WILD - There will be games and events for all the family, but also wild walks and talks. So no matter whether you are looking for…

Back in May I asked one of our local volunteers (Lousie Senior) to write a blog on our latest trail camera survey. We have put a series of camera traps out on the reserve to try and monitor predator movements around key aeras. I have held onto Louise's blog until we got some of the photographs back from the cameras. So here is Louise's blog and some of the photos we have had so far...

Wrapped in our waterproofs…

RSPB staff at last year's Caithness Show in Thurso. Why not come along and visit us this year at the country show in Wick on Saturday 20th July!

Keep an eye out for another new blog on camera trapping...coming soon!

If you're in the far north Wednesday 3rd or 17th July then why not pop in to Dunnet Head for a Wild Wednesday fun day.

There's also a guided walk to see what's about on the cliffs or out to sea. Fingers crossed for some good weather!

Find out more information by clicking HERE or visit the reserve webpage HERE

Two RSPB supporters, Elizabeth and Roy Weir from Aberdeen, recently had a chance to discover a bit more about the conservation work that we undertake on the Forsinard reserve. They were kind enough to write about this conservation voyage of discovery...

"We have just spent an unforgettable day with Norrie Russell (Senior Site Manager) learning about forestry and peatland management on the Forsinard reserve, with rare…

Do you know your divers from your ducks? Your teal from your tufties? Your golden plover from your dunlin?

Do you know your sphagnum from your sundew? Your ‘chaser from your ‘hawker?

Can you navigate and walk across rough, wet terrain?

Would you like the opportunity to volunteer and help conservation on the RSPB’s biggest reserve in the UK?

 If you have answered yes to the above questions then…

Blog by Mark Hancock who is a Senior Conservation Scientist with the RSPB

In the long summer days at Forsinard, where the cuckoo starts calling at 3 am, driving everyone mad, such a lot of wildlife activity happens when us humans are not out in the field.  This year we've been trying to keep more of a 24-hour eye on the wildlife of the lochs, using trail cameras: special automatic cameras that are triggered by movements…

The Hen Harrier is one of the UK's most intensively persecuted birds of prey. Males are a pale grey colour with black wing tips, while females and immatures are brown with a white rump and a long, barred tail which give them the nickname 'ringtail'. We are lucky at Forsinard to have Hen Harriers and artist Janice Duke has managed to capture perfectly the spirit of these beautiful and graceful birds of prey in…