Hitting the ground running

RSPB Mersehead Blog 13^th January – 19^th January 2024

We may still be in the midst of winter, but our warden team and volunteers are already busy with a flurry of tasks to prepare the reserve’s habitats for the 2024 breeding season and emergence of spring wildlife.

Giving Natterjack Toads a fighting chance

This week, with the help of a Species on the Edge volunteer group, we cleared a large swathe of willow trees and saplings that were encroaching upon our Natterjack Toad breeding pools. Natterjack Toads are endangered in the UK due to the widespread loss of their coastal dune habitat and fragmented breeding colonies. In Scotland, Natterjack Toads are only found here in Dumfries & Galloway along the Solway Firth coast, specifically Mersehead and Caerlavrock.

Clearing willow trees and brambles to make way for Natterjack Toads. Photo credit: F. Gilgunn

These small toads (up to 8cm long) need warm, shallow pools in which to breed successfully, as well as open areas where they have unimpeded access to their hunting ground on the intertidal sand flats. As willow is an incredibly fast-growing tree, it can quickly takeover and dry out the very areas we are trying to keep open with shallow pools and to remain free and clear from vegetation that creates obstacles for the toads.

Thanks to everyone involved in this habitat management task, we’re in a good position for Natterjack Toads to emerge in March and begin breeding from April onwards.

Natterjack toad has an olive-green mottled colour with a distinctive yellow dorsal stripe. Photo credit: F. Gilgunn

Put your hands together for our volunteers! Photo credit: L. Templeton

As a point of interest (and in case you saw smoke on the reserve), our warden team disposed of the large stacks of willow in situ through a controlled burn – a fire that is intentionally set and carefully monitored to ensure low intensity and safety. Corrugated metal sheets were used to protect the ground and contain the ash. Some willow branches were set aside to enable us to complete the willow fence in our Sulwath Garden.

Controlled burn of willow trees. Photo credit: F. Gilgunn

Residential volunteers finished cutting and burning willow on a bright, sunny day. Photo credit: R. Chambers

Week of the Willow

Clearing willow seemed to be a theme this week, but for another reason – rotational ditch management. Our regular Tuesday volunteers braved the sleet, snow and rain to clear and coppice willow growing in our drainage ditches adjacent to the wet grassland beside the Bruiach Hide. This task will allow us to control water levels in the wetlands and make it easier for machinery to rotational clean out ditches when required.

Volunteers cleared willow from wet grassland ditches. Photo Credit: F. Gilgunn

Recent Wildlife Sightings

If you’ve been out walking our trails lately, you probably have seen and heard Stonechats, Goldcrests, Great Tits, Long-Tailed Tits, Fieldfares and Yellowhammers. Visitors have reported seeing Red Kites, Kestrels, a Kingfisher and a Waxwing (reported in last week’s blog).

We’ve also regularly heard the eerie screech of a Tawny Owl and Barn Owl at night and in the wee hours of the morning around the Sulwath Garden and farm buildings. If you watched BBC Winterwatch 2024 this week, you learned that these ambush hunters are aided by silent flight due to fluid dynamics, whereby their velvety, fringe-like feathers create a vortex that keeps air so close to the surface of the wing that it makes no noise as it moves.

Yellowhammer among Chaffinches and Sparrows at Visitor Centre feeder. Photo credit: F. Gilgunn

Big Garden Birdwatch at our Visitor Centre

With the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch happening 26^th - 28^th January, we’re getting in on the action in our own backyard. During the Birdwatch, we’ll have a live-eye camera on the Visitor Centre’s bird feeder so everyone can monitor the winged visitors who frequent Mersehead.

Frances Gilgunn, Residential Volunteer/Trainee Warden

Upcoming events

*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.