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Recent sightings

• 8 February 2012

  Brent Geese and frosted mornings.

  Hello again blogland!

  A good week here at the Loch which began with the Iceland Gull which was still here on Monday morning but even though it’s not been seen since then doesn’t mean that it’s not here somewhere! Today though, we now have 6 Pale-bellied Brent Geese, the variation from Greenland and northern Scandinavia, amongst the large numbers of Pink-footed Geese. They are perhaps best viewed from Tower Pool Hide but are just visible from the Visitor Centre. They were a bit too distant for photographing today but we'll see what happens.

  A constant highlight for me is the ringtail Hen Harrier which keeps making appearances and in the strong winds that we had today it did look very impressive dipping and ducking around the reedbed. The Short-eared Owl hasn't been seen but it's not been seen for a few days before and then puts in an appearance.

  Our truck is currently being MOT’d so going out to check the Konik ponies is now done on foot and this morning we braved the winds to have a wander onto the reserve in the early morning. This paid off with the previously mentioned Hen Harrier giving us good views on our way out there.

  On the way back, I happened to see a tail swishing about in the reeds and an Otter was wrestling with an impressive sized fish! It soon disappeared when it noticed us and eventually we saw a head watching us from the icing water. For fans of Breeding Bird Surveys (BBS), Blue Tits are inspecting the bird boxes and the ever industrious Starlings are eyeing up holes in the rotten wood at the top of the Elms near the farmhouse. Also the frosts we've had decorated the gorse nicely!

   

  That's all from here for now!

   

  Posted by Tom

• 3 February 2012

  Recent Sightings for week beginning 30th January 2012

  On the whole a good week with the Short-eared Owl giving very nice views around Starnafin Farm and the white ermine Stoat under the Visitor Centre windows. Today the elusive Water Rail made appearances either flushed by us walking to Tower Pool Hide or by an Otter swimming in front of Tower Pool Hide along a drainage ditch. The numbers of White-fronted Goose have dwindled from the 300+ numbers and were hanging around the 160 mark and today there was just 3 visible at one time but given that the majority of geese had left possibly due to the freezing conditions here at Strathbeg more are likely to return to bolster the numbers.

  The surprise record of the week has to be the 10 Crossbills that flew through on Wednesday during the Farmland Bird Survey. Since then though the size of the flocks of finches and buntings have increased greatly just since Wednesday.

  Below are what we've seen during the week. The monthly Wetland Birds Survey, due to be carried out in just over a weeks time will give us a clearer indication of just have many Pink-footed Geese we have here since the January count of 15,000.

  The geese have been moving in big numbers recently and were especially impresive last night flying with the moon behind them. I can assure you that this is most likely a Pink-footed Goose and not a pterotactyl!

   

  Anyway, here are the weeks birds:

  Crossbill 10, Snipe 2, White-fronted Goose, Pink-footed Goose, Barnacle Goose 50, Lapwing, Hen Harrier 1, Short-eared Owl 1, Long-tailed Duck 1, Dunlin 13, Whooper Swan 185, Mute Swan, Water Rail, Shelduck 7.

  Posted by Tom

• 1 February 2012

  A stoat up a drainpipe...really!

  Hello blog land! My name is Tom Simon and I am the current residential intern at the Loch of Strathbeg and this is my first attempt at blogging so we’ll see what happens!

  I wasn’t here for the Stargazing event at the weekend but I have heard stories that the attendance was extremely healthy!

  Today though has been every good for wildlife sightings which began during our Farmland Bird Survey. There were good numbers of Yellowhammers, Reed Buntings and Greenfinches but the surprise of the survey was 10 Crossbills that flew low and away quite quickly. We also had a Woodcock give a brief fly past earlier in the survey.

  After the survey was finished and me, Greig and Ben (2 new residential volunteers) were warming up back in the farmhouse Emma and Lesley (a local volunteer) spotted a Stoat that, save a little brown patch on its head, was in its winter white ermine coat! For someone such as myself who is originally from West Sussex this was a rare sighting and the stoat was very obliging in giving us great views very close underneath the visitor centre windows.

  

  Eventually it disappeared and I remembered that in one of the photo albums in the centre I had seen a photo of stoats peering out of the drainpipe which ran up the wall of the centre. I showed this to Ben who then looked at said drainpipe and our white ermine stoat was right there! It looked around and seemed not to mind us all staring at it and taking as many photos as we could.

  

  The day ended well with the Short-eared Owl of past blog notoriety flying over the farm.

  We can only hope the stoat is as viewable again!

  Posted by Tom

• 7 January 2012

  The (Very!) Tall and The Small

  A couple of very different birds proving to be highlights over the past few days-

  Our newest entry on the yearlist is one of our smallest birds- a Coal Tit on the feeders outside the office window. Coal Tits are similar in colour to Great Tits although with a white stripe down the back of the head. They're even smaller than a Blue Tit and the only resident bird on the reserve that's any tinier is the Goldcrest. Combined with a Barn Owl hunting over the reserve on Friday this takes our year list up to 65. We're a little bit behind on last year, but the grey skies and very strong winds have made it hard to get out birding and especailly hard to see any of our smaller songbirds out in the open. Once the wardenin gteam is back at full strength after the New Year break I'm sure the total will climb fairly quickly.

  In contrast to our tiny Coal Tit, the most entertaining sighting of the day were what has to be two of the biggest birds ever seen from an RSPB reserve- two seven foot tall Ostriches that have just moved on to one of the neighbouring farms. They're a bit distant but can be seen from the visitor centre with binoculars and have been incredibly fun to watch. I don't think we can *quite* squeeze them onto the yearlist without there being official enquiry  but they've definitely gone in the sightings book!

  Posted by DianaS

• 1 January 2012

  New Year, New List!

  A good full day of birding today as started off our new Year List for 2012. After falling just short of 200 birds for 2011 (198 in total- we couldn't include the possible Pallid Harrier, the airfield Great Grey Shrike or Brian the eagle unfortunately!), we're determined to go at least two better this year. With that in mind, I spent most of the day out on the reserve- visiting everywhere from the seawatch point to the plantation, while our regular birders kept track of everything from the visitor centre. After combining everyone's sightings, we managed to see a grand total of 60 different species- two more than the New Year's Day list last year!

  I was quite pleased with two distant Great Northern Divers at sea as my highlight of the day, but that was completely upstaged by news that a Chiffchaff had been seen in front of the visitor centre! This tiny little bird should really be in Africa right now and well away from the Scottish winter and isn't something that anyone could have expected to see on New Year's Day. It was still fluttering about in the grass in front of the centre just before I locked up this evening, so it may well still be around in the morning. It'll be well worth checking the garden very carefully if you're visiting tomorrow.

  The full list of all 60 species is here- http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/placestovisit/lochofstrathbeg/f/65828/p/61611/408026.aspx#408026

  If you've been out on the reserve today and seen something different, or if you see anything new over the next few days just add your sightings at the bottom, or email us at strathbeg@rspb.org.uk and we'll add them on for you!

  Posted by DianaS

• 24 December 2011

  Happy Christmas From Loch of Strathbeg

  It's been a sunny but very cold Christmas Eve here at Strathbeg (despite the forecast of mild temperatures, there's been a bitterly cold wind blowing over the marsh). Not a lot to do today but go for the final pre-Christmas check on the ponies (all eight of them still fine, and looking well), and make sure that the electrice fences at both sides of the their compartment are still working properly. I had some superb views of a Hen Harrier hunting over the reeds as I walked out as well, which was a fantastic way to start the day.

  The cold wind does seem to have bought a few nice birds closer in to the centre with three curlew, and seven dunlin on the pools. There's also a good selection of ducks- shelduck, goldeneye and two very smart red-breasted merganser were all outside the centre this morning and there was a flock of around 100 Barnacle Geese on the fields, joining around 150 Greylag that were on the pools this morning. Hopefully most of the geese will manage to avoid our now regular fox, who's been seen for the last three days. Yesterday it spent a very entertaining twenty minutes hunting mice and voles in the grass by the Tower Pool Path, but I'm sure it would be quite happy to have a nice goose for Christmas dinner! 

  

  Just a reminder that the visitor centre will be closed tomorrow and Boxing Day and then open as usual right through New Year.

  Happy Christmas from everyone at Strathbeg.

  Posted by DianaS

• 14 December 2011

  More Than Just Little Brown Birds

  With the cold weather the garden, the feeders and the wild bird cover along the Tower Pool Path are becoming full of small birds and on a good day we can see a dozen different species on or under the feeders. Along with the usual goldfinch, greenfinch, chaffinch, tree sparrow, dunnock and various tits we sometimes get something a bit more unusal. This week our best visitor has been this very smart male Brambling. Sadly the picture was taken through our not very clean office window, but in the flesh he's a very handsome black and peachy-orange bird and really stands out from the pink chaffinches.

  

  Today Emma and the volunteers were out surveying the small birds around the centre and on the farmland between the centre and Tower Pool hide. The highlight of the count was a pair of snow bunting in the hedge just behind one of our farm buildings, one of which was later glimpsed in the wildlife garden. There were lots of other species around, including linnet, corn bunting and plenty of reed bunting like the one below (taken the garden today). A couple of our reserve's top predators were out and about as well, with a short-eared owl in the field by the entrance track and a weasel (smaller and faster than our more common stoats) dispatching a rabbit ten times its size just outside the wildlife garden.

  

   

  Posted by DianaS

• 4 December 2011

  Early Christmas Gifts pt II- With Added Whales!

  It was a very cold early start for the staff and vols on Goosewatch this morning- especially for Tom and Debbie who sat in literally freezing temperatures in Tower Pool Hide looking out for White-Fronted Geese. Sensibly, once the counting was all added up everyone involved headed home to get warm and dry and catch up on a bit of sleep after the early start.

  I hadn't been on the Goosecount so stayed around to look after the centre as usual. I'd checked my email earlier in the day to find a report of some Humpback Whales spotted south of the reserve. After missing the Aberdeen whale int he summer this seemed like another one that just got away. I was having a fairly quiet morning when Tim one of our regular birders, came in to say that the whales were still at Collieston, there were at least three, and that they were probably worth going to see if I could find the time...

  In about five minutes flat the volunteers were all  rounded up, Emma dashed down from the village and we were on the road. Some very brave driving from Suzanne took us through near blizzard conditions around Peterhead- if they kept up we'd be lucky to see even a giant whale unless it was about a foot offshore. thankfully, as we headed south the snow vanished and we were back in bright blue skies. After a brief detour as we tried to find the viewpoint, we parked up and climbed to the topof the hill. Almost immediately Tom spotted a huge 'blow'- the puff of water and air as a whale breathes out- just offshore. I've seen dolphin blows and this summer my first Minke whale signs but this was massive.

  We kept looking out for blows and then, behind the next one was a long roll of a whale's back with a small dorsal fin at the back. The whales continued to surface for the next half an hour or so, and a little corwd of people (including a few other interested RSPB staff!) gathered on the hill. While we never saw the whales surface completely, they were clearly far, far bigger than our regular Minkes and the closest one even 'fluked' with its tail fins completely out of the water as it dived.

  We've taken some pics but not had time to sort them out yet, so we'll add them to the blog as soon as we can. the whales appear to have been in the area for a few days at least, so hopefully they'll stay around for a bit longer- or better yet head north so we can get them on the reserve list!

  Posted by DianaS

• 16 November 2011

  Just Like Old Times...

  A busy couple of days on the reserve. Firstly on Tuesday we had a visit from a team from our Orkney reserves, down on the mainland for a few days for the regional meeting, and to have a look at our Konik ponies.Some of the Orkney reserves need grazing, and this was a good chance for the Orkney team to see what a difference our ponies are making to the habitat and to have a chat about how we're looking after them out on the marsh.

  As you can see from the picture below, the ponies are looking great, they're still in good condition and are growing an incredibly thick wooly winter coat ready for the rest of the winter.

  

  Today was a case of slipping back into old habits. With Vicky and Emma both busy off reserve, we'd invited Dominic back for the day to help us out with a visiting University Group this afternoon. Typically as soon as he got in we were off to the plantation via a quick seawatch. While we didn't manage to get that elusive 199th species we got a good selection of birds in the plantation including two Chiffchaffs, Robin, Dunnock, Treecreeper and Goldcrest as well as Red-Throated and Great Northern Diver at sea.

  The highlight of the morning though was a large, dark bird with a white rump flying just above the waves. I pointed it out to Dominic, as I couldn't quite work out what it was. The conversation went something like- "Really odd large bird with white rump, if it was over land I'd say it was a hen harrier". 

  "Yes, that's a hen harrier...".

  It didn't seem to be exhausted, and was in full sight of land but was just steadily following the coastline south, only stopping to be mobbed by a confused Herring Gull. We know that raptors do come over from the continent but to see one just drifiting apparently quite happily, this close to the waves was very unusual indeed. Just goes to show you can't always use the habitat to help you out with an ID!

  Posted by DianaS

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