Apologies for the lack of blog updates since the crane left on Monday. Most have the staff have been busy sleeping and eating proper meals while we recovered from the weekend!

With most of the excitement of the crane over, we've returned to our normal September/October job of goose monitoring. While it feels a bit quieter on the reserve during the day, as geese settle down and find feeding areas, we're still seeing spectacular…

At midday today the crane having been sitting on the low ground for about 15 minutes took off and started to circle over the reserve steadily gaining hieght and drifting south at the same time. It was last seen a long way south of the reserve still gaining altitude and having a bit of a barny with a gull.

One of pectoral sandpipers appeared on the pools at Starnafin late morning.

The Sandhill Crane roosted on site again last night and left this morning just before 0700 when it headed off to feed in the fields close to Coralhill where it spent a fair amount of time yesterday. Even though it is a big bird it can be easily lost when the geese are up at the same time..

This photo taken by Simon Spavin shows the crane flying with the geese on Saturday - it does not look out of place does it!

Aside…

Just a quick update as the crane settles down for another night on the reserve.  It spent its time today feeding in various stubble fields before returning at lunch time for a quick wash and brush up before getting back to the serious business of feeding. It returned to roost quite early tonight and was on site from about 6.30pm.

There was a good supporting cast of waders today with highlights being 1 little stint, 2 pectoral…

The Sandhill Crane roosted on the reserve again last night, it stayed on the low ground until 0757 when it flew off north and landed in the stubble fields around Coralhill farm - more to follow later in the day

We were expecting quite an early start today, we knew people would have travelled up overnight for a chance to see the Sandhill Crane and we knew the morning would be busy. What Emma and myself weren't quite expecting was to turn up at 6.30, before first light and for the Visitor Centre to already be absolutely full. Kathryn had looked out of her window and seen a nearly full car park at around 5.30am, and some people…

After seeing Sandhill Crane fly off to feed yesterday we were all hoping that it would roost on the reserve overnight. Despite a late stay by myself and Emma it was still in the Gowanhill field when dusk fell. However, I was up early enough to get in the centre before dawn, and sure enough the Sandhill Crane was fast asleep on the low ground. A quick message alerted everyone else.Emma was up and out of the house in record…

Although the full impact of the title has been lost due to Diana's earlier spoiler!

The day started off looking like the blog post would be all about the on going arrival of pinkies - today was by far the most impressive arrival of the season with many hundred dropping into the Loch. This is always one of the highlights of the birding year at Strathbeg and the whole team were working out how quickly they could get…

on the reserve this afternoon then flew and landed near St Combs. More info and pics when Dominic gets back from collecting his children!

After having two very exciting sightings of the crane over the reserve at the weekend, we've seen it once more on Tuesday morning and are now suspecting that it is roosting here and then travelling to another feeding ground during the day. Hopefully we will see it again soon.

Jobs on the reserve this week have so far been varied and many because we don't have any major projects such as tower pool path to complete…

An early start this morning for our first autumn WeBS count, and our first big goose count of the season. Usually the geese tend to lift off in a steady stream around dawn and fly directly off the reserve in fairly predictable direction to their feeding grounds. We sit in a circle around the reserve, pick a section of sky and count all the geese as they leave in the morning. A field count to check the numbers that stay…

Finally the west winds did what they were meant to do and bought us in a superb new American wader. Buff-breasted Sandpipers have been reported across Ireland and the west coast in the past week, and one has struggled a bit further east and touched down in the big flock of Golden Plover outside the visitor centre. As is typical for our recent US visitors, it showed well briefly and then was flushed out onto the low ground…

We were starting to think that we'd missed the tail-end of the hurricane up here in Buchan, but it seems that it's finally hit today with some incredibly strong winds over the reserve. Unfortunately (much to Dominic's annoyance) they're continuing to come from the west and are failing to bring us any of the exciting American migrants that are scattered across the west coast. The best bird of the past few days has been…

A quick update (although none of these sightings are mine just passing the messages on as we have no internet at work due to ongoing essential maintenance).

Anyway small arrival of geese so far today with between 200 - 300 in the area. Good numbers of waders around although viewing conditions not very good but at least one pectoral sandpiper still on the pools in front of Starnafin along with little stint and seven greenshank…

Our small flock of pink-feet turned out not to be the first of a deluge today- instead we got a deluge of a much wetter, rainier kind that drove even our hardened wardens indoors to some paperwork. A few more small flocks of pink-feet have drifted past but we're still waiting for the first of the big numbers. There are fairly stong southerly winds predicted for tomorrow, and that could mean many migrating birds are forced…

Sitting in the visitor centre having a quick coffee this morning and the very first decent sized flock of Pink-Footed Geese flew overhead!

A flock of 41 came in from the north and carried on south at about 8.30. Despite a few moments of excitment over another couple of large flocks (they turned out to be lapwings- very easy to confuse at a distance when you're over-excited) they're our only geese so far, but as the…

This is one of those  blogs where I don't really know how tyo begin.  From a stats point of view the highlight of the day came in the form of a coal tit on the feeders at Starnafin - this was species 178 for the year but despite being a lovely little bird it could not be described as being one of the highlights of the day.

i have been away for a few days and having read the blog and Joseph's additional comments I was…

As I mentioned in my previous post, last week was a very good week for waders at Strathbeg and it seems that the weekend was no different, this time the hot spot for waders was the lagoon.....

The very impressive highlights being 25 curlew sandpipers, green sandpiper, 2 wood sandpipers, little stint, 6 sanderling, over 30 ringed plover, 4 golden plover, 3 ruff and over 50 dunlin. To add to this, the two brent geese…

After completing a stock count yesterday afternoon, Kathryn and I thought we would make the most out of being out on the reserve and have a look in the lagoon and plantation in the hope of adding new birds to the year list. The plantation proved to be pretty quiet, with the highlight being the goldcrests moving around with the flock of blue tits. But the lagoon didn’t disappoint and gave us a new addition to the year…

Today has been a very productive day, on both the bird front and from a practical land management point of view. The regular Strathbeg staff and volunteer team were joined by 10 members of the local Aberdeen RSPB bird group for a spot of gorse bash and burn and we managed to get a lot more removed than expected so thanks very much for their assistance today, it's much appreciated.

The reason we are gorse bashing in…

Lots of birds around again as the wind calms right down everything is out feeding frenziedly making up for lost time - that said we did still have a fair amount of rain.

Off shore things have quietened down as you would expect but there were still a few birds passing inlcuidng another three storm petrels and three manx shearwaters.

Waders were again the main focus of attention as we checked as many areas as possible…

A day of contrasts on site with a superb selection of both seabirds and waders but absolutely nothing on the passerine front!

Following the strong winds over the weekend an early morning seawatch seemed the most sensible option as although the winds were not true northerlies or north-easterlies they had to have pushed some birds into the area. This was proved to be correct with a very productive watch, highlights included…

I'd say nice weather for ducks, but even they seemed a little bit miserable today! It was, however, the first meeting of the autumn for our local Wildlife Explorers group and they're far too hardy to be put off by a bit of rain. Admittedly the pond-dipping session was slightly shorter than usual, the indoor craft session was a bit longer, and a few children had to be warmed up under the hand-dryers in the toilets, but…

Lots of progress on the repairs to the Tower Pool Path today with a great working volunteer group arriving for the day to spread the last few tons of of dust and fine gravel on the top of the path before it's rolled to make the final surface. Hopefully the new (and much more level) path should be open very soon.

Bird-wise the waders continue to return, lots of Golden Plover on the Low Ground today along with the…

As we start to get closer to September and the arrival of the geese we are getting the reserve ready to recieve them. In simple terms this involves making sure that the grass is not too long and that Savoch is nice and wet. To that end when the bearings on the topper have allowed we have been cutting the grass and now that we have finished we have closed the outflow sluices and opened the inlet sluice and water is pouring…