We're just catching our breath a little bit this week after an incredibly busy few days on the reserve. On Saturday over 100 people arrived to do some Stargazing with the Aberdeen Astronomical Society. The skies did their best to stay resolutely cloudy throughout the evening, but most of our Stargazers got to see Jupiter and the moon through the big telescopes. Everyone else was kept entertained with the fantastic…

A quick recent sightings blog this weekend as our volunteers have now all abandoned us (Iain has promised to come back after the weekend...) and we're all a bit busy preparing for Stargazing tonight and nestbox building tomorrow.

Bittern continue to be our best sighting of the week by far. We're pretty confident there are at least two hanging around Fen Hide. I'm not sure anyone has definitively seen two together…

It's been a very cold and early start today for February Wetland Birds Survey (WeBS count). After the very high count last month we're back down to a more normal mid-winter total of around 15,000 although this does seem to be very variable depending on the weather. Non-goose highlights were a single Scaup on the loch, 115 Curlew on the low ground and an incredibly loud Great Spotted Woodpecker in the Rookery which…

Good morning from a blustery Loch of Strathbeg,

Just a quick post today to introduce the two newest (kind of!) members of our team...

Firstly, Ed Grace is our new Assistant Warden. Ed has been volunteering at Strathbeg, 3-6 days a week for a couple years now. As a volunteer, he has been involved in estate management, surveying, people engagement and membership recruitment. With Emma, the previous Assistant Warden moving…

First of all I'd like to dedicate this blog to Andrew Painting, in memory of his dedicated circumlocution.

Its been a windy one this week and the farmland bird survey has been postponed as reliably identifying some species is hard enough when they aren't flying backwards at 50 mph. Still theres a full wetland bird count on monday so that'll tease out any rarities hiding under the radar. 

Life on the pools…

Wellety-wellingtons, how the time does fly by. It seems just yesterday that I first arrived here, fresh faced and fancy free. And now I’m off again, back to London to start a real job. Feeling a little less loquacious than normal (and Vicky says I’m nothing if not veritably, volubly verbose), here are some statistics from my time here which are mostly true.

Since I have been here I have:

• Seen 117 species…

Afternoon all.

Its been a tad mixed over the past 7 days starting with an bright n' icy weekend that drew a few hardy types to the airfield hides with the chance of seeing some of our more elusive residents. Indeed a lucky few, with the constitution of an Arctic naturist judging from the temperature of fen hide on Saturday, were rewarded with excellent close views of Otters, Water Rail, several Bearded Tits and Bittern who…

The title for best new bird of the week is a bit of an improbable toss-up between Green-winged Teal and Grey Partridge. The former was a fine bird, though a little difficult to keep tabs on as he stuck with the large Wigeon and Teal flock. Other notable records from the loch include at least two apiece of Bittern and Bearded Tit.

For my money though the Grey Partridges take the honours. A little covey of three turned…

Hedge laying today, out in the cover crop. Or rather, hedge repairing. Stupid rabbits.

But it was actually very therapeutic work. Out in the first sunshine we’ve had in a while, no wind for a change. And hundreds of small brown splodges flying about all over the place.

Normally, I find these small brown splodges a little intimidating. When out on a blustery farmland bird count with bad light and faced with a whole…

Cold snaps bring big numbers of pretty much everything to the reserve, as it sucks in wildlife from the surrounding countryside. The biggest number of the week was the 40,000 odd Pink-footed Geese that turned up on Tuesday. After our count of 31,680 at the weekend it was a pleasant surprise to find even more by the middle of the week. Numbers seemed to have fallen from this peak, holding at around 25,000-30,000 this morning…

A slightly late Happy New Year to all!

2013 kicks off to a busy start with the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch on the 26th and 27th of january. Never one to be left out of the action Strathbeg will be inviting everyone for a weekend of fun hands on activities and a chance to muck in on the worlds largest wildlife survey.

Events start at 10am and visitors will be able to join the Mystery Bird Scavenger Hunt. It's very…

First Wetland Birds Survey (WeBS) of the year today, and (the one advantage of it being dark for much of the morning) at the very civilised start time of 7.30am (much better than the 5.30am starts back in September). Andrew and myself were in prime position at the count point behind Tower Pool Hide, and from first light, the geese continually lifted in waves off the loch and the low ground and poured over our heads. Thankfully…

Every year, the reserve staff participate in the slightly bizarre ritual of compiling the annual reserve list. There is good scientific reasoning behind this list, but admittedly some of us (me) get a little overexcited about the whole affair. Of less scientific value is the kitchen window list, which is just as well, because at present it is floundering on a paltry 26. The reserve list itself is looking much healthier…

This weekend's blog post was going to be all about year-listing and how it made you appreciate (or not in some cases) the commoner birds on the reserve. You'll have to wait until next week for that one though because we spent most of the afternoon looking at something that's definitely not a common thing to find on the reserve.

King Eider on the Ythan mouth this summer. Maybe the same bird..?

King Ei…

For most people, New Year's Day is about a nice relaxing lie in, or possibly a quiet morning in with a few hangover cures.  For those of us daft enough to be birdwatchers, New Year is about one thing- the chance to start a new year list. So it was an early night, the alarm set for 6.30 and then out and about before dawn to see what we could find. 

The first plan was to try and find the Laughing Gull that's been around…

Well Nadja, there's neigh grass to eat here today!

Just getting to work was an issue today.    The access track (you know that series of potholes held together with a bit of track) was a bit flooded.  In such circumstances, the sensible thing to do is park at the end of the track and walk in.  Unfortunately, I did not have any wellies with me, so I went for it.    This was very nearly a serious mistake and my car died…

As some of you may already know, I will soon be saying farewell to Strathbeg to start a new role with the RSPB back down in my home county of Yorkshire. So, in what has become tradition for staff and volunteers alike, it is time to write my last blog...

In true Strathbeg style, the Konik’s (namely Kieran and Nadja) decided to make my last few days that bit more interesting by heading off on a big adventure over the…

For the most part, our Koniks are fairly low maintenance. They don't need too much food or shelter, just a check over every day to make sure they're all in one piece and all still have the requisite number of legs. They're also normally quite happy roaming around their fenced off areas and not go too far into the deeper parts of the marsh or over any of the boundary ditches.

Or so we thought until today.

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…

Well, winter has definitely come, and so have the usual suspects on the reserve.

First though, spare a thought for the Desert Wheatear out at Rattray. At the time of writing it is alive and well, thanks in no small part to the charitable donations of mealworms provided by one local birder. The debate is still raging in the office as to whether we can include it on the reserve list. It is, technically speaking, on RSPB…

The power company will be on site at Loch of Strathbeg tomorrow replacing the electricity poles/cables in front of the visitor centre. This means that there will be significant disturbance in front of the centre and large vehicles using the entrance track and the car park. We will also have no power to the visitor centre (including the coffee machine!) or the office for much of the day, so no access to emails or phone…

It was nice of everyone here to trust us with the newish Toyota Hilux for couple days of driving training up in the Cairngorms. Especially seeing as how neither Iain nor I are the most experienced of drivers. But we assured everyone that we would be very responsible, and bizarrely that was enough to quell everyone’s anxieties.

Still, we were both a little nervous as we headed off to Aviemore in the large, expensive…

Our first proper snow of the winter arrived this week, and although we've only had a light covering on the reserve it's been pretty heavy inland and down towards Aberdeen. Typically, as soon as travelling becomes difficult we've all suddenly found lots of things we need to do away from the reserve.

Today, Richard and I are braving buses, trains and automobiles to get to Stirling ready for tomorrow's interviews…

Not trying to sound like a know-it-all or anything, but generally when I’m out and about I can identify all the birds I see without any real problems. It may take me a few minutes, but I can say without any trace of pride that, within five minutes or so, I can get a bird narrowed down to within one or two species.

So I was a bit put out on Sunday to find that I don’t actually know it all at all. Iain and I…

Good afternoon your weekend starts right here with another award winning sightings blog.

It's been a fairly quiet week on the Loch with not so many chances to sneak off birding although the morning congregations of Pink Feet have been impressive with some fantastic lifts seen from the visitor centre. Tree Sparrow numbers are still looking good with 60 seen in the hedges towards Tower Pool hide and 8 or so Siskin have…