Join the RSPB Warden whatever the weather ........?

When driving to the hide this morning and seeing (or not as the case was) the Rendall hills encased in low cloud, with a strong wind battering the side of the Landrover. I realised that I may not get a large turnout for the hide session or even be able to see the lochan let alone any birds. However, the visiblity wasn't that bad and as the morning progressed the cloud…

Join us on Friday morning (whatever the weather) at the Burgar Hill Hide. The warden will be available to show you birds, help with identification, answer general enquiries and point you in the direction of other good bird watching areas on Orkney.

The star of the show here is the breeding red-throated divers (a real Orkney speciality). You may also see a variety of other wildfowl including breeding wigeon as well as…

A fantastic sunny Sunday afternoon walk up Marwick Head reserve.

Red-breasted mergansers, eider ducks and oystercatchers were all gathered in The Choin, a large tidal pool. Skylarks were singing in the fields and on the walk up to the cliff I saw my first wheatears of the year - two smart looking males. 

The guillemots were back in their thousands on the cliff, huddled together in rows, with kittiwakes and razorbills…

Today was the first of this seasons hide 'Surgery Sessions' at The Loons reserve. These sessions will run every Friday from now until the end of July, and then fortnighly into the autumn, at one of these Orkney reserve hides:The Loons, Burgar Hill and Mill Dam. We'll be posting about events here on the blog but you can also find out more on the events section of the Orkney web page.

As it was the first event…

Welcome to the Orkney blog, the first venture into blogging by the RSPB staff here in the Orkney Islands. I'm writing the first but our other staff here will all be contributing too. 

Andy Knight is our Reserves Manager and has overall responsibility for the 13 reserves that we have here - that's a bigger concentration of reserves than anywhere else in the country.  Alan Leitch is our Mainland Warden (Mainland…