Sorry for the lack of blogs this week, we've been out and about a bit, myself at New Deer show, Emma making visits up to Troup and Tom leaving us for two weeks secondment to the Osprey centre at Loch Garten.
Obviously the big news of the week has been the reappearance of white-tailed eagle Red A. He was spotted by Vicky late on Wednesday afternoon, flying over the low ground. Myself, Emma, Tom and our two volunteers Heather and Becky tracked him down to the south end of the loch and had some lovely views of him drifing around over the dunes. He was next reported on Saturday, on the reserve around midday and just off reserve in the early evening. This morning Tim Marshall one of our regular birders saw him again down at the south end of the loch.
For those of you who don't know, Red A was part of the RSPB's East Scotland Sea Eagles reintroduction project, released in Fife in 2011. He's wandered across much of Scotland including Arran, Thurso and a trip to Loch of Strathbeg in April this year. You can read more about Red A's adventure on the East Scotland Sea Eagles blog here and here.
With great eagle timing, Red A appears in a new children's book about White-tailed Eagles by wildlife artist Karen Hartnell- much of which is set at Loch of Strathbeg. It tells the story of Brian, the Irish White-tailed Eagle who was stranded at Pennan in October last year and had an attempted release here on the reserve. As well as Brian, it featuers quite a few other east coast eagles including Red A - also known as Arran- in his very fetching red jumper. We've got copies of 'Eagle Antics' for sale at Strathbeg so you can have a read, and take a copy home as a souvenir!
We've definitely had our first major arrival or autumn waders as well- with a huge flock of 320 Black-tailed Godwit on the low ground yesterday. This is by far the largest flock we've ever had on the reserve, although it suggests they've perhaps not had a great breeding season for so many birds to be heading south already.
After our plea in the last blog one of our RSPB conservation officers Allan Perkins has sent us these great photos of the Roller that was seen in the area just over a week ago. As you can see it's really striking, and likes perching up on wires so it's still worth keeping an eye out if you're near Fraserburgh/New Pitsligo/New Aberdour in the next few days.