Our boiler was finally fixed last Friday so we are all warmish again in the office. Even with the heating working it still very rarely gets above cool on the office thermometre which today feels tropical compared to the Cold Danger of Hypothermia setting that it has been on!
The year list is progressing steadily - we are now on 104. There are a few missing species that have I suspect really suffered in the cold weather at the start of the year, the most notable one being goldcrest. They are normally resident on the reserve and can usually be heard if not seen from the Fen Hide board walk, but not so far this year. Another species more notable by its abscence so far in 2010 is the treecreeper, again regularly seen from around Fen Hide. Perhaps less of a surprise has been the abscence of bittern. Strathbeg has hosted a wintering bird for over nine years making it one of the most reliable sites in Scotland for this engimatic reed bed species but not this year. Loch of Kinnordy has had records since October I believe so perhaps it decided for a change this winter!
For those of you who do regularly visit the reserve I thought it sensible to answer what is one of the most frequently asked questions this winter - why have we cut down all the gorse from the path to Tower Pool Hide? The reason is simple - we were successful in a funding application and this is allowing us to replace these gorse dominated hedges with hedges made up of native trees. We will in mid t late February be planting 12000 trees to form 2km of new hedge rows - anyone who is interested in helping us out on this mamoth task please contact the reserve office [ (01346) 532017] as all offers of help gratefully received.
We are being inspected by our Health and Safety officer over the next three days so this will tie me up, and combined with staff being on leave and on training courses will probably mean that there will be no updates or the rest of the week - unless something major turns up on the reserve!
Dom