The Choin at our Marwick Reserve has been playing host to quite a few white-winged gulls in the last few weeks BUT in the last few days numbers are going off the scale ... Today alone at Marwick I had 4 Iceland Gulls and 3 Glaucous Gulls, nearby another Iceland Gull - wow 8 birds in total a fine sight by any standards. I then went down to the Bay of Skaill (5km south of Marwick) and over a 30 minute period had 3 more…

The Loons – Greenland White-fronted Goose
A small flock of Greenland white-fronted geese regularly winter in West Mainland. This timid, distinctive goose can often been seen in the fields behind the small reedbed at the Loons hide.

In recent years, between 50 and 100 Greenland white-fronted geese have been wintering on Orkney. They breed in Greenland, migrating south to Orkney between mid October and early November…

After all the storms that we’ve been having, last week I headed out to Marwick Head to check the footpath. Currently the fields are flooded at the back of the storm beach and the footpath is under water in places. There are culverts that drain the fields to the sea so I went down on to the beach to check they weren’t blocked and I had a look at some of the debris that had been washed up.

The first interesting…

Hi Everybody

This is the last 'Latest Happenings' of 2011 and, looking back, I think we can say it has been a successful year for RSPB Orkney. These were just a few of the events:

There was a positive response to the April outing 'Birding by Bus' which seems to be a popular trip and one we intend to repeat in 2012. Other memorable outings included the Gloup visits which were all fully-booked; the…

The Choin (tidal pool at Marwick) played host to a family of OTTERS this weekend with a female and three youngsters seen on Saturday and again on Sunday. Lorna Dow and I were fortunate enough to get some fantastic and prolonged views of these rather elusive creatures. Otters are widespread on Orkney but are fairly shy and sightings are never guaranteed, even in hotspot areas. I managed to get a few blurry images of the…

Pauline Wilson, RSPB Local Group Secretary writes:

Hi Everybody

This is just a quick email to send on the photos I received from Ian Cunningham today. I've left his text with it so you can appreciate how lucky he was!

Pauline W

"Well what luck.  Sitting having a cup of tea after breakfast in our sun room when this harrier came and tried to land first on the Rugosa and then settled on a post.  Photos taken from…

Pauline Wilson, RSPB Local Group Secretary, writes:

“Hi Everybody. Kate Thompson kindly sent a report from the Orkney RSPB Wildlife Explorers’ outing “What Can We See On The Peedie Sea” which was coupled with a Wild Art Workshop courtesy of local artist Tim Wootton.

“Incidentally, Tim Wootton has recently scooped the Birdwatch/Swarovski Artist of the Year Award with a fine charcoal drawing…

On Friday RSPB volunteers Gerry and Ian braved wild seas, thunder and lightning, and hailstones the size of marbles, all so that they could spend the day on the Hoy reserve planting native birch seedlings at White Glen, an area of the reserve where the planting of native species - mainly downy birch and rowan - is ongoing.

They did a great job and the trees are still standing after an exceptionally windy weekend on the…

Pauline Wilson, RSPB Local Group Secretary, writes:

"Hi Everybody. I received an email from Ian Cunningham and thought it particularly interesting as his photographs show the birds in winter plumage which is quite different from our usual views of these species. A lovely seal certainly has the 'Aah' factor! Many thanks to Ian for once more passing on his photos to our local group."

Ian Cunningham says:

... along with the Whooper Swans and assorted wintering wildfowl RSPB at Mill Dam on Shapinsay are fortunate to have secured the services of two Irish Cob ponies from a couple on Shapinsay. They will be grazing an area of the reserve which we struggle annually to get the appropriate levels of grazing on. It will be interesting to see the results of their browsing in the coming months...

Mill Dam Warden - Paul Hollinrake…

Hi Everybody

I had hoped that, by now, you would have all read the report in the Orcadian from our very successful Feed the Birds Day. No luck, sadly, but see Morag Wilson's blog below. 

Charities Bazaar

A last minute reminder that RSPB volunteers will be out again tomorrow (12th), this time at Kirkwall Town Hall for the annual Charities Bazaar. Please drop by if you are in the town. It's a good chance to buy RSPB…

The RSPB Local Group & the Orkney Field Club held our annual Feed the Birds Day on Saturday 29th October at Wellpark Garden Centre by kind permission of the Glue family.   A huge THANKS to all our volunteers who came along to help out on the day.

There was lots of fun to be had in our area of the garden centre - speaking to visitors about the types of bird food and feeders to provide for their local garden birds, advice…

Here is the 'Latest Happenings' from our Local Group Secretary, Pauline Wilson.

Hi Everybody

Sorry to send so many group emails close together but I am trying to catch up since our broadband was down for half a week - Deerness member Kathryn Southerington wonders if the rats ate ate the cables because they knew they were full of SPAM!

I'm attaching 3 photos, the first one being a redwing from Ian - a timely…

Over the last few weeks we have been doing various bits of habitat mangement at The Loons.

Firstly, with the help of local volunteers Dave and Lindsey, the willow hurdle had it's annual tidy. It was originally planted in 2008 by a group of pupils from Kirkwall Grammar School as part of a John Muir Award with our field teacher Sue Whitworth, to help give shelter to some shrubs. As it's now well established and shading…

Duncan Reid (already a volunteer here) is the stockman and he'd already done a few days working with the Luing cows at Aikerness farm before going out on the hill. Duncan works for us under a labour services agreement between RSPB and the Orkney Business Ring. There are 6 cows out there so far, another 4 may go out after these have settled in, and Duncans job is to keep an eye on them and guide them away from sensitive…

My first report is from the Sanday Migrants outing last Sunday 25th September when we were blessed with decent weather once again. There were 9 of us in total and our leader was reserves warden Alan Leitch, ably assisted by Dick Matson. On the Stronsay outing the previous week a total of 74 birds was logged so we were anxious to beat this, but had to be content with 71 species seen from leaving the harbour, however 66 of…

Well today's hide surgery session was going along nicely with; (8) Snipe treating us to an aerial display, (70) Pink-footed geese had recently arrived on migration from Iceland. A Greenshank was seen distantly, (4) Kestrel, (2) Raven, (5) Shoveler, a Pintail & Red-breasted merganser along with the resident Greylags and a distant Hen Harrier (ring-tail). Water Rail & Reed Bunting were heard calling from the…

With the CCTV equipment now safely stashed away for the autumn & winter it seems a good time to look back on the summer and how our filmed brood of hen harrier chicks fared.

This year we made the decision to put the camera in before the eggs hatched, moving it forward in stages. In the event it was only just in place when the chicks started appearing on 5th June which just happened to be Springwatch weekend. Four of…

In recent weeks I have been out on Copinsay with other staff and a few volunteers. Thought I would post a little update of what's been happening.

20/08/2011 - Corn Holm
Local boatman Sid Foubister took us for an overnight stay to listen for Storm Petrel activity. An enjoyable evening revealed a minimum of 5 apparently occupied sites on the island.  During our approach to Copinsay the rocks exposed at low tide were…

Local RSPB member Keith McCubbin from Orphir sent us these images of a Meadow Pipit feeding it's rather large chick!  They say love is blind but this really is ridiculous. Taken from his kitchen window on the 4th August. 

"I wonder where Ma is?"

"Ya beauty"

"Any more?"

Thanks to Keith for letting us share these images of what is a facinating bit of behaviour on our doorstep. Cuckoo…

Aileen Meek at the Wildlife Explorer Lucky Pond-dip!!!

After another rather wet start to the show, the sun eventually shone through the gloom to allow folk attending the County Show to have a great time!   Soon, ice-cream cones, sun glasses & happy children holding their prizes were all around us!   Families came in and had a go at trying to identify what was lurking in the depths of our fantastic feelie boxes, guessing…

We took our small RSPB tent and ventured across the Orkney Isles to the Deerness Boat Show all the way from Finstown.  After over an hour wrestling with our tent in drizzly, windy weather, we finally got some shelter and filled it with a singing bird tree full of soft toy singing birds and info leaflets, etc.  We also had a lovely Local Group Display as well as loads of new pin badges.  The noise of the odd puffin, robin…

The foggy, damp weather over the last few days hasn’t been great for birdwatching, but Hoy’s insects haven’t been put off; during a walk along the road to Rackwick on Friday 5^th August, not just one but three Golden-ringed Dragonflies were sighted from the path. These fabulous dragonflies are impressive even if insects aren’t your thing: large, and beautifully marked with black and golden rings. In Orkney…

A few Fridays ago brought an unusual phone call and an unexpected trip to the vets.

It was proving to be a fairly average Friday in the office until I got a phone call from a local Stromness family saying they had just rescued a bird of prey from the sea just off Hoy! The lad spotted it and they couldn’t quite believe what it was until they took it out of the water, totally exhausted and water logged.

Half an…

In a previous blog I mentioned how the reserve at Brodgar is currently looking fantastic with wildflowers and bird crops in bloom. A lunchtime walk today, in search of great yellow bumblebees,  proved that the same is still true – if anything it’s looking more spectacular.

The yellow flowering mustard is one of the main species in the bird crop

Orkney is one of the few places left that the great yellow bumblebee…