We had a visit from the 1st years at Grantown Grammar School this week who came to build some nest boxes with us. Each child got to take a box home for their own garden and the other boxes will be put up in their local woods, Anagach Woods. The school kids are working towards obtaining their John Muir Award which aims to connect children with wild places and encourages them to care and take responsibility for the environment. The nest box building activity will help them achieve the conservation challenge they are set in order to obtain their award. And they seemed to have lots of fun doing it too!
We had our first Goose Roost Watch on Tuesday evening, and what a beautiful night we had for it. The air was crisp and the sky was clear, giving way to a beautiful sunset. Wigeon and goosanders kept us entertained as we waited for the geese to pile in. A few were already honking and circling over head, like the orchestra warming up before the big performance. As they came in in dribs and drabs, the momentum kept going until it was dark and despite the glorious glow of the moonlight, we could only hear their honking and their crash landings as they hit the dark blue water. Despite the fading light we did manage to count just over 200 geese. Six whooper swans also joined the show and timed their appearance with the fading of the sun, giving their white feathers a radiant orange glow and momentarily stealing the limelight from the geese. Thanks to those of you who came along and braved the cold night air. The next Goose Roost Watch is on Tuesday 11th November, so please do come along if you’re in the area.
In contrast to the still evening we had for the Goose Watch, the weekend was wet, windy and wild but I didn’t let that put me off taking a long walk on the reserve on Sunday. Despite the howling gales, I was lucky enough to see a pair of bullfinch bracing themselves against the winds. Most certainly my favourite finch, it is an infrequent sighting here, certainly compared to the more commonly encountered finch at Abernethy, the chaffinch.
Bullfinch by John Bridges (rspb-images.com)
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I was clearly being rewarded for braving the elements because as I walked on, five black grouse exploded from the side of the path, startling me as much as I had startled them with their frantic flapping and fluttering as they fled my intrusion.
Black Grouse by Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
To top it all off, as I headed homewards the rain finally gave up, the clouds cleared and a rainbow arched over my path home. Not bad for what started out as a miserably wet day.
Abernethy rainbow
Our ospreys are still doing well, Mike has the latest:
From the 25th-27th Oct Millicent spent most of her time roosting around her adopted area in Mauritania. From 27th Oct onwards, Millicent has been moving around a lot but in a very tight paddy field area that she has adopted north of Richard Toll on the Senegal/Mauritania border.
Breagha continues to be the more active of our two birds but he is still staying around his adopted area in Senegal. On 25th October he did a 10 km circuitous round trip to a point NW of his home area and a similar 6 km round trip to a point NE of his main area. October 27th was another active day with a round trip NW of around 6.5 km. He does seem to be exploring wetland slightly further afield so maybe his usual fishing areas are getting less productive but he does return to his home base in the evening.
Data downloads will now change to weekly downloads and so the next download won’t be until 7th or 8th November.