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Our work here
16 December 2009
At Hobbister, we work in partnership with Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), Hobbister Farm, Highland Distillers and other peat cutters to maintain and enhance the mosaic of internationally and nationally important habitats to benefit the moorland mosaic biodiversity.
Our vision for Hobbister, as part of the Orkney Mainland Moors reserve, is for a landscape-scale reserve of natural and managed processes comprising RSPB owned or managed areas in conjunction with other sympathetically managed areas buffered by SNH's Natural Care hen harrier scheme providing improved and increased areas of foraging for hen harriers. We will demonstrate best practise management and extend conservation management to currently unmanaged areas.
We will continue to build on our successful management and policy work by reducing disturbance to breeding birds; promote sustainable grazing regimes; reduce unsustainable mechanical peat cutting; control unplanned fires and slow down and halt further agricultural improvement and fragmentation of these important moorland sites.
Our work here involves extensive management trials and experiments and because of this work, we are beginning to get a better understanding of the factors affecting the availability of prey for hen harriers.
This will result in increased active management of these upland areas in future, including extensive controlled grazing, controlled muir burn and heather swiping to increase the suitability of the reserve for key breeding birds such as hen harriers, short-eared owls, merlins and curlews.
The wonderful wilderness appeal of this area, and rich variety of species makes these sites a key part of the attraction to Orkney for visitors throughout the year. We will develop these reserves within our Orkney Reserves Visitor Strategy and promote their contribution to the local economy.