RSPB Mersehead Blog 7th – 13th December 2024
After a stormy weekend, it’s been a very calm week on the reserve. This has given us the opportunity to get on with maintenance tasks as we prepare for the Christmas break, and on Thursday we held our annual Volunteer Christmas Event.
But before we share highlights from the week, have you ever wanted to know the answer to the age-old question of “How many Barnacle Geese would it take to pull Santa’s sleigh”? You’ll find the answer at the bottom of this blog.
Santa’s sleigh flying through a flock of Barnacle Geese. Photo Credit: G Chambers
Volunteer Christmas Event
Our Christmas event is an opportunity to say thank you to all our volunteers who give up their time to help us with weekly work parties, by working in the visitor centre and running the forest school. And for the first time, we were joined by the volunteers and staff from the Galloway reserves. The volunteers are such as integral part of the team on the reserves. We couldn’t maintain the reserves without them!
Volunteers on the beach at Mersehead. Photo Credit: C Glass
The day started with a beach clean followed by lunch and a quiz. As always with a beach clean it is always interesting to see what we will find, and who will pick up with most unusual item. This week the litter was mainly small plastics including cotton buds and nurdles (tiny plastic pellets), and bits of polystyrene which get wedged into the sand dunes or tied up amongst seaweed.
More unusual finds included a margarine tub lid with a best before date of 12/11/11, plastic toy bridge, spiderman ball, pumpkin, toy soldier and a smiling plastic crab.
Sample of items found on the beach. Photo Credit: R Chambers & C Glass
As we spend time looking for litter it’s also fun to see what other more natural items have been washed up. We frequently see mermaid’s purses (shark or ray egg cases) on the beach, but it was nice to see examples from the Small Spotted Catshark. A small shark it is named after the dark spots and blotches on its skin. If rubbed the wrong way, the skin will feel coarse like sandpaper providing protection.
With all the dead wood washed up on the shore, we saw some great examples of fungi. One dead tree trunk had a small cluster of Velvet Shank holding on tight. The bright orange cap added a lovely touch of colour to the beach.
Small Spotted Catshark Egg Purse and Velvet Shank. Photo Credit: C Glass
Following the beach clean we moved on to the Colvend Golf Club to meet up with more of the Volunteers for lunch and a quiz. There were clearly quite a few competitive people in the room!
We also had the great pleasure of awarding three of our volunteers, Mary, Sue and Janet, the Swift Long Service Award acknowledging 5 years of volunteer service with the RSPB.
Mary, Sue and Janet receiving the Swift award. Photo Credit: C Glass
How many Barnacle Geese would it take to pull Santa’s sleigh?
The answer is 545.
How did we work this out? Santa has 9 reindeer pulling the sleigh (yes, I know there are only 8 in the photo!), all of which are assumed to be female as only female reindeer have antlers over winter (unless they were castrated males). An adult female reindeer can weigh up to 120kg, and a female Barnacle Goose can weigh up to 1.98kg.
Carol-Ann Glass, Trainee Warden
At Mersehead you will find the RSPB’s only self-catering holiday cottages - Barnacle and Shelduck. Available dates go quickly, so please follow the links to book your holiday for 2025.
*Flooding - Please note that Mersehead nature reserve is prone to flooding during periods of high rainfall and/or strong winds and tidal surges. To avoid disappointment at these times, please contact the reserve in advance of your visit by email in the first instance at mersehead@rspb.org.uk or check the RSPB Dumfries and Galloway Facebook Page for daily updates.