It's been a stormy weekend up in the north east and the reserve has been showing the signs of being battered by wind and rain for a few days.
The main casualty has been the entrance sign at the top of the track (again). After one side blew down in the high winds last year we bolted it back on with stronger fixings. Unfortunately we never quite got around to doing the same for the other side and predicitably that's now neatly propped up against the fence rather than fixed to its post...
Starnafin pools and the low ground are both well underwater, and the pond-dipping pond has burst its banks so is out of bounds for a little while. The area just in front of the visitor centre had just been dug up in order to bury some overhead cables when the rain started and now looks more like new wader habitat than the usual grassland. We're hoping to get a couple of Dunlin on it before the week's out.
The main impact of the storms was out on the coast. On Saturday you could stand in the centre and watch the waves breaking over the top of the 30ft sand dunes half a mile away, and Rattray beach has had several tons of sand shifted around. A combination of run-off from the loch and inflow from the sea has completely flooded the lagoon- the pictures below show roughly the same spot on a sunny morning in August and then again at low tide on Saturday afternoon. We'd have liked to taken a high tide photo but, to be honest, Andrew and myself beat a quick retreat once the water levels started to rise so you'll just have to imagine that for yourselves.
Sunny August morning...
Not so sunny December...
With the exception of a Roe Deer that badly misjudged a ditch and did a spectacular face-plant into about foot of floodwater (we shouldn't laugh, but it was funny, and I think the other deer were laughing a little bit too), the wildlife on the reserve has been coping pretty well. The Koniks have found plenty of shelter, except for the two on Starnafin who chose to ignore the gorse and the windbreaks this morning and instead decided to stand on a tiny spit of mud, right in the middle of the water, looking miserable for no reason. The Desert Wheatear has been a bit confused by the sudden remodelling of its habitat, but seems in no hurry to move on south. Common Scoter and Slavonian Grebe are still hanging around on the loch and there's a superb male Scaup down at the south end too.
We've only got a few more blogs to go before Christmas and I'll soon be away down south for a break so just worth mentioning that the reserve will be open every day except Christmas Day and we'll be kicking the new year off with our usual attempt to see as many species as possible on New Year's Day, you can see our events page for more details.