An exhibition of watercolours, cyanotype prints and herbarium pages, the current exhibition, The Flora of Memory shares Canadian born artist, Andrea MJ Toth’s personal memory stories.  These are reflected by collected plant speciments, each one steeped with past moments, people, places and the ideas of being.  Layers of memory entwine into the spaces we inhabit, and we carry these layers within us, reconstructing…

This last week has finally seen a good covering of snow here at Geltsdale, and some plummeting temperatures to boot. Our smew sadly fled the encroaching ice on the tarn on the 17^th. However, an even rarer duck, for here, has arrived, with a pair of gadwall taking up residence (the first since 2007).

The cold weather has brought some unusual visitors to the Visitor Centre garden, with regular reed buntings and even…

Some good birds have turned up in the last few weeks. A couple of days before Christmas a bittern was seen in flight across Tindale Tarn - actually a first for the Reserve! Unfortunately this furtive and cryptic heron has not shown itself to any observers since. Also a very handsome drake smew turned up here on Sunday, and is often to be seen very close to the viewing screen. Also this month 90 tufted ducks were counted…

Yesterday we ran a small-scale bird race here in the morning, with two teams of 5 (mixed staff and local volunteers) competing to see the most number of species before lunch. Both teams concentrated on the north of the Reserve, one group choosing to stay on foot, the other also making use of a Landrover. The weather was somewhat chilly and dreich (Scots dialect for bleak/dreary), though luckily the rain did hold off…

The staff at Geltsdale would like to thank the members of the public who visited our stall at Brampton Christmas Market on Saturday 15th December.

Free Black Grouse whiskey tasting was on offer plus the opportunity to buy a range of reasonably price Christmas gifts.

We would like to say a special thanks to those members of the public who decided to become RSPB members at the event.

Happy Christmas from all at Geltsdale…

We’re well into December now, and it’s been quite a while since my last blog. We’ve had a very mixed bag of weather, from long periods of squally rain to beautifully still, ice-spiked days. Today, because of deep-frozen slush, we wardens had to leave our vehicles at the top of the access track so as not to risk taking on Geltsdale’s version of the Cresta Run which winds down to the Visitor Centre.…

The Stagsike gallery is currently hosting an exciting new exhibition, which will continue until the end of January 2013 by David Williams of Calico Images.

Dublin born David has been taking photographs since the age of 12 when his father gave him his first camera. David moved to Barnard Castle in 1987 and continued with his passion of wildlife photography.

The exhibition at Geltsdale is a collection of David's stunning…

On Thursday 15th November 26 primary school children and their teacher Care Wilson, ventured out to RSPB Geltsdale to study wildlife habitats and food chains.

The children really enjoyed their day, dissecting owl pellets and and identifying the small mammal bones within and also learning new bird identification and watching skills at Tindale Tarn.   

" Thank you for such a great day.  The children thoroughly enjoyed…

Well, it’s November already! Since my last post we’ve endured a lot more of the wet stuff and one very brief flurry of snow – though who knows what this winter holds in store for us? Birdwise, we’ve had a number of parties of whooper swans (up to 11) around the Tarn, and the duck numbers continue to increase. A few nice flocks of lapwing (50-110) have been on the move, some pausing here for a brief…

After our first few sharp frosts, it’s definitely looking much more autumnal here now. On the bird front, we’ve now had the first flush of fieldfares and redwings passing through the Reserve, and the first few goldeneye have recently appeared on the Tarn. Last week there was a notable westward passage of jackdaws passing over Geltsdale through what’s known as the ‘Tyne Gap’. Movement seemed to be strongest in the mornings…

It’s been another very wet and soggy couple of weeks here at Geltsdale, but at least it’s still fairly mild (with only one sharp frost). And we must be grateful that we did avoid the extreme flooding that they had to endure further East. Sightings of summer visitors continue around the Reserve, with stonechats, chiff chaffs and ring ouzels all seen in recent days. Finches and tits are now gathering into large foraging…

Well, there’s been a distinct chill in the air this week, plus some very wet weather. Yet there are still a decent variety of summer visitors with us here in the North Pennines. A number of chiff chaff, wheatear, ring ouzel and blackcap have all been seen around the Geltsdale Reserve in the last week. There has also been a large movement of meadow pipits through the Reserve in recent days. Today we also had our latest…

Sunny weather this morning, good numbers of small birds out feeding, mainly seen from the woodland trail. Best bird was a whinchat, an adult male, that had been colour-ringed nearby in early June. It bred successfully and was seen with fledged juveniles in early July. I had assumed all our breeding whinchats had moved off and we were seeing migrants moving through now. There was another whinchat in the area along with…

A great new exhibition by Northumberland painter Christina Mingard is currently on show at the visitor centre.

With the extremely wet weather recently it seems that a number of whinchats have decided enough is enough and have started to head south. Birds that were on eggs during the worst of the weather managed to see it through and are busy feeding young. Kestrels have managed to fledge 32 young from 14 nests and can be seen hunting around all of the trails. A few small broods of black grouse have been flushed around the Howgill area…

This week we have ringed chicks from two merlin nests, each nest occupying three chicks. 82 whinchat chicks have also been ringed!

Torrential rain over the weekend came just as nests were full of hungry chicks and it appears many adult birds have struggled to find food. Stonechats, whinchats, spotted flycatchers and common gull nests have all failed. Out of 25 whinchat nests only 10 still have young, a huge 60% failure…

We have a fantastic new installation in the visitor centre by artist Jenny Purrett.

In this exhibition, the artist has sheared several fleeces. These have been carefully separated and felted back together into a thin, veil-like fabric. Alongside these huge sheets, she presents a series of meticulous pastel drawings in which she examines the subtleties of the colour and the rhythm of the curl in small fragments of wool…

The Ruffled Edge: Notes from a Nature Warden is the first book written by Geltsdale warden Pete Howard. The book is a selection of lively and vivid memoirs that take the reader on an eye opening journey though some of the most interesting and diverse habitats of Britain. Inspired in part by his work at RSPB Geltsdale, his new book recounts exhilarating and intimate encounters with its wildlife, especially birds.

The book…

First cuckoo and whinchats arrived on 1st May!

A pair of ring ouzels flew by the visitor centre yesterday.

Martin and Amanda, our two volunteers found an abandoned stonechat nest yesterday, a casualty of the cold weather suffered at the weekend when the windchill took the daytime temperature to around -5.

First grasshopper warblers have been heard today (23rd)! Lapwing, stonechat, grey wagtail and snipe nests have all been found over the last few days.

Rain at last!

Recent sightings include short eared owls displaying, ring ouzels (first on 23rd) and wheatears(first 19th). Ravens with young, peregrines and merlins both on territory. Dippers and grey wagtails both on eggs. Stonechats singing around the visitor centre and lapwings beginning to sit on the meadow. Adder and common lizzards both seen basking in the spring sunshine.

We have a great new exhibition starting this week focusing on the sheepfolds around the reserve. Janet Lambert, a resident of Hallbankgate, has spent several years researching the history and documenting these fascinating drystone structures which scatter the Geltsdale landscape.

Exciting ‘smews’ this week as two have been sighted on Tindale Tarn. First spotted on the 12^th Feb our sightings coincide nicely with a national influx of Smew.

With the onset of cold weather the stunning pair will have migrated away from their breeding grounds in Finland or Russia. Hopefully they will remain on the reserve for a month or two, before making the return journey.It’s best to view the smart little…

Winter has arrived in the North Pennines and most birds have left us in search of places with more reliable food sources. Tindale Tarn is holding good numbers of mallard and teal, with a few goldeneye, tufted duck and pochard hanging about. No smew yet. I have been seeing a number of woodcock, snipe and jack snipe in some of the wet flushes. Black grouse sightings are fairly frequent around the woodland trail and from the…

Following the huge passage of geese a few weeks ago, small numbers of whooper swans have been calling at Tindale Tarn from time to time on passage from Iceland (11 this morning, 21/11). A group of four female common scoters, usually found on the coast spent a day on the tarn (15/11). A single black redstart was spotted on the track between Stagsike and Howgill (see photos). Hen harrier, buzzard, kestrel, short-eared owl and…