It's been another busy week on and around Loch of Strathbeg. Myself, Emma and Richard spent Sunday and Monday at Turriff Show, handing out our brand new reserve leaflets, answering wildife questions and hopefully encouraging people to visit their local reserves. The wardens and volunteers have mostly been out on the reserve with the Koniks, putting up some new fences and moving some of the herd to a slightly different section of the marsh.
While we're getting more and more waders passing through, birds of prey continue to be the main draw with at least four different Ospreys and two different wing-tagged Marsh Harriers hanging around the reserve. The weekend also had some very good seawatching with a couple of thousand Gannet feeding at Rattray Head along with a Minke whale, reported by one of our regular visitors.
Wednesday was our penultimate Wild Kids event of the summer and we had a great turn out of around 30 kids in the morning discovering all about some of our secret wildlife. IN the afternoon we had a brilliant time in the woodland building some fantastic dens for the children to hide in, and also some smaller dens which might attract a few animals for them to watch! The dens are still up in the woodland so you can go explore them over the weekend, or be inspired to make a den of your own!
ETA- Thank you to Sandra who showed our tiny fish from last week to the fishmerchants at her work and has let us know that it's probably a little Megrim, native to the area and fond of sandy-bottomed seas