Another botanical blog from our residential volunteer, Claire...

Claires time at Loch of Strathbeg has now come to an end but we have enjoyed having her around and keeping an eye on our garden and plant life on the reserve. A warm thank-you from all the team for your hard work during your time here!

"As the days have been warmer, more and more flowers are starting to appear on the reserve.

 A plant no one  can miss…

Over 50 people turned out on Saturday morning to help us officially open the new trail out to Fen & Bay Hides. The Fraserburgh Wildlife Explorers group were on hand to cut (technically, untie) the big red ribbon and to lead us down the new path.

We then had a great walk during which I improved my standing with the Wildlife Explorers group by naming all the forthcoming Avengers movies, the birders from the loca…

A pretty momentous morning today as I had my first proper walk out along the new Summer Trail to Fen & Bay Hide. We’ve been after a footpath to these hides for many years and after a winter of work by the wardening team, it’s now finished, signposted and ready for us to open to visitors.

The official opening ceremony for the path is on Saturday 8^th June at 10.30am, there will be celebratory coffee and…

Well, that was a busy weekend on and off the reserve... After the Great White Egret left in midweek we managed to attracted the smaller version- a Little Egret which moved up from the Ythan and was on the pools on Sunday morning. Sunday also bought two fly-over Cranes, and a Turtle Dove just off the reserve at Rattray Church.

I missed most of the action as I spent most of the weekend doing our bit for the Energetica…

The blog this week is written by Claire, one of our long-term volunteers at Loch of Strathbeg

As the weather this week hasn’t been at its best and seems these past two days to have taken a turn for the worst, it’s difficult to realise that summer is less than a month away. As I sit here in the office listening to the wind whistling through every small crack it can get through in the house, seeing the trees bent with…

Happy Friday Afternoon.

Anyone checking out the visitor centre this week who spared a glance out the window could have seen this weeks star guest... a Great White Egret! This week he/she has been mostly feeding on the edge of the reeds. Once you'd got over that you stood a chance to see a Cuckoo, 1 Fieldfare, up to 3 Garganey (displaying), 2 Arctic Terns, 2 Common Terns, 1 Canada Goose, 2 Little Gulls, 1 Wood Sandpiper…

The beach at the north end of the reserve, near St Combs, will be receiving a thorough clean on Saturday 18^th May as part of the MCS ‘Beachwatch’ Scheme.

Beachwatch is a year-round UK-wide beach litter survey and clean up, organised by MCS that encourages local volunteers to survey marine litter every 3 months. Volunteers remove all the litter from a measured area of their local beach, recording every item…

First of all, thanks to everyone who came to our first ringing demonstration on Sunday morning. We were blessed with good weather (despite the odd ringer complaining that it was too sunny...) and we had a great turn-out. We managed to ring Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Blue Tits, Sedge Warbler, Willow Warbler, Yellowhammer and a host of Goldfinch. One of the highlights for us and the ringers was the chance to see Tree Sparrow…

Yep I'm going to go ahead and say it. Spring is definitely here. Probably.

We've had a busy weekend at Strathbeg with the warm weather bringing quite a few visitors to our doorstep. Just to mix things up on the birdy side of things I'll start with Bay hide where I popped in yesterday for a break from all the hard work I do here. Conclusion: Tufted Ducks. 98 of them actually. We also had 22 Shelduck, mostly in…

 Hiho

Anyone frequenting the Visitor Centre this past week had a good chance at seeing a nice range of birds. The Osprey are still cruising around and individuals were seen on the 21st  24th 28th and a pair seen together on the 23rd. Other raptors were out in force also including 1 Short-eared Owl, 1 Merlin (should've been here on Monday James) and a juvenile male Marsh Harrier. Presumably fleeing in terror from all this…

It almost feels like spring's back on track this week. Migrants are creeping on to the year list with increasing regularity, this Willow Warbler (yes, there is a Willow Warbler in there somewhere, I promise!) was in the Wildlife Garden earlier, and we've had the first Sedge Warbler of the year in font of Tower Pool Hide this morning. One Common Crane was down at Rattray yesterday, but was moving between fields and…

Birds. Birds everywhere.

This week we have been mostly watching... the 2 Common Cranes strutting around by the old pump tower! Definitely the celebrity couple (hopefully) of the moment and anyone who is anyone has been along for a look over the past week with them being visible most days. A few of our dedicated Crane watchers have reported "courtship like" behaviour so lets hope they decide to make Strathbeg their home…

There's been one outstanding highlight on the reserve this week. Two Common Cranes have been visiting the reserve for a few days (we've had a single bird around this reserve since April 5th). They've usually been tucked away in the marsh behind the loch and have been surprisingly hard to see, but on Wednesday they came out into the middle of the low ground in full view of the centre and Tower Pool Hide.

Iain's been allowed to go on holiday for the weekend so I'll round up this week's sightings (most of which have not been seen by me) in his place.

Most recent sighting first and we've had our first White-Tailed Eagle of the year over the low ground this morning- Yellow 3, a female from the ESSE project . She spent about half an hour on the low ground and was still around at 5pm today, although perched…

You can generally predict the arrival of a good new bird at Strathbeg- usually any time I'm at a meeting at the regional office and not on the reserve! This week it was this superb Avocet that dropped into the pools just outside the Visitor Centre on Tuesday mornning. Avocet are pretty scarce anywhere north of the border but we've had at least one at Strathbeg almost every year since 2002. Unfortunately by the time…

Evenin' all

It's been a lively week here at Strathbeg with the years first sightings of a Crane on friday evening (acompanied by a frantic answer phone message from Vicky) and again today from tower pool hide. Much of my weekend has since been invested in catching a glimpse for myself without much success although a goodly number of dabblers such as Teal (over 40) and Pintail (up to 8) have been making a show of…

The three-week long live trailer for Game of Thrones seems to finally be over and we're getting some vaguely spring-like weather and blue skies again (although it's a bit worrying that you're talking about how balmy it is when the car thermometer reads 3.5 degrees). I managed to get out at the weekend and visit one of the nearby seabird colonies at Bullers of Buchan. We're running a guided walk there at the end of May…

Well the birds are all back.

Firstly I would like to take this chance to apologize for the sparsity of the birdlife the week before the 23rd of March, clearly they all had somewhere else to be and the weather probably didn't help. The week gone has been much more lively with 30 Pochard on the Loch , 20ish shelduck around the reserve and 5 Pintail on the silt trap by the Savoch Burn. A Great Spotted Woodpecker has been…

 We're thankfully snow free up here at Strathbeg but still right in the path of a howling easterly wind that's keeping it bitterly cold. Most of the Tree Sparrows seem to have set up in the lee of the visitor centre and I almost got mugged by a flock of them when I wasn't quite fast enough filling up the feeders this morning.

There have been a few hardy souls out on the reserve this weekend. The Fraserburgh…

The past few days on the reserve have felt more like December than the middle of March. We've had bitter winds and driving snow (not much on the ground but that's because it's mostly been blowing horizontally, gravity hasn't really stood a chance) and unfortunately the forecast doesn't seem to be getting much better any time soon. The cold temperatures have bought quite a bit of our resident wildlife out into the open…

Good afternoon, anyone got that Friday feeling?

It's been all go here the past couple of week with a number of big projects underway, somewhat hampered by the snow at times.

Life out on the pools proceeds as usual. Our 2 Gadwall have become a constant feature of the view from the Visitor Centre and groups of up to 20 Teal and Wigeon are often nearby. The back of the pools as viwed from Tower Pool Hide has proved…

Apologies for the lack of blog updates in the past week- a combination of holidays, a surprisingly busy weekend, a very early start on Monday for WeBS and having the day off yesterday to watch Hurricane Fly in the Champion Hurdle has kept me away from the computer for a while.

We've had a small amount of snow over the past few days, although very little compared to some parts of the North East. The Koniks seem to be coping…

It's been a fantastic couple of days weather wise up here, freezing cold in the mornings mind you, but it's nice to see a bit of sun and some blue sky overhead for a change. The arable fields are full of birdsong, Skylarks and Corn Bunting especially, Water Rail are snorting in the reeds in front of Tower Pool Hide and there was a very loud, piping Oystercatcher over the farmhouse this morning, which is probably…

There's been a couple of extra surveys on the go this week at Strathbeg. This weekend was the date set for the National Beached Birds Survey. This is a nationwaide survey diesgned to count the number of 'wrecks' or dead seabirds on our beaches and if any of them (and if so how many) seem to have died because of oil or other pollution out at sea. It's also a great excuse to go for a walk along thefantastic beach between…

G'day folks

For your information and amusement this is the slightly delayed friday sightings blog.

Last weekend started off the week well with a Common Scoter and a pair of Long Tailed Duck seen from Bay Hide while round the way at Fen hide one particularly lucky/jammy visitor saw 2 Bittern in as many minutes, one of which was near the high tech water marker less than 10 metres out. There were 2 more sightings of Bittern…