It's been a slightly unusual week for some of us, on and off the reserve. On Monday myself, Ben and Ed headed into the Cairngorms for some off-road driving training. We had a brilliant couple of days- the heavy rain for much of it made the course even more slippery and mud-covered than usual but we're certainly prepared for any conditions and any hills we might meet at Strathbeg! You can see some photos and video of our trip on our facebook page at www.facebook.com/RSPBNorthEastScotland
Back on the reserve I've spent the past two days with our field teaching team. We've been pond dipping, bug hunting, bird-watching and dissecting owl pellets with two local schools. Fiona, Hannah and Nicola have been working with these schools all year as part of our Growing Up With Loch of Strathbeg project and it's great to see how enthusiastic these children are about their local wildlife and what they might find on the reserve. We've got lots of schools visiting int he next few weeks which is superb. It does occasionally mean that the visitor centre can be a bit noisy, especially around lunchtime, but if you want a quieter visit then check the noticeboard in the centre to see which days our school groups will be on site.
Our finaly off-reserve surprise came this afternoon when Tom rang the office to say that he'd spotted a Great Grey Shrike on the airfield. Great Grey Shrikes aren't common but we usually hear of a few in Aberdeenshire each year. This shrike was sitting on a fence in roughly the same place as Emma and myself saw one last year so it's possible that it's the same bird. Despite Tom's best effort with his scope on the highest possible zoom, he couldn't quite pick out the shrike from Starnafin so it hasn't made it on to the reserve (or the kitchen window) list, but we'll keep a close eye on it over the weekend!