Hello blog land! My name is Tom Simon and I am the current residential intern at the Loch of Strathbeg and this is my first attempt at blogging so we’ll see what happens!

I wasn’t here for the Stargazing event at the weekend but I have heard stories that the attendance was extremely healthy!

Today though has been every good for wildlife sightings which began during our Farmland Bird Survey. There were good…

Now that Christmas is over and we've almost got a full team back on site we've been able to get started on some of the bigger winter projects around the reserve. Now that the old Sitka spruce has been felled, that means that the volunteers can get on with the improvements to the woodland area behind the office. We've got some very exciting plans for this part of the reserve including a new viewpoint over the loch and…

We were hoping for a good turnout for our Stargazing evening at Loch of Strathbeg last night and we certainly weren't disappointed! It was by far the largest event we've had on the reserve for some years and in the end around 350 people turned out to come and learn all about the night sky. Experts from the Aberdeen Astronomical Society were kept busy showing people planets, stars and nebulae, with up to 80 people queueing…

Hello, hello, hello. Thought it was about time I said hello to all you blog readers out there. I have been here for three weeks now and am thoroughly enjoying it. What a special place it is, but then you know that already, well those that have been here do and those that haven’t really should come soon. But I get a bit ahead of myself, maybe I should start at the beginning .......

Hi, my name is Richard Humpidge…

Yesterday’s highlight (and the highlight of the year so far!) was a short-eared owl just outside the visitor centre. The bird was first spotted at around lunchtime, sat on the ground by the edge of the pool, giving fantastic close up views. The view improved even more when it helpfully moved to sit on a fencepost right outside the centre!

The owl was around all afternoon yesterday, allowing us to have amazing…

Yesterday morning saw staff and volunteers up nice and early to undertake the first Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) of the year, a bright, sunny (if a little cold!) morning made for almost perfect counting conditions....

The morning starts with counting the geese as they leave the reserve, yesterdays total reaching 15,400 pink-footed geese. In typical fashion, the majority of geese headed off in the same direction...Kath…

This week has seen not only new birds for the year list but also new faces to the reserve.

Richard started last week as site manager and Tom started on Wednesday as our new intern (I’m sure they will be introducing themselves soon on the blog!) and in the next few weeks more residential volunteers will be arriving, so there’s plenty of new faces around the reserve at the moment!

There has been good numbers…

A couple of very different birds proving to be highlights over the past few days-

Our newest entry on the yearlist is one of our smallest birds- a Coal Tit on the feeders outside the office window. Coal Tits are similar in colour to Great Tits although with a white stripe down the back of the head. They're even smaller than a Blue Tit and the only resident bird on the reserve that's any tinier is the Goldcrest. Combined…

A good full day of birding today as started off our new Year List for 2012. After falling just short of 200 birds for 2011 (198 in total- we couldn't include the possible Pallid Harrier, the airfield Great Grey Shrike or Brian the eagle unfortunately!), we're determined to go at least two better this year. With that in mind, I spent most of the day out on the reserve- visiting everywhere from the seawatch point to the…

It's been a sunny but very cold Christmas Eve here at Strathbeg (despite the forecast of mild temperatures, there's been a bitterly cold wind blowing over the marsh). Not a lot to do today but go for the final pre-Christmas check on the ponies (all eight of them still fine, and looking well), and make sure that the electrice fences at both sides of the their compartment are still working properly. I had some superb views…

The reserve will remain open throughout Christmas and New Year. The visitor centre will be closed on Christmas Day and Boxing Day but will be open from 9am (usually slightly before) until dusk every other day, including New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. The hides can be accessed as normal when the visitor centre is closed.

Finally the weather has warmed up a bit (I went out in only four layers yesterday, and without a coat!) and the treacherous layer of ice has gone from the entrance track and the car park, making the reserve a much more pleasant place to walk around again. With most of the staff away for Christmas it's been a fairly quiet time and a chance to plan a few events for the new year and start making a dent in the annual bird…

There's been a good couple of inches of show on the reserve this weekend and it's made it much easier than usual to see exactly what's going on around the centre at night when nobody's around to see. Obviously there's lots of bird prints, from small brids under the feeders to huge heron prints along the ditch. We've had several different mammals about the place. There's lots of rabbit tracks and smaller stoat or weasel…

It was a very cold start to the day but the overnight frost combined with the early morning sunshine made for a perfect winter morning on the reserve.

It was an impressive sight from the visitor centre this morning with a spectacular lift of pink-footed geese leaving the reserve, as well as 42 white-fronted geese, 45 barnacle geese and 11 bean geese (typically, I missed all of this as I was still trying to de-ice…

A blog from Suzanne.....

My final week at RSPB Loch of Strathbeg began with Sunday’s Wetland Bird Survey and ended today with the Farmland Bird Survey; so not a half-bad week by any standard! It’s certainly one that I’ll remember for a while to come, having finished Sunday’s survey with a fantastic view of a bittern gliding over the reedbed, and having started today’s survey with a close view of a snow bunting. Both…

With the cold weather the garden, the feeders and the wild bird cover along the Tower Pool Path are becoming full of small birds and on a good day we can see a dozen different species on or under the feeders. Along with the usual goldfinch, greenfinch, chaffinch, tree sparrow, dunnock and various tits we sometimes get something a bit more unusal. This week our best visitor has been this very smart male Brambling. Sadly…

An early WeBS count this month- normally it would be scheduled for next week but with Suzanne finishing her stay with us on Friday, our two residential volunteers leaving as well and Vicky and Emma heading home for Christmas we decided to move this one a little earlier.

With the huge recent storms, last night being a full moon and the first night in quite a while that it hasn't been below freezing, we were expecting…

The ice has melted so it is now possible to get in and out of the visitor centre without ice-skates! Unfortunately, it has been replaced by some rather breezy weather that has transported our water butt, reserve sign and some bird feeders across the yard, into ditches and other unusual places.

It has been an exciting couple of days for staff on the reserve, who have been busy interviewing candidates for next years Grampian…

It's been a bit of a mixed week so far as we seem to have caught every possible type of bad weather in the space of three days with snow, rain, a hard freeze and then high winds forcast for tomorrow. The combination of thaw and then another freeze overnight left the car park like an ice rink this morning. Some of us didn't even make it over the visitor centre for a coffee which shows just how bad it was! Most of the ice…

If you're visiting the reserve today please be aware that the junction between the road and our entrance track (especially at the bridge) and our car park are both very icy- Emma and I essentially slid from our car to the office this morning! It seems to be thawing so hopefully this won't be a problem for too long but if you're out and about this morning please take care.  

The snow has definitely arrived at Strathbeg over the past two days, starting on the Goosecount yesterday morning. The picture below shows the storm creeping up on Suzanne as she counted from the truck at the North End of the reserve and Emma's view of the same storm from the South End!

Goose numbers continue to be quite high for the time of year, with a count of 15,535 Pink-Feet on Sunday- compared to just a…

It was a very cold early start for the staff and vols on Goosewatch this morning- especially for Tom and Debbie who sat in literally freezing temperatures in Tower Pool Hide looking out for White-Fronted Geese. Sensibly, once the counting was all added up everyone involved headed home to get warm and dry and catch up on a bit of sleep after the early start.

I hadn't been on the Goosecount so stayed around to look after…

It felt like all our Christmases had arrived at once on the reserve today, when we were treated to spectacularly close up views of a woodcock that decided to sit down and recuperate right next to staff and volunteers!

We were in the middle of conducting this week’s Farmland Bird Survey, when the bird glided over the field we were traipsing through and flew straight towards us, landing just a few feet away. It was definitely…

The weather has definitely turned this week out on the reserve and it's been a few very cold days for everyone -even the office thermometer warned we were in danger of hypothermia today! The wardens have been keeping warm working on the pony corral and the fencing out on the low ground.The wardens have been keeping warming continuing to put the rails for the pony corral. The picture below is the view from the corral looking…

As the staff have been away at the conference this week's blog has been written by our residential volunteers Debbie and Tom

Work on the corral halted this week as most staff attended the Scottish RSPB conference.  The Konik ponies thankfully behaved and remained in the area we want them to graze so we’ve enjoyed watching them rather than chasing them!

Removing old fencing rewarded us with a flight of Golden…