Hello all!
Myself (Jenny), Tim and Paul are the new residential volunteers here at Mersehead! Like the barnacle geese we will be overwintering here and will be updating you each week on all the interesting things happening on the reserve.
The reserve has changed since I (Paul) started residential volunteering here at RSPB Mersehead.
Eric kept telling us we’d pay for the lovely warm, dry weather. And of course he was right...
The weather has turned a tide here at Mersehead, with the subject of any land management sometimes being washed away. However, wildfowl and waders have continued to flood in to the reserves wetlands, joined closely by sluice stressing amounts of rainfall. So much in fact, that the woodland and path to Meida hide is really quite flooded, so please bring wellies just in case! (All puns intended).
One handy by-product of so much rain is the increase in standing water in some of the more moist fields, giving the fine selection of the reserves feathery residents a little more paddling space. Weather can be a big deciding factor in the running of a nature reserve, and mine and Tim’s project of recording over 1000 Barnacle Goose rings has suffered a lot. With so many flooded fields we’re limited as to where we can get the reserve vehicles, and which jobs we can safely do. Luckily it doesn’t stop us surveying the reserves birds, of which we’ve had some great numbers. At last count we had nearly 8000 Barnacle Geese on the reserve, a flock of 253 Golden Plover hanging out with 53 Dunlin on the beach, and nearly 100 Pintail. As well as those lovely birds we have also had good numbers at Kirkconnell Merse, including Red Breasted Mergansers and 113 Redshank.
Work Party
A big thank you to all of you from Turcan Connell that joined us over weekend for some conservation work. As a team we tackled unwanted scrub with loppers and bow saws to improve the habitat for natterjack toads
Strange beach find of the week
Lots of unusual objects come to rest on the beach at Mersehead!
Here is this weeks top find, can you help us identify it?