In last week’s blog, Emma wrote of the ferocious lashing that we received courtesy of Storm Boelo as it swept through the Reserve last weekend. Fortunately as it turned out, she pressed the ‘publish’ button just before the inevitable power cut occurred, and not for the first time (or doubtless the last), the residents of the Collieston area were plunged into darkness by the weather. Welcome to the storm season!

Outsiders may be inclined to think we’re a wee bit eccentric here, with our old paraffin lamps and our little stove-top kettles, but on this exposed and unforgiving section of east coast, we’ve learned to be prepared for the worst the jet stream throws at us. And besides, as Emma observed, it was pretty spectacular out there if you were hardy enough to be out and about in the teeth of the gale.

Sitting before the fire on Sunday night, listening to the gale roaring down the chimney, we knew we’d probably have some unscheduled work to do come the morning. Sure as eggs is eggs, an inspection of Waterside Wood first-thing on Monday morning revealed two fallen spruces blocking the track, plus several others listing ominously on their failing root-plates. Resignedly, Catriona and I got ourselves togged up, dusted off the chainsaws and got to work clearing up the damage. Having spent three of the last seven weeks away on our holidays, this job was an unwelcome reminder of our lack of fitness. Delicious though Greek food and wine may be, it’s no way to condition your body for a day’s woodcutting!

After several hours’ sawing, sweating and cursing, the track was open once again, and the debris cleared to one side; it’s not so much the actual sawing that’s exhausting, but rather the dragging away of the fallen timber. All good exercise though, so we told ourselves! As it worked out, the waymarker at the end of Waterside Wood, initially obscured under the mass of branches, had had an extremely narrow escape from oblivion.

Storm Boelo’s legacy wasn’t restricted to wind-thrown trees though. Allied to the storm were a series of very high tides, brought about by the full moon and the low atmospheric pressure. This was the scene at Waterside on Monday, with the tide having entirely inundated the saltmarsh adjacent to the car park.

On the beach, these mega tides had caused a prodigious amount of erosion. Local resident Judy, out for a walk at Forvie with her dogs, sent us this photo of the beach at the south-east corner of the Dune Trail, where the footpath heads across the dunes towards the estuary. Or at least that’s the theory anyway: it’s difficult to access the footpath when there’s a fifteen-foot sand cliff where the path used to be. As we all know, coastal change is our constant companion here at Forvie, but this particular change is going to cause us a good deal of head-scratching as we decide what to do about the footpath. In the meantime, we urge all visitors to take great care in South Forvie, and be sure and watch where you’re walking – there may be a sudden drop where the footpath ought to be!

In fairness, once the storm had cleared through, we did enjoy some very pleasant days during the week. The opportunity was therefore taken to catch up on some of the estate tasks that are either deeply unpleasant or physically impossible during torrential rain and a 75 mph gale. These jobs included making a start on the meadow-cutting around the Forvie Centre, a task made all the more enjoyable (…) by having to do battle with Old Shakey, the sickle-bar mower. As well as being the worst machine on the planet for hand-arm vibration, this noisy, rattly, smelly and greasy old contraption also has a mind of its own, and keeping it in a straight line requires considerable upper-body strength and copious industrial language. As such, it’s a tool best used in small increments!

By comparison, using the brushcutter to cut back the matted vegetation along the coastal path was an easy assignment, but even so I was grateful for Emma’s help with this particular job. Having two brushcutters working in tandem saved me traipsing back and forth for the fuel can, which is an inevitability when you’re doing the job as a lone operator with just one machine.

In between the heads-down yakka, we were able to take the time to appreciate some fabulous mornings and evenings in the aftermath of the storm. These seemed just about as far removed from the weekend’s meteorological violence as it was possible to get.

Arguably the most exciting wildlife sighting of the past week came immediately before Storm Boelo. Knowing the rest of the weekend was going to be a write-off, I got up early on the Saturday and took a long walk around the Reserve (yes, on my day off – don’t judge me), and this produced a tiny gem of a rare bird, a Hume’s Leaf Warbler all the way from Asia. I first detected it by its squeaky call, but in a classic Father Ted moment, I wasn’t sure initially whether what I’d heard was something unfamiliar close at hand, or just a distant Meadow Pipit on the wind – Small, or Far Away? To my enduring delight, it turned out to be the former, and constituted the first record of this diminutive Himalayan species for the Reserve.

The rest of the week’s birding was for work rather than pleasure, with both high-water and low-water counts to carry out on the estuary. The low-water count was made difficult by the unsettled nature of some of the birds – most notably the Golden Plover, who never seemed to sit still for more than a few minutes at a time before taking flight again. Eventually, after much dark muttering and endless resetting of clickers to zero, we counted 3,472 of them. Not a job for those who lack patience!

By the end of the working week, the wind had started to pick up again, and we were reminded that this is just the start of the storm season – who knows what’ll get thrown our way in the coming months.

Ultimately, we’ve got no say in what comes our way – and it’s up to us to make the best of it, come sunshine or storm. After all, that’s what makes living in the North-east fun, right?!…

As the first storms of the season sweep through, I’m reminded of what is in store for us over winter… Wind and rain! Mid-week was not as bad as expected since Storm Austen focussed its efforts on the south. But there was no chance to pick up postponed plans over the weekend as Storm Boelo bowled into the north! So we took the hint and cracked on with some of the reporting and admin jobs that pile up in the office, waiting for winter.

One such task is a bit different this year – Daryl has been asked to contribute to an update of the Seabird Monitoring Handbook for Britain and Ireland, first published in 1995. This handbook provides a guide to methods for assessing seabird populations by monitoring their size and the number of chicks that fledge per year. Even counting birds and eggs must keep up with developing techniques and technologies!

At Forvie, we contribute the data from our cliff nesting bird census and breeding tern and black-headed gull monitoring to the Seabird Monitoring Programme each year. This helps to provide a peice of the puzzle of how these internationally important bird populations are faring across their range.

Even stormy weather holds some appeal after a few hours at the desk, so this was punctuated by excursions out to complete the monthly visitor facility inspections. I was happy to have the company of Daryl who was back from holiday. This also meant we had a better chance of spotting some autumn migrating birds while out checking the paths and posts!

We were treated to seeing a couple of Goldcrests hiding out in the willow scrub. Up close you can really appreciate just how tiny they are, which makes the fact that some migrate here from Scandinavia and Russia even more mind blowing. In the past (apparently) it was more plausible to believe that Goldcrests would hitch a ride on the backs of migrating Woodcock or Short-eared Owls rather than make the journey across the North Sea themselves, earning them the nickname ‘Woodcock Pilot’.

Returning along the cliffs on Friday afternoon, there seemed to be a sense of anticipation in the air – dark, heavy clouds hung on the horizon and few birds circled in the quiet skies. This made me wonder about how the seabirds that overwinter here, or far out in the North Sea, prepare for and withstand the turbulent winter storms.

Though research is ongoing, theories suggest that an organ within the inner ear of birds is sensitive to changes in atmospheric pressure and allows them to sense the drop in pressure that causes unstable, stormy weather. Another theory suggests that birds can hear the ‘infrasound’ produced by storms brewing in the far-off distance. This sound is lower than what humans can typically hear and can travel further than higher frequency sounds.

However they manage, it seems clear from bird’s behaviour that they anticipate storms, as they increase their feeding and may change their course of flight in preparation. Which might explain the large number of gulls feeding in the farm fields as I drove to work on Friday morning! Before we could just check in with the Met Office, us hard-of-hearing humans would have looked to the birds to help anticipate and prepare for the storm as well.

When a storm hits, different seabird species take different approaches depending on their adaptations. Coastal species like Herring Gulls and Shags will hunker down in thick vegetation or coastal rocks and cliffs during the worst of the weather. While some open sea species, like Fulmar, amazingly stay on the wing throughout the storm. You may see them closer to land than usual for some protection, although I imagine these strong westerlies might make that difficult here!

Razorbills and Guillemots also stay out at sea, but choose to sit on the choppy waters rather than fight the wind, diving under extreme waves to avoid the worst of the turbulence. Their oil-coated, overlapping feathers provide an insulating waterproof coat to withstand the chilly waters. As the rain started to pour on my walk back to the office, I felt a mixed sense of awe and envy of seabirds!

Despite these amazing adaptations, brutal winter storms, or multiple storms in quick succession, can have a huge negative impact on seabird populations. The harsh conditions don’t allow them to feed or rest, so once birds burn through that pre-storm feast and their remaining fat reserves, they are at risk of starving. Hopefully our seabirds catch a break this winter, but since we can’t control the storms, the case for giving seabirds the best chance possible during the breeding season is even stronger. This is why protecting breeding habitat and limiting disturbance to birds is a major part of what we do here at Forvie NNR.

The seabirds weren’t the only ones having to adapt this weekend – soundfestival had planned to host a soundwalk at Forvie on Saturday, but the event, called Cainnt nan Eun / The Language of the Birds, was unfortunately moved online due to the weather warnings. The soundwalk would have involved a walk in nature accompanied by a track of birdsong, environmental sounds, oral histories, Scots and Gaelic voices, and music. I must experience something similar when I am out and about with Catriona and Daryl – Catriona sharing her wealth of knowledge of local history and the Doric names for wildlife spotted, and Daryl picking up and pointing out the slightest trill of birdsong on the breeze!

Very fortunately, the worst of the weather didn’t arrive in time to stop the extended team from meeting up for a belated send-off meal for our Seasonal Reserve Officer, Joe, who started a PhD earlier this month. There is no better way to end the week than catching up with friends and warming up over a good curry. After this, we battened down the hatches for the weekend, and I hope you did too!

The shifting sands at Forvie often give us a glimpse of what lies beneath them, be that a layer of shingle, animal bones, or simply rubbish (another person’s treasure?). But we rarely have the chance to investigate what this could tell us about the people and wildlife that have lived here over the years.

Last weekend, however, the University of Aberdeen’s Archaeology Department was on site for their Professional Archaeology fieldtrip which aims to give third-year students experience of working in the field. With their research permit and permissions from NatureScot in place, the team spent four days on the estuary excavating shell middens.

A midden refers to a waste heap, so a shell midden is an archaeological feature made up of discarded mollusc shells that have accumulated over time. There are numerous shell middens along the Ythan Estuary, mostly made up of mussel shells. You may have noticed some that are being naturally exposed through erosion by the river and tide. 

When I visited the dig, I was surprised to find that the undulating ground I had walked past so often in the summer, while checking the ternery fence, was actually a series of shell middens. I guess it’s easy to overlook what you don’t know about!

The archaeologists kindly explained what was happening as students removed layers of sand and shell and carefully ‘cleaned’ potential features — traces of past human activity. Among them were cracked, blackened stones that might have been part of a fire pit used to steam mussels, either for food or possibly for bait. Studying the depth and contents of these middens gives us an insight into how people used this landscape and I’m looking forward to hearing what this latest dig uncovers!

The wind was characteristically ferocious that day and everyone was working in a line, hoods up and backs to the wind for a little shelter. It reminded me of the terns, which take the opposite approach on windy days, facing into the wind to avoid ruffled feathers! Fortunately, the sun was shining, but that did make photographing the test pits for the records a little tricky. After accidentally casting my shadow across a few photographs, I decided it was time to get out of the way and crack on with my seal count…

Some reading back in the warmth of the office informed me that, in 2010, the University of Aberdeen excavated a shell midden at Forvie with deposits around 35 metres long and 2.9 metres deep! Radiocarbon dating of the middens dated them to the early medieval period (Noble et al., 2017). It’s striking to think that people harvesting mussels here more than 1,000 years ago left such a lasting mark. I worry to think what evidence of our own impact will remain in another 1,000 years…

But conversations with the archaeologists made me wonder what the past can teach us about managing nature and resources better today. How much mussel harvesting was sustainable? Were there periods when the beds were left to recover? The Ythan Estuary was important for supplying mussels for fishing bait into the twentieth century. Today, its mussel beds remain a vital food source for wildlife, including the eiders — one of the protected bird species of the Ythan Estuary, Sands of Forvie and Meikle Loch.

The remainder of the week was pretty much business as usual, apart from a trip inland to give a talk about Forvie NNR to Huntly Probus Club. Some members had visited the reserve before and were keen to hear how things were going. The main feedback was that they hadn’t realised quite how much there is to see at Forvie — especially when you’re hurrying back to the car with a rain cloud rolling in (which I can sympathise with).

And it’s true – there is always more to see and learn here. I’m fortunate to be out on the reserve throughout the seasons, yet I am often reminded of what I have missed by keen-eyed visitors too!  Sometimes it’s simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Earlier in the week, I was just as surprised to encounter a barnacle goose sitting on the beach as it was to see me. It wasn’t in any hurry to move though – perhaps it had only just arrived on migration from the arctic – so I gave it a wide berth and left it in peace.

With the wonderful sunshine this weekend, I have spent a lot of time out on the reserve chatting to visitors about the wildlife that calls this place home. Hopefully, sharing these stories helps us appreciate just how amazing – and precarious – nature can be, and why it’s worth doing the little things we can to look after it. After all, we’ve been sharing Forvie with wildlife for thousands of years!

Source: Gordon Noble, Joe Turner, Derek Hamilton, Lee Hastie, Rick Knecht, Lindsey Stirling, Oskar Sveinbjarnarson, Beth Upex & Karen Milek (2017): Early Medieval Shellfish Exploitation in Northwest Europe: Investigations at the Sands of Forvie Shell Middens, Eastern Scotland, and the Role of Coastal Resources in the First Millennium AD, The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. DOI: 10.1080/15564894.2017.1329242.

It’s fair to say that this past week at Forvie has had a little bit of something for everyone. We’ve now reached that part of the autumn where any given day can feel either like a throwback to summer, or an advance on the forthcoming winter, or even a bit of both. The contrast between sharp early mornings and balmy afternoons has actually been rather enjoyable, though I wish I could say the same about the wet and windy spells that have punctuated the week too.

The odd juxtaposition of summer and winter has been reflected in the wildlife as well. While the last few Swallows have been forging their way southwards on the finer days, they’ve shared the skies with families of Whooper Swans arriving from the north, making for an incongruous combination.

Also southbound this week were many of our colleagues from NatureScot’s North Area team. This colossal operational area stretches from St Cyrus in the south to the very top of Shetland in the north, so we represent something of a scattered family to say the least. But once a year, courtesy of the hard work of our admin team, we get to meet up face-to-face for some invaluable catching-up time. This year, the rendezvous venue was our sister NNR at Muir of Dinnet, where wardens Simon and Becki were excellent hosts as ever. The obligatory team photo was taken outside the Burn o’Vat visitor centre, and sharp-eyed readers may be able to pick out the Forvie staff in the line-up. (Clue: they’re the ones tooled up with binoculars, and doing daft things with their hands – some things never change.)

Simon and Becki even laid on a fine day’s weather for us, and after a sharp start (with the autumn’s first touch of frost), a beautiful afternoon was enjoyed by all. Autumn in the north-east may blow hot and cold, but when it’s fine, there are few better places than the Grampian NNRs.

Back on home soil, it proved to be another ornithologically interesting week. After having turned up at the end of September and then gone missing, this Slavonian Grebe unexpectedly resurfaced (literally, in fact) in the outflow channel of Sand Loch. The relatively narrow width of the ditch here meant that despite its small size, Catriona was able to capture it on camera before it disappeared once again.

The real wildcard of the week, though, was found on the estuary on Monday morning. At high tide, Catriona and I were down by the old lifeboat shed with our telescopes, carrying out a routine waterfowl count. Just in front of the shed, a scalp of shingle remained uncovered by the tide, forming an island in the river channel, and it contained a lovely roost of ‘tiddlers’ – small wading birds, mostly Dunlin and Ringed Plover. Knowing that quite a few American waders had turned up in Scotland in recent weeks, I turned to Catriona and, with totally unjustified confidence, declared that there was bound to be something in this flock from America, and I was about to find it for us.

Having heard this sort of nonsense from me a thousand times before, she rolled her eyes, sighed deeply and carried on counting the Eiders. But all of thirty seconds later, I had locked eyes upon a Baird’s Sandpiper, a rare vagrant from the New World. For once, the notoriously unreliable ‘Big D Rarity Predictor’ had come good. I guess even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day!

So with the week having produced something from America, it was only right that we also hosted something from Asia to balance the books. On the same day as the Baird’s Sand, this Yellow-browed Warbler, all the way from Siberia, performed beautifully in the gardens of Collieston adjoining the Reserve. A real ‘east meets west’ day on the local patch!

The hot-cold nature of the week served to confuse the remaining flying insects. Foremost among these, and typical of late autumn at Forvie, were Red Admiral butterflies, with numerous newly-minted individuals floating around any remaining flowers. We actually hosted a remarkable gathering of these instantly-recognisable insects in our Collieston garden this week, and by complete accident: we had been making wine the previous weekend, and had consequently tipped a quantity of grape pulp onto the garden compost heap. As this fermented in the warm sunshine, it attracted a dedicated following of butterflies, gladly accepting this sweet treat in lieu of nectar. Most of them were probably blind drunk by the end of the week.

An optimistic attempt at moth-trapping over the previous weekend had ended in another heroic failure, with just seven moths in the trap come the morning. Two of these were Lunar Underwings, a characteristic species of mid-autumn, and one that can show considerable variation in appearance between individuals. Sometimes they can look so unalike that it’s hard to believe you’re looking at the same species – judge for yourself…

Moths may be a bit tricky to identify at times, but they pale into insignificance compared with beetles, which are an absolute minefield to try and sort out. Thankfully there are a few species that are straightforward enough though, and the Devil’s Coach-horse is one such. I recently encountered this pair of them on the footpath near Rockend, tucking into a deceased Garden Tiger moth caterpillar. Devil’s Coach-horses belong to a family known as rove beetles, and they are both scavengers and voracious predators of other invertebrates, like the poor old caterpillar in this instance.

It wasn’t until I’d looked back at the photographs that I realised that this pair were actually in the process of mating while having their lunch, which I can only describe as an enviably impressive piece of multi-tasking. My favourite photo in the series is the one below, where it looks (to me at least) like one beetle has got its arm around the other in an affectionate embrace – though the recipient seems much more interested in stuffing its face full of caterpillar than the attentions of its partner. Probably best that I finish this paragraph here rather than commenting further.

So with all that excitement (!) over for the week, I shall leave you by way of a characteristically colourful sunset over North Forvie…

…and catch up with you again in a couple of weeks’ time, leaving you in Emma’s capable hands for next week’s instalment. See you again soon!

Regular readers of these pages may perhaps be under the impression that I’m a little bit obsessed with the weather. And you’d be absolutely on point with this assumption. In my defence, though, it isn’t just me: this is a common affliction among residents of the British Isles, for whatever reason – possibly because our climate here is just so capricious.

Some of us have practical reasons for this fixation: farmers, for instance, are slaves to the weather when it comes to harvesting their crops, while some of our own duties on the Reserve are similarly weather-dependent (e.g. spraying herbicide, or carrying out nest censuses at the ternery). For other folk, it’s more to do with outdoor leisure time (my mother-in-law, for example, follows the sun around like a celandine flower in spring). But for me personally, the obsession is almost totally an ornithological one. Birds and weather, you see, are linked together as inextricably as malt and hops.

At no time of the year is this more obvious than right now, in mid-autumn. Migration is in full swing right across the northern hemisphere, with millions of birds headed south for the coming winter. And like farmers, mothers-in-law and Reserve staff, their manoeuvres too are dictated by the weather – when to set off, which route to take, where to stop, when to move on. For me, as a bird-brained naturalist, part of the fun is trying to predict when a big migration event is going to happen, based on the weather charts.

Here in Scotland, we live at the eastern end of the Atlantic storm track. The jet stream – a ribbon of high-velocity winds in the upper atmosphere, and a key driver of our weather – usually points right at us from North America. This acts as a conveyor belt for depressions – areas of low atmospheric pressure, characterised by rain and strong winds – which come at us from the west, one after the other. Meanwhile, a high pressure system over central Europe deflects these depressions to the north of the UK; this can be seen in the chart above. In birding terms, this situation is best described as ‘dull as dishwater’, with the prevailing south-westerly winds acting as a barrier to any migrant birds wanting to cross the North Sea into the UK. Time, then, to hang up your binoculars and go back to bed.

Occasionally, however, the jet stream shifts slightly, sending the conveyor-belt of depressions to the south of us instead. As these pass eastwards through the English Channel, they draw easterly winds across from the Continent, laden with promise and migrant birds aplenty – game on! When the charts start looking like the one below, we’re invariably up before the wake-up alarm has gone off, fuelled by the excitement of potential discoveries. The day shown on this particular chart (3rd October 2020) did indeed produce a spectacular and memorable arrival of migrants at Forvie. Unfortunately for us, such events are few and far between!

When the sun, the moon, the stars and the surface pressure charts all line up, and Lady Luck is on your side, the result can be a thrilling experience. Being out there among a big ‘fall’ of thrushes, with birds raining down from the skies having just completed a crossing of the North Sea, is guaranteed to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. To my mind, there are few sights as moving as seeing exhausted songbirds making landfall on the coast in autumn; it’s the very stuff of survival, of life and death, of the inexorable turning of the seasons and of the globe itself. It really is that visceral. And no, I haven’t been on the malt and hops as I type this.

This past week, the jet stream spared us our usual westerly pummelling for a short while, and from Monday through Wednesday the wind blew south-easterly for a change. While not conforming to the ‘classic’ conditions depicted in that October 2020 weather chart, it nonetheless looked promising for a few arrivals at least, particularly on Wednesday as a rain front passed through. Rain can be useful for grounding any passing migrants on the coast; in clear conditions they tend to pass over us and disappear inland, evading detection.

The first of the new arrivals were evident at first-light on Wednesday morning, with both Song Thrush and Redwing present in our garden having arrived overnight from continental Europe. Getting out onto the Reserve, it became apparent that Song Thrush was in fact the most numerous immigrant, with over fifty birds grounded in the willow scrub on the heath. Our colleagues on the Isle of May reckoned over 3,000 Song Thrushes had passed through the island on that same day – multiply those numbers for the length of the Scottish east coast, and that’s quite some arrival.

Among all the Song Thrushes and Redwings was this lone Ring Ouzel, which favoured the area around the Forvie Centre, and was beautifully photographed by one of our neighbours. This upland counterpart of ‘our’ Blackbird is likely en-route to the Atlas Mountains in North Africa, where it will spend the winter.

The Blackcap is a typical mid-autumn migrant here at Forvie, and a small number were recorded on Wednesday in association with the various thrushes. The name is a bit misleading, as it’s only the male who has a black cap; the female’s, by contrast, is a smart gingery brown instead. It’s often been said that bird names can be a bit ‘sexist’, focusing on the traits of the males, which in many species are the showier of the sexes. In our household, however, when it comes to Blackcaps we simply use the shorthand ‘cappie’, which happens to be equally apt for both male and female. Perhaps we should campaign for a name change!

Also present in substantial numbers were Robins, with the resident population supplemented by numerous Continental immigrants. As we all know, the collective noun for Robins is a ‘punch-up’, and there were a lot of scuffles happening this week as the resident Robins came to terms with all the newcomers in town.

The most exciting arrival of all was keeping company with several Robins in the willows on the heath. A little rattling call and a quick flash of black-and-white tail gave away the presence of a Red-breasted Flycatcher, a rare migrant here in the UK. While most European migratory songbirds spend the winter in Africa, this species instead heads south-east to overwinter in India – an extraordinary feat for a bird only half the bodyweight of a Robin. This serves as a great reminder of how small the world is, and how intricate the web of life that inhabits it. We humans may be concerned with borders and boundaries and tariffs, but wildlife transcends entire continents without issue.

Alas, by the end of the working week, normal service had been resumed and the wind was firmly into the westerly quarter once again. Party’s over, kids, until the next breath of easterly anyway. In the meantime, I shall return to obsessively checking the weather charts every morning and crossing my fingers. As former Forvie warden Dave Pickett famously observed, “It’s the hope that kills you!”

But like the little sign said, if the wind blows westerly, just go back to bed. I’m away to turn in – see you again next week!

Autumn officially began this week, at least according to astronomical terms! In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the earth’s equator faced the sun and day and night were roughly equal in length. From here on, those of us in the northern hemisphere start to tilt away from the sun and our nights become longer than our days. The weather seemed to be paying attention to this, as Tuesday felt like a warm, calm summer’s day while Wednesday brought chillier winds in time for me to start the week!

I hope that I don’t sound too glum about the changing season though, for I love the nostalgic feeling and contrasting colours that autumn brings. On the reserve I have noticed this in the loss of the bright purple heather blooms as the flowers go to seed, turning the heath russet-brown and making the frosty green reindeer moss stand out (this ‘moss’ is actually a lichen). I also appreciate that dawn and dusk are at more reasonable hours, as it means that I am more likely to be surrounded by a chorus of birds and soft light to start and end the day.

The autumn equinox, combined with Saturday night’s full harvest moon brought particularly big spring tides this week. During a full or new moon, the Sun, Earth and Moon align, combining their gravitational pull and producing a greater effect on the tides – meaning lower low tides and higher high tides.

With high tide falling in the middle of the day this week, the wader count focused on eiders and red-breasted mergansers as they are easier to count when the high water forces them closer to the shore and into groups. Plus, deeper water means less diving for food and more time spent floating or resting, making counting much easier for me! These counts are part of the Ythan Estuary’s site condition monitoring, with non-breeding waterfowl one of the important designated features of the site.

Though the highest count was usurpingly at the estuary mouth where hundreds of eiders had congregated on the shore, I enjoy that the wader count takes you on a journey further up the Ythan Estuary through different habitats. From the gaping and shifting estuary mouth to the lesser-visited rustling reedbeds at Logie Buchan – with plenty to see along the way!

While walking the main paths of the reserve this week, most of the conversations I had with people centred around the abundance of chunky fox moth caterpillars that have us all watching where we step. So, I thought I should find out a bit more about them and how they plan to spend the winter!

These caterpillars hatched earlier in the year, around July, and have spent the summer gorging themselves on their food plants, including heather, willow, and meadowsweet, found in plentiful supply across the reserve. By now they’re reaching their full size, up to an impressive 7cm long, and will soon be hunkering down in the leaf litter to overwinter in a dormant state. They will reappear in spring (like us, looking to get some warm sunshine), before pupating and emerging as adult fox moths, which are seen flying in May and June.

Not all moths and butterflies overwinter as fully grown caterpillars, so the fact that fox moths do might help to explain why we’re seeing so many of them at the moment.

In contrast, unfortunately no butterflies were sighted during the last butterfly transect of the year carried out by our dedicated volunteer who has walked the dunes and heath come sunshine or rain each week over the season. We are extremely appreciative of all their efforts and sightings reported! Perhaps the butterflies have taken heed of autumn and started moving south or looking for somewhere to overwinter.

An unusual sight this week was a boat out on the Sand Loch. Boating isn’t normally allowed here to avoid disturbing the wildlife on and in the loch, but this was permitted to repeat a freshwater survey first carried out ~50 years ago. This work looked at the water chemistry, depth, and vegetation found in the Sand Loch and should give us an insight into how it has changed over time.

I now at least have the answers to two questions that I’ve been asked before about the Sand Loch: it is about 1.2 metres deep and it does contain fish! I’m looking forward to seeing what else comes from the survey results and am grateful to have learnt far more about the Sand Loch this week than I knew before.

My week concluded with a pop-up seal watch at Newburgh Beach as part of Climate Week North East. Despite the winds picking up again, plenty of passers-by were excited to get a closer look at the seals through the scope (predominantly grey seals at the haul-out site). Doing the weekly seal counts means that I sometimes take seeing the seals for granted, but other people’s joy and excitement at witnessing these impressive animals is infectious.

And that excitement is justified. Grey seals are among the world’s rarer seal species, yet Britain supports approximately 40% of the global population, after bouncing back from extremely low numbers in the early 1900s. The growth of the Ythan estuary grey seal colony is much more recent, with almost no seals being sighted towards the end of the 20^th century to a peak of more than 3000 reported in 2023! So there is still a lot to learn from these seals. Why has the colony grown so quickly and what might its future hold? This makes continuing our seal monitoring all the more important.

Next week I’ll be swapping back out of blog duty with Daryl and Cat and going on holiday myself instead, perhaps following some of our migratory birds south.

There has probably been a whole host of exciting things happening on the reserve this week that have gone unseen by the Forvie staff. I (Emma) have been away for most of it, Cat and Daryl are on a well-deserved holiday, and for Joe, our seasonal warden, Wednesday was his last day working at Forvie NNR after three seasons in a row!

I know I don’t just speak for myself when I say that Joe will be sorely missed by everyone here – for his helpfulness, knowledge, and enthusiasm – which helped to ring a record number of terns this year! I couldn’t have had a better mentor showing me the ropes at weekends. We wish him thanks, and all the very best as he takes on his PhD.

So, instead of a report of this week’s events, for today’s blog, I have delved into the murky waters of how the muddy, marshy habitats here at Forvie NNR contribute to carbon capture and storage. This topic is inspired by Climate Week North East, which began yesterday and is running a whole host of climate change-related events until October 4^th. However, I feel I have opened a can of lugworms with this one, as carbon is more complex than it appears at surface level…

Looking out over the Ythan Estuary from Waterside at low tide, you can see extensive mudflats edged by vegetated saltmarsh, woven with creeks, and scattered with the discarded shells of munched mussels and other molluscs.

The importance of these coastal wetland habitats has often been overlooked. Viewed as unproductive and uninspiring, many wetlands have been ‘reclaimed’ and put to use for our own activities. Thankfully, the lower Ythan estuary has largely escaped this and is one of the most important ‘natural’ estuarine and tidal environments in North-east Scotland.

For those living or working near to an estuary like the Ythan, it is difficult to remain ignorant to its beauty and value. The most obvious sign of this is that the estuary is teeming with life. Especially at this time of year, when migratory wading birds are arriving from their breeding grounds in the arctic to overwinter here and take advantage of the plentiful food found lurking within the mud.

At first glance, the expansive estuary can seem quiet, but last week’s wader count taught me to look closer. As I squinted into the sun, the mud started moving and revealed that it was, in fact, covered in over one thousand golden plover!

The fact that these muddy, marshy habitats provide food, resting places, and nesting sites for different bird species hints at their deeper importance. They harbour a great diversity of life beneath the water and mud too, like bivalve molluscs (mussels, cockles and clams), snails, shrimps, worms, and crabs. Then not forgetting the fish supported by these smaller creatures or even starting on the microscopic life forms!

Wetlands also act as a buffer between the sea, land and river, somehow thriving in the harsh, salty, changeable conditions. They help to protect the land from coastal flooding and extreme weather, while filtering some of the pollutants washing off the land. The pressures of development, coastal change, and sea-level rise push wetlands to the limit of what even these remarkably resilient places can handle.

Though this gives us plenty of reasons to cherish our swirling mudflats and vibrant saltmarsh already, it turns out that they also store considerable amounts of carbon!

Recent research and policy are trying to shed light on the potential for ‘blue carbon’ habitats to help us adapt to and limit climate change. This summer’s heatwaves and wildfires have been a stark reminder of why this is important.

We are familiar with hearing about woodlands and peatlands as habitats that capture and store carbon. ‘Blue carbon’ essentially refers to marine, coastal, and estuarine habitats that do the same. ‘Blue carbon’ can be absorbed from the air or water and stored in vegetation, sediment and marine animals – like the shells of mussels, which, when there is enough of them, form a habitat of their own known as mussel beds.

Of the carbon-capturing habitats found at Forvie NNR, saltmarsh seems to have the most potential for locking away carbon directly from the atmosphere, and at an impressive rate! Saltmarsh plants (like those pictured below) absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, storing carbon in their tissues and roots. Some of this carbon becomes trapped in the waterlogged soils of the marsh, alongside carbon from other sources in the estuary.

There are claims that saltmarsh in the UK captures carbon 40 times faster than woodland. However, the rates of carbon capture seem to be extremely variable, so I think the main takeaway is that although saltmarsh makes up a relatively small area in the UK, it is an important carbon store well worth our protection.

Intertidal mud and sandflats capture carbon a little differently. While algae living on the surface can capture carbon through photosynthesis (like plants do), the sediments themselves mainly store carbon that has come from the land, sea or river, including the remains of decaying plants and animals. The magic of the mud is the sheer amount of carbon it stores, but more research is needed to understand how fast it is added or lost.

As the shells of mussels contain carbon, it follows that the mussel beds in the Ythan Estuary could be carbon stores too. However, the process of developing the shell, made largely of calcium carbonate, releases carbon dioxide. So, mussel beds may actually release more carbon than they store overall!

Nevertheless, we are still very grateful to the mussel beds for feeding the eider population, among many other bird species, found here at Forvie!

There is an estimate from N.H. Trewin (in his guide to the geology of the Aberdeen area, 1987) that around 38 tonnes of shell fragments from eider poo were produced each year in the Ythan Estuary. I’m not sure how this figure was calculated, but it is quite a contribution!

The main concern with organic carbon stored within mud and sand is that it could be disturbed by development, erosion, or other coastal changes, and released back into the water or atmosphere. Fortunately, the Ythan estuary is protected by multiple nature conservation designations that recognise its important habitats and wildlife. That being said, some changes remain beyond our immediate influence.

When I look at the estuary, the mudflats, the saltmarsh, the shingle and shells, I see the marks left by coastal processes that shape this place, and I see the wildlife that relies on them. I admit, I don’t tend to think about the carbon locked quietly in the unassuming habitats, a foundation for life. When I wonder how changes in the future will impact the estuary, and how we can support these crucial habitats, maybe I need to consider the carbon stored there too. Another reason to value this remarkable place, and another way in which it connects us to everything else.

Early last week, my duties on the Reserve took me down to South Forvie for a morning. The reasons for this excursion were two-fold: to take a water level reading from a monitoring station in the dunes south of Rockend, and to carry out the obligatory monthly check of the visitor infrastructure. The latter chore is a necessary one in such a dynamic landscape as Forvie’s, where waymarkers and signs routinely erode out and fall over, or simply disappear under wind-drifted sand as the landscape shifts around them. So it was that I set off southwards from Rockend, for an uneventful stroll along the beach in the bright early-autumn sun.

In the event, though, this was anything but an uneventful stroll. As if I needed reminding after twenty-odd years on the Reserve, life here is seldom uneventful, and there’s almost always something going on – the trick is simply tuning into it all. Take the time to notice, and an uneventful walk turns into a kaleidoscope of interest.

The first thing to catch my eye in the sunshine was the mauve-pink blush of Sea Rocket flowers on the upper shore. This particular plant was a latecomer to the party: the main flowering season for Sea Rocket is now well behind us, and all the other patches of it that I could see had already set seed. This species is a relative of domesticated brassicas such as cabbages and mustards, and in the seed-heads there’s an obvious family resemblance to the ubiquitous oilseed rape which is such a familiar sight in our neighbours’ arable fields.

Nearby on the strand line, this little fish gawped at me with an astonished expression. My knowledge of fish is admittedly poor, but I think this one was a juvenile Whiting. As always, though, I am happy to be corrected if necessary by any fish biologists or sea anglers who might happen to be reading these pages!

Pondering my lack of fish ID skills, I wandered onwards and noted a number of other items recently washed ashore. A selection of empty shells included those of various bivalves, winkles and limpets, with their former owners long gone; some perhaps the victims of predatory shorebirds or crows, others having simply come to the end of their long lives.

The broken and sand-smoothed remains of this Common Whelk shell must have housed an impressively large inhabitant before it met its end. These ‘sea snails’ are predators of other shellfish, but are preyed upon in turn by various marine fish; all part of the complex food web beneath the waves off Forvie’s coast.

Other shells on the strand line aren’t necessarily indicative of their inhabitants’ demise. This shell of a prawn (please don’t ask me which species!) was one of several I found along the quarter-mile of beach south of Rockend, and is most likely the result of the prawn having moulted its shell in order to grow – a strategy shared with fellow crustaceans such as lobsters and crabs.

I wasn’t the only one perusing the strand line on this particular morning. At Rockend, a little group of Sanderlings were feeding busily, chasing the waves in and out and picking up tiny morsels of food in the process. These dinky and lively waders remind me irresistibly of clockwork toys in the way that they motor along.

Closer inspection showed that the flock was comprised entirely of juvenile birds, on their first migration south from their High Arctic birthplace. This itself raised more questions – how do they navigate without any experienced adults for company? And having got this far, will they decide to stop here for the winter, or continue southwards? In which case, how many hundreds or thousands of miles have they yet to travel? Impossible to say, of course, but fascinating to wonder.

Other birds, meanwhile, were ploughing southwards into a stiff and stubborn headwind. Various waders dashed determinedly past me as I walked along the strand, sometimes calling as if for reassurance: here the soft ‘coo-eep‘ of a Ringed Plover, there the squeezed trill of a Dunlin. Others said nothing but forged onwards. A little flock of Knot and Turnstone passed by so close that I could almost see them acknowledging me with a look and a nod, in the manner of an old countryman cycling past on his pushbike.

All the while, ragged groups of Common Gulls arrived obliquely off the sea, perhaps from distant breeding grounds on the Continent, or maybe our own Northern Isles. Some of these were yet to complete their wing moult, and with their primary feathers only partially-grown they were obviously lacking in thrust and lift. One or two of them were really labouring, like a Heinkel bomber on one engine, and I liked to imagine them cursing the headwind as they slogged onwards.

Making things look a lot easier were the hirundines (swallows and martins) as they too made headway southwards. All three regular species – Swallow, House Martin and Sand Martin – were in evidence, and like the waders, the passing flocks appeared to contain a high proportion of youngsters. I found myself wondering how many of them would survive the perilous journey, the winter in Africa, and the return trip next spring – it’s a big ask for a delicate creature within the first year of its life.

As we’ve often pointed out before, it’s not only birds that migrate south in autumn. During the course of my walk down the beach, I was overtaken by single Peacock and Painted Lady butterflies, seemingly defying the laws of physics by making progress against the wind.

Returning shortly to Rockend and taking my leave of the beach, I found myself reflecting on what an uneventful stroll it hadn’t been. And thank goodness for mundane tasks such as infrastructure checks and water-level readings to get us out amongst it all!

On that note, I’m also going to take my leave of these pages for a while, and leave you in Emma’s very capable hands in the meantime. Before I go though, one last thing to mention. Our friends and neighbours at Newburgh & Ythan Community Trust have been nominated for a Nature of Scotland award, in acknowledgement of the splendid boardwalk and viewing facilities they’ve installed overlooking the Grey Seal haul-out. These awards are decided by public vote, and voting is now open – you can cast yours here.

So here’s wishing the best of luck to N&YCT – and I’ll see you again in three weeks’ time!

We’re undeniably fortunate here at Forvie to be blessed with a richly diverse landscape. Far from being one-dimensional, our beloved Reserve is composed of several distinct zones of habitat, each of them quite remarkable in its own right. The shifting dunes of South Forvie, uniquely wild and ever-changing, shaped by winds and tides. The beautiful Persian carpet of the coastal heath, excruciatingly rare in a global context. And not least of all, the salty and muddy expanse of the Ythan Estuary, a kind of wetland Serengeti, winding its way from freshwater river in the town of Ellon to North Sea shore by the village of Newburgh.

My apologies if you think this sounds a bit like some sort of tourist brochure, but every now and then you’re reminded how lucky you are to be where you are. This past week has been a case in point: gentle early-autumn days spent among a profusion of wildlife, and a chance to fall in love with the local patch all over again. And at the centre of it all this week has been the wetland wonderland of the estuary.

The estuary is itself comprised of several distinct elements. Extensive shimmering mudflats dominate the scene at low tide, interspersed with rough scalps of mussel-bed. The low-water channel of the River Ythan itself, haunted by Sea Trout and the occasional Salmon, is supplemented by inflows from the Forvie and Foveran Burns among others. Meanwhile, at the uppermost reach of the tide, plant-rich saltmarsh can be found. Fair to say there’s a lot going on down there.

On the face of it, the estuary landscape might appear bleak and barren to our eyes. But don’t be fooled by appearances. In reality, all that lifeless-looking mud is churning with life: shrimps, worms, snails, tiny crabs and the like. The oft-quoted metric is that a cubic metre of estuarine mud contains as many calories as sixteen Mars bars (other usefully-comparative items of confectionery are of course available). Strangely, the manufacturers of said chocolate-and-caramel treat have never gone with the advertising patter “As nutritious as 62.5 litres of wet mud”. Equally strangely, my own career in marketing never took off, for whatever reason.

All those tiny critters support a diverse food chain of higher predators, from fish to mammals. But most prominent of all, to our eyes at least, are the birds. Indeed, the Ythan Estuary is recognised as being of both national and international importance for its birdlife, and there are several major legal designations which apply to the estuary in order to protect its feathered inhabitants. Consequently, one of our duties on the Reserve is to monitor the numbers of birds using the estuary throughout the year.

Censuses of waders and wildfowl take place here roughly every second week, to coincide with a low tide on the estuary. This way we catch up with the birds whilst they’re feeding on the open mudflats; by contrast, at high tide they’re flooded off the estuary and many roost in neighbouring fields and saltmarsh where we can’t see (or indeed count) them. These counts can take anything between two and five hours, depending on the number of birds present and the prevailing weather and lighting conditions. In the middle of winter, especially on a day with a north or east wind, it can be a bitterly cold way to spend the working day. But in early September, with a gentle breeze and the sun at your back, it’s a different ball game altogether.

These counts are two-fold in their purpose. Firstly, they allow us to gauge the health of the estuary: wading birds are a good barometer of the richness of the environment, and if the estuary is supporting large numbers of waders, this likely indicates a healthy and resilient food chain. Secondly, they provide an insight into the fortunes of the individual bird species themselves. This is particularly important during the current era wherein many species are in alarming decline.

Curlew and Lapwing are two excellent examples. Neither could really be considered rare (our wader count on Wednesday this week, the first of the autumn, produced 241 and 1,206 of them respectively), but both have suffered severe declines in recent years. In order to assess the health of bird populations, we compare our count data with an historical baseline, and this can be a real eye-opener. 1,206 Lapwings may sound like a lot, but the baseline for comparison is 3,000-6,000 birds. Sadly, this isn’t unique to the Ythan Estuary, with the species showing similar declines across its range. But it does serve to highlight the importance of the Ythan Estuary for those birds that remain.

Others seem to be holding their own to a greater degree. Redshank is another common wader which occurs at Forvie in internationally important numbers, and this week’s count of 1,902 compares favourably with the historical baseline of 1,000-1,300.

Each species has its own story to tell, and some of these stories are scarcely believable. For instance, the unassuming-looking and jauntily-named Bar-tailed Godwit, a species which occurs on the estuary in small numbers throughout the year, holds the world record for non-stop flight. An individual Bar-tailed Godwit was tracked in flight from its breeding grounds in Alaska to its winter quarters in Tasmania, a journey of just under 8,500 miles, which it completed in a single non-stop flight lasting just over eleven days. If you don’t believe me, look it up: you really couldn’t make this stuff up.

The estuary also tells us tales of the times. The increasing frequency with which we’re seeing Little Egrets, for example, speaks of a warming climate, and the addition of this species to Forvie’s roll-call of breeding birds this year wasn’t completely surprising. At the same time, we’re seeing fewer and fewer of certain other species which used to be commonplace – Long-tailed Duck being one such example – as their ranges shift northward too.

Of course, as in any time of great change, there’ll be winners and losers. But I certainly hope there will always be wading birds to grace the Ythan Estuary. The Reserve, and the lives of those of us who live and work here, would be that much poorer without them.

Even setting aside the science for a moment, the aesthetics of water, wet mud, big skies, reflections and throngs of birds make for a marvellous spectacle. There are many reasons for conserving, and being concerned for, wetlands and their inhabitants. But for me at least, their intrinsic beauty alone is reason enough to save them.

So as the sun sets over the estuary at the end of a fine autumn’s day, here’s raising a glass to all things muddy, salty and wonderful in this world. Long may they survive with us.

There are many brilliant things about being interested in the natural world. But to my mind at least, one of the most brilliant aspects of all is the limitless scope for learning and discovering new things. There’s such a vast variety of life out there – so many different species, shapes, forms, colours, sounds, smells – that it’s impossible to do much more than scratch the surface of it during the course of a human lifetime. But if you’re always seeking novelty and new horizons, then nature is the drug for you. Best of all, you don’t even need to travel beyond the boundaries of your own patch in order to jam in.

The first stage in learning, of course, is to get to grips with the common and familiar species on your patch, wherever that may be. Even this is a continuing voyage of discovery, as the range of species that you’ll see in any one place changes throughout the year. Thus at Forvie, a typical insect/plant combo in June (for instance) might be Six-spot Burnet moth nectaring on Northern Marsh Orchid. But in this last week of August, the recurring theme has been Peacock butterfly on Devil’s-bit Scabious – and thankfully neither is difficult to identify.

Also conspicuous in their abundance lately have been Silver Y moths, which like the aforementioned Peacock butterflies are immigrants from the south. August is peak time for insect migration at our latitude – of which more in just a moment…

We don’t often get the chance to mention Odonata – dragonflies and damselflies – in these pages, for two main reasons. Firstly, only a handful of species typically occur here at Forvie, and most of these are scarce and hard to find at the best of times. Secondly, on the occasions when you are lucky enough to find them, they don’t normally oblige for a photograph. So it was a refreshing change this week to find an uncharacteristically obliging, if rather faded, Emerald Damselfly on the Heath Trail.

While Emerald Damselfly is a known resident of Forvie, this next species came straight out of left field. On Friday I was approached by my neighbour Craig, who had found a large dragonfly dead in the road outside his house in Collieston. He had done a quick Google Lens-type investigation himself, and had been puzzled when the electronic oracle had declared this wasn’t a species that belonged in the UK. Sure enough, upon seeing the unfortunate insect for myself, I immediately reckoned it must be either a Lesser or Vagrant Emperor, two species I’ve only ever seen in the Mediterranean region. A bit of further research confirmed the ID as a Vagrant Emperor – an excruciatingly rare species in Scotland, and an extraordinary discovery!

While some new discoveries are due to the species in question being genuinely rare, others are simply overlooked until somebody with a suitably enquiring mind takes up the challenge. This was certainly the case this week, when I was lucky to bump into travelling naturalists Chris and Lizzy, who were investigating some of the more cryptic invertebrates that often get neglected by other observers (ourselves included, I’m ashamed to say). Anyway, during the course of a morning, they discovered three new species for the Reserve and vice-county (!), all captured on camera using a USB pocket microscope linked to a phone. The first of these, a fly named Phytomyza rostrata, is so tiny that its larvae live inside the stems of Yellow Rattle, a familiar plant here at Forvie.

The next was the wonderfully-named Cricket Bat Orb-weaver, a tiny spider whose abdomen bears a set of dark markings in the shape of a cricket bat (or at least that’s what I’m guessing lends it the name!). As a cricket fan in both the entomological and the sporting sense, I strongly approve.

Lastly, another species with a wonderful name and a cute countenance: the Broad Damsel Bug. We owe our thanks to Chris and Lizzy for both the discoveries and the photos!

Conforming neatly to both parts of this week’s title, one of our bigger bits of news this week was the successful fledging of four Little Egret chicks from the heronry at Waterside. Little Egrets are a relatively recent arrival here in the north-east, and have been seen increasingly frequently on the estuary in recent years. Even so, it was a surprise to discover a nest containing chicks during July, this being the northernmost breeding ever recorded in the UK. Once the chicks had successfully fledged, we published a press release with the news, which garnered considerable interest and resulted in a live BBC radio interview with reserve manager Catriona – at 0620 in the morning, to her great delight!

Downstream at the mouth of the Ythan, friend of Forvie and photographer par excellence Ron Macdonald captured some wonderful shots this week of Arctic Skuas – those dashing pirates of the high seas – working over the few remaining Sandwich Terns. This neat sequence showcases the breathtaking high-speed chase, during which the unlucky tern drops its hard-won catch of fish, this being snapped up by one of the marauding skuas before it even hits the water. Some seriously impressive flying skills by the skuas here – ably matched by Ron’s skill with the camera!

Towards the end of the week, easterly winds and a good deal of rain produced ideal conditions for an arrival of migrant songbirds from the Continent. With the week’s chores having been wrapped up, there was nothing for it but to don waterproofs and optics and get out there – this was a rare opportunity to potentially make some rare discoveries!

An excellent, if extremely soggy, morning’s spotting produced a fine selection of species grounded by the inclement weather. These included some regular migrants (Whitethroat and Willow Warbler), some scarcer ones (Pied and Spotted Flycatchers, Whinchat and Garden Warbler) and, as hoped, a couple of local rarities too (Icterine Warbler and Wryneck). Well worth the comprehensive soaking, for my money!

What started out as a ‘quick walk round the block’ eventually turned out to be a three-hour marathon, but opportunities like this come along so seldom that you’ve simply got to make the best of it. Prior to this, the last really good August ‘fall’ of migrants was as long ago as 2015. It could be long enough until the next one. So never mind the soaking – when these rare events do happen, it’s cashing-in time!

On that note I’ll sign off, having enjoyed a week packed full of discoveries. All that’s now required to make it perfect is a hot cuppa, and some dry clothes. See you again soon!