“Ae dreary, windy, winter night,

The stars shot down wi’ sklentin light,

Wi’ you, mysel’ I gat a fright.”

-          Robert Burns, Address to the Deil (1785)

The first Saturday after I arrived at Mersehead, I made the short journey sixteen miles north to Dumfries: the town probably best known as the final resting place of Robert Burns. I though had not come to visit the Burns Mausoleum, nor…

Early Monday morning our most famous winter migrants, the barnacle geese, disappeared from Mersehead as they set off on their 2,000 mile migration back to Svalbard in the Arctic Circle.  It will be late September before these charismatic wildfowl return to the Solway.

The weather this week has been rather unpredictable. One moment you are striding along in a gentle, pleasant breeze with a warm sun and the next you are…

Hi  Folks

A fantastic opportunity please read on, thanks Colin:  

Job Membership Development Officer.

Starting May/June

Fulltime, 5 month post

Dept/Section/Region/Reserve: Sandyhills Bay, South and West Scotland

Location Of Job: Sandyhills Bay

Post holder reports to: Seasonal Membership Development Officer

Salary: £15,660 to £17,000

Overall Purpose of the Job: 

Do you love the natural world? Do you…

The wildlife at Mersehead has been braving this week’s bizarre weather and even flourishing despite it.

Bluebells are out in the woodland and young are emerging. Nine mallard ducklings can be seen from the visitor centre. We hope it won’t be long before oystercatcher chicks join the nursery: a pair has decided to nest in perfect view, directly opposite the window. We’ve seen them swapping over incubation…

My first full day here had fallen on a Sunday. I remember it well. It had consisted mainly of horizons; the Solway was all sky and water and shifting light. The week’s work still lay ahead of me, and I had no idea what to expect. I’d gone for a walk around the reserve with Charlie, a volunteer heading up the natterjack toad project. We’d walked along the beach, where she pointed out the various prints and impressions…

The first round of wildfowl and wader surveys have been completed this week.  Initial surveys are looking good with 28 lapwing and 5 oystercatcher recorded at Mersehead.  A pair of redshank have been seen displaying in the wetland field directly in front of the Visitor Centre whilst on Saturday night a drumming snipe was heard from Rainbow Lane.  Surveying Kirkconnell Merse is always a challenge but extremely good fun as…

When the above question was put to me last Saturday night over a particularly tricky jigsaw, I had just finished explaining to my companions that my background is not in ornithology, zoology, conservation, or indeed any of the scientific disciplines one might expect of a PhD student volunteering on an RSPB reserve, but in Fine Art. I am here, as I went on to explain, on an artist in residence placement: essentially…

The warmth and sun of the past weekend didn’t only draw us into the open, but also many of Mersehead’s residents. Our trusty hen harrier was certainly making the most of it, as was an otter.

With its blooming flowers, the Sulwarth Garden is attracting red admiral butterflies, more bumblebees and a great deal of hoverflies. The rooks in the trees are busy rearing their squawking chicks, and the male tawny…

This morning we started our monitoring work by going out and completing a territory mapping survey of the reedbed. The first survey of the reedbed is always fairly quiet as migrants such as sedge and reed warbler have not arrived yet.  We did however, record 13 reed bunting and heard 3 water rail calling.  Along the way, we also saw a male roe deer, buff-tailed bumblebee and some frog spawn.  Along the back ditch, the first…

Back from a week’s holiday, the first thing I noticed about Mersehead was the presence of some additional wildflowers. In the woodland, the tiny moschatel can be seen all the way along the side of the footpath to Meida hide.  Moschatel is also known by the name ‘town-hall clock’ which refers to the neat arrangement of five yellowish-green flowers which all sit together at the top of the stem with four flowers facing…

Photo By D Beaumont 

A birds eye view of parts of Mersehead, as we wait for the first of our summer visitors to arrive this is probably what they see on arrival!

Speaking of which things do appear to be late this year, nevertheless skylarks are singing in abundance across the merse with over 50 birds singing and displaying, similarly with the lapwing although smaller numbers (up to 8 pairs) tumbling across the fields…

It certainly feels like spring today, it is warm, sunny, the lapwings are displaying, the daffodils are in flower and lesser celandine is peeking out from under the hedges.  Lesser celandine is one of the earliest wild flowers to appear and is the floral equivalent of the swallow; both reappear around the same time and herald the coming of spring. In fact the word ‘celandine’ comes from the Greek chelidon meaning…

The lapwings have been busy with their tumbling display flights over Mersehead this week. Lapwings have a complex series of breeding season displays both in the air and on the ground; the aerial displays advertise, define and maintain territories whilst conveying important information to the female in selecting a mate.  Morning, late afternoon and into the evening are the best times to hear and see lapwing display as their…

The past week got off to a great start when 30 whooper swans were recorded out on the wetlands.  The usual wetland birds such as wigeon, teal, shoveler and pintail can still be seen from both hides in good numbers.  Numbers of gadwall have increased to 13 which is a high count for Mersehead and it was exciting to see pintail displaying this week.

Birds of prey have been sighted every day with kestrel, sparrowhawk, per…

This week the penultimate WeBS count was completed on the reserve. We recorded at total of 3733 Barnacle Geese, 31 Shelduck, 102 Wigeon, 4 Gadwall, 317 Teal, 7 Mallard, 50 Pintail, 57 Shoveler, 2 Tufted Duck, 1 Little Grebe, 1 Coot, 341 Lapwing, and 59 Curlew. The high tide roost on the merse produced 606 Oystercatcher and 168 Curlew.

Lapwing have been seen displaying regularly, with the two fields behind the visitor…

Yesterday excitement spread across the office when a snow goose was spotted in the hay field behind the car park.  At the start of the winter, a snow goose was seen at Caerlaverock and then moved over to Cumbria for the majority of the winter. Last week, the snow goose was sighted back in Dumfries and Galloway before finally making its way to Mersehead.

Snow goose at Mersehead. (Photo credit: Eric Neilson)

A female…

Green-winged teal was spotted in the wetlands from Meida hide on Sunday.  Green-winged teal are the North American equivalent of our native Eurasian teal and can be identified by the vertical rather than horizontal white stripe.

On Monday, we were out completing the monthly wildfowl and waders reserve count at Mersehead.  We recorded a total of 2148 barnacel geese, 73 shelduck, 67 wigeon, 333 teal, 23 mallard 181 pint…

Skeins of pink-footed geese have been sighted every morning this week heading north, with the largest skein of 600 seen this morning.  Out on the wetlands there are good numbers of teal, wigeon, shoveler, mallard and pintail along with a smaller number of gadwall, tufted duck, shelduck, 3 mute swans and a group of canada geese.  Water rail is still regularly being heard calling from Meida hide at dusk.  There are plenty…

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…

Here are the recent sightings from Mersehead

Bruaich Hide- mute swan, snipe, shoveler, curlew, wigeon, little grebe,  redshank, tufted duck, fieldfare, barnacle goose, greylag geese, pink footed geese, teal, pintail, gadwall

Meida Hide- wigeon, teal, pintail, mallard, shoveler, hen harrier, grey heron, whooper swan, starling

Visitor Centre- barnacle geese, chaffinch, greenfinch, goldfinch, house sparrow, tree sparrow…

The morning of the 25^th of September had the Mersehead team in quite an excitable flap! After a lonely few months of endless quiet we saw our first noisy invaders! The Barnacle Geese had returned!

Or at least, 38 of them had to begin with. 

Over the course of what had begun as a grimy, miserable day turned to glorious sunshine, the whole sky seeming to celebrate the Ol’ Barnys return. In drips and drabs they begun…

Our short term volunteers are a fantastic bunch! In a short space of time they cram in a absolute mountain of work and power through every task given to them with a grin and a cup of tea on standby. We wouldn’t be able to function without them!

Our latest busy bees were two lovely ladies named Sally and Valeria. Both hailing from England and having visited Mersehead before they’re absolute naturals when it comes…

You never stop learning as an RSPB volunteer. Whether its bugs, birds or how to make wind chimes out of shells every day is a lesson in something new.

I started off my stint of volunteering a complete novice. I could tell you what a Wren looked like – tennis ball with a beak -, that bugs were gross and talk your ear off about flooding. More often than not my conversations would flow as below;

Expert “Do you know…

Hello, I am Emily, a short term volunteer at RSPB Mersehead. I am gaining some experience after finishing my first year of a Zoology degree with Exeter University; the campus actually being in Cornwall, so quite a trek up here – but well worth it!

So, I have been here for two weeks and how time has flown! It has been a busy but fun two weeks with a wide range of tasks from ragwort pulling to white washing cottages…

Did you know the average garden has over 2000 species of insects? That’s 2000 little creepy, crawling critters sneaking through the undergrowth!

That’s 2000 more than I’d like anywhere near me!

Gosh I hate bugs. Always hated bugs. They just make my skin crawl! It’s something about the extra legs and beady little eyes but even I can’t deny the importance of insects nor how special some of them can really…