This week’s alliterative title is a neat summary of the past seven days on the Reserve, a capricious early-summer week where you really didn’t know whether to slap on the sunblock or get happit up in your waterproofs. In the event, most days required both of these at different times, and it was all too easy to either get soaked having dressed for the sun, or boiled-in-the-bag having dressed for the rain. No matter though: with June being our busiest month of the year at Forvie, there’s work to be done come rain or shine (or indeed both). And this week, that work included the annual cliff-nesting seabird census from Collieston south to Rockend.

Seabirds have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons in recent years. Many species have suffered long-term declines, with a warming climate and rising sea temperatures disrupting the food chain. Other threats are constantly looming on the horizon too: marine litter and microplastics, oil pollution, fishery bycatch and offshore energy developments to name but a few. On top of all this, there was the recent horror-show of avian ‘flu (we’re still trying to blot out the memories of 2022 and 2023 at Forvie), followed by the disastrous autumn storm season in 2023 that caused further heavy mortality. Then, as if all that wasn’t enough, there was the collapse of the food supply following a marine heatwave in 2024. It never rains and all that.

Thus working with seabirds these days is a bit like following an unfancied football team through a league season (or indeed a World Cup): you hope for the best, but at the same time fear the worst.

It was a pleasant surprise, therefore, that this year’s results weren’t all doom and gloom. Kittiwakes, for example, seem to be having a resurgence here: the 685 breeding pairs we recorded on census represented the highest total here since 1997 (amusingly, summer warden Joe wasn’t even born then). Kittiwakes are lively, attractive and endearing birds, and it was hard to watch so many succumb to the dreaded ‘flu in 2023. So it was a relief to see the cliffs so busy with them, and to hear the stacks and inlets echoing with their evocative calls.

Our two auk species, Guillemot and Razorbill, also appear to be bouncing back from the setbacks of the past few years. Forvie is home to small and relatively recently-established colonies of each, and both species had increased in numbers since the previous census in 2025.

Not all of our seabirds are faring so well, however. We found only 35 Fulmars occupying nest-sites along the cliffs this year, the lowest number recorded here since surveying began in the 1990s. By way of context, in 2007 – my first summer at Forvie – there were nearly 200 occupied nest-sites along the same stretch of coast. A decline of 80-odd per cent in twenty years represents quite some fall from grace, and the reasons remain unclear.

One of the biggest issues known to face Fulmars is plastic waste in the marine environment, and this is one possible cause for the population crash here. Fulmars often ingest floating plastics, particularly polythene scraps and plastic bags, which on the face of it sounds strange – why would you do that?! However, Fulmars navigate and find food by an acute sense of smell, and are attracted by the scent of the algae that settle on the plastic when it’s been in the sea for any length of time. This makes the plastic smell like their natural food, and down the hatch it goes – but it can’t be digested, and eventually the bird effectively dies of starvation despite having a full stomach. What’s more, the chemicals released by the degrading plastic also affect the birds’ hormonal system, leading to further health problems and breeding failure. This is why we get so irritable every time we find one of those helium balloons on the Reserve – plastic in the environment is a real killer.

When we started the seabird census, warm sunshine was the order of the day, and the North Sea was so becalmed that you could – unusually – see the sand-bars beneath the water’s surface. Usually the water is too turbid (cloudy), and the surface too ruffled, to see the seabed below, so this was a rare insight into the offshore topography.

By the conclusion of matters, though, the rain had once again closed in on us, and there was even the odd rumble of thunder to the inland side of the Reserve. Consequently the walk back to the office was undertaken rather briskly…

…but not briskly enough to spare Catriona, Emma and myself yet another summer soaking.

Away from the cliffs, of course, Forvie’s main seabird action happens down at the ternery. Here, our terns and gulls are working hard to raise their young in the face of the usual suite of pressures, not least the weather. Perhaps due to the persistently cold spring we experienced this year, our Sandwich Terns are having an unusually asynchronous season. Normally, they do everything in almost perfect synchrony: they all lay eggs at much the same time, they hatch together, they fledge together, and they all depart together. But this year, we’ve got some pairs still on eggs or brooding tiny fluff-ball chicks, while others are attending well-grown youngsters just a few days away from fledging.

Some of our Black-headed Gulls are still further advanced, and the first fledglings are now on the wing and dispersing to all four corners of the Reserve. From this point onwards, we’ll take every opportunity to census them in order to calculate the productivity of the colony come the end of the season.

Among the throngs of Black-headed Gulls, the really keen observer may occasionally pick out other species attempting to go incognito. Recently these have included a handful of Little Gulls, the smallest gull species in the world; these dinky birds are true lightweights, barely half the size of a Black-headed Gull.

One for the purists was this Bonaparte’s Gull, a vagrant species which is essentially the North American version of our own Black-headed Gull. Smaller and daintier than our Black-headers, and with white underwings instead of the dark shown by Black-headed Gull, this was a tricky one to pick out even for dedicated bird-nerds Catriona and I. But we love a challenge of course!

Much easier to spot was this uniquely freaky Herring Gull on the beach, which exhibited complete leucism (i.e. a lack of any pigment in the plumage). This isn’t the same as albinism, as the legs, bill and eyes were the ‘normal’ colour you’d expect for Herring Gull, not pink as you’d expect in a true albino. But never mind the technicalities – what a cracking looking beast it was!

Interestingly this was the fourth occasion in just over twelve months that I’d seen a bird matching this description – the other three sightings having been at Loch Leven, Peterhead and Lossiemouth. With the locations being widely spaced, it’s long odds for all the sightings to have involved the same individual, but it’s impossible to say for sure.

In any case, it capped off a fine week of seabird action – and well worth the soakings too!

Having put the commentator’s curse on things last week with an unguarded comment about the impending ‘long hot summer’, it was inevitable that the first week of the new season would be defiantly dull and dreich. Early in the week, the dreaded haar reduced the visibility to near zero for a time, which is helpful when you’re attempting to carry out some survey work on the estuary. Instead of ‘gorillas in the mist’, it was more like ‘ducks in the haar’, as we tried to decide which of the mist-shrouded shapes on the foreshore were Eiders, and which ones were actually just lumps of driftwood and other flotsam and jetsam. But sometimes you have to just admit defeat to the weather, and try again whenever the haar clears awa’.

While the early part of the week was dreich and damp, and sufficiently wet to disrupt some of our work on the Reserve, we didn’t actually receive any really useful rainfall until Thursday afternoon. I say ‘useful’, as the spring of 2026 turned out to be a very dry one in our area, and we were getting to the point of needing some rain to damp down the dust-dry landscape, and lessen the risk of wildfire (a constant worry for us these days). But following a fine enough morning on Thursday, the sky turned ‘apocalypse black’, and a real downpour was unleashed. Long hot summer, eh!

Along the line of the barrier fence (the beach end of which – quelle surprise – required yet more repairs this week), a magnificent display of Northern Marsh Orchids is now in evidence. Surely among the loveliest of all Forvie’s wild flowers, these favour the seasonally-wet areas bordering the footpaths, where they grow either singly or in loose colonies. In addition to the barrier fence stretch of the Dune Trail, the other real hotspot for them is the path alongside the Sand Loch. Their flowering season is relatively brief, so enjoy them while you can!

The sharp-eyed observer may also find the paler and more delicate Heath Spotted Orchid among the purple battalions of Northern Marsh Orchids. As well as the colour and form of the flowers, the other obvious point of difference – as the name suggests – is the dark spotting on the leaves (by contrast, the leaves of Northern Marsh Orchid are usually plain). On rare occasions, hybrids between the two species can be found; as well as sharing characteristics of both ‘parent’ species, they also tend to be freakishly tall.

Also found alongside the footpaths is the strange, hemi-parasitic Lousewort, whose roots tap into those of the neighbouring grasses in order to steal some of their nutrients. This strategy is shared by Yellow Rattle, the plant that was infuriatingly hard to find last week when we were putting the wildflower boxes out. While making a living from larceny may seem a bit distasteful, these plants actually help out a lot of other wild flowers by reducing the dominance of grasses, thereby allowing more delicate species to flourish alongside them.

The cheery yellow flowers of Tormentil are at their peak just now; this is another plant which thrives on the margins of the footpaths. The Heath Trail in North Forvie is the easiest place to find it: indeed, with Tormentil being such a characteristic plant of the heathland environment, its four-petalled flower was chosen as the symbol of the Heath Trail on our signs and waymarkers.

In an echo of last week’s instalment, I was personally visited again by another hoverfly species this week. These aren’t easy to identify for the layman (or indeed the generalist nature-reserve warden), but I think it may be Eupeodes luniger – a species which doesn’t seem to have a common (i.e. English) name. If I’m right (and I’m happy to stand corrected by any readers who know better; if that’s you, then please get in touch!), this is a common and widespread migratory species. And apologies, by the way, for the gruesome close-up of the back of my hand.

Rather easier to identify was this impressive moth that we recently crossed paths with in North Forvie. As well as coming in an almost infinite variety of shapes, sizes and colours, moths are also noted for their remarkable names, ranging from the highly descriptive (e.g. Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing) to the downright bizarre (such as the Drinker, the Non-conformist and the Confused – and no, I’m not making these up, or describing myself either). So in typical fashion, this particular beast goes by the name of the Shark.

The name derives, I think, from the projection above the moth’s head, which is supposed to resemble the snout of a Great White Shark when viewed in profile. This does require a fair leap of the imagination, especially in this individual whose ‘snout’ appeared a little bit crumpled. No matter though, I can still say I’ve seen a Shark at Forvie.

This week’s damp weather wouldn’t have been especially helpful for flying insects, or indeed for nesting birds. If exposed to the rain, fluffy chicks can soon become waterlogged and may die from exposure. For this reason, we’ve been staying well clear of the breeding birds at the ternery this week, carrying out only the routine daily fence checks and a bit of remote observation with the telescope. Early June is normally when we start ringing our Sandwich Tern chicks, but this week was written off due to the unsuitable weather; as with all our fieldwork, the welfare of the wildlife must always come first.

No such problems for the Sand Loch Mute Swan family; the cygnets’ waterproof down keeps them warm and dry whatever the weather. As of this week, all five cygnets were still on the go – and a good job too. The swans’ lives essentially become a real-life soap-opera for the residents of neighbouring Collieston, and they form a high proportion of our enquiries each summer, to the point that I’ve considered changing the office answer-machine message (“To enquire about the swans, press 1…”). Hopefully all five cygnets will survive to fledge, or I suspect there’ll be a full public inquiry and three days of national mourning. Keep your fingers crossed.

Another frequent source of enquiries recently has been a dead Roe Deer found just off the Heath Trail. Despite our worst fears about a dog attack (this has happened a number of times in the past at Forvie), it seemed that this dead buck had no obvious injuries. Interestingly, the previous week I had seen two bucks furiously chasing each other around North Forvie, in what was clearly a battle for supremacy ahead of the summer rut. Moreover, Roe Deer are known to die from an excess of lactic acid in the body caused by intense stress – so it appears that this poor old buck had simply been harassed to death by his rival.

The victor, meanwhile, was still present in the area this week, presumably now with all the ladies to himself. An illustration, then, of the harsh realities of the natural world – it’s not all just flowers and fluffy chicks!

So that’s the first week of summer gone by in a haze – at times literally! See you again next week.

By the time this blog goes out for public consumption, there’ll be but a few short hours of meteorological spring remaining. Tomorrow, being the first day of June, represents the first official day of summer: the non-stop season of relentless action and endless daylight. For the next couple of months on the Reserve, we won’t see the stars in the night sky, nor feel our feet touch the ground. The height of the crazy season is now upon us.

In addition to the well-known joys of screaming seabirds, sleepless nights and general delirium, summer at Forvie also means wildflower season. Consequently, at the end of last week we deployed our ever-popular wildflower information boxes across the Heath Trail in the north of the Reserve. With the help of volunteers Elaine and Richard, as well as our trusty, rusty pickup truck, the boxes were duly distributed around the trail, where they will stay until the flowering plants have finished doing their thing.

When deciding where to locate the boxes, we try to find a nice prominent patch of the plant featured on each box, which in some cases is easier said than done! Indeed, this time around we found ourselves having to hunt especially hard for some of the flowers in question. The cold weather earlier in the spring has made for a slow start for many of our wildflowers this year; many are only just coming into bloom now, while others are yet to emerge at all.

Yellow Rattle was one species that proved extraordinarily difficult to pin down. After a good deal of searching in some usually-reliable areas, we failed to find a single plant. In the end, we opted to leave the box in question in an area where we know Yellow Rattle grows, and hope to goodness that it pops up there in due course. Otherwise, and not for the first time in my working life (nor probably the last), I’m going to be left looking like a right idiot.

Other featured species, meanwhile, are well through their growing season. Creeping Willow, for instance, has already begun to set seed, and masses of its cotton-wool-like seeds can often be found alongside the footpaths. Here they wait for the wind to pick up and carry them to a new location; here at Forvie they generally don’t have long to wait.

All that grubbing-around at ground level looking for plants is also great for finding and observing invertebrates too. Some of the larger ones, in fact, are difficult to miss; this whopping Northern Eggar moth caterpillar was a case in point. As long and as thick as your finger, and as fluffy as a blow-dried Samoyed, these are one of the biggest caterpillars you’ll find here at Forvie.

While the Northern Eggars are still at the larval stage, other moths are further advanced through their respective life-cycles. On the heath this week we found the empty cocoon of an Emperor Moth, with the adult moth having long since emerged and departed.

While the cocoon is nothing much to behold, the adult moth – if you’re ever lucky enough to see one – is a magnificent beast. They’re actually not that uncommon, and often fly by day, though we usually only see them bombing past us at 40mph in the inevitable Forvie gale. It’s a rare treat indeed to find one settled among the heather. But once, just once, we caught one in our light-trap at Collieston. A resplendent freshly-minted female, I couldn’t believe my luck when I opened up the trap, and there she was. I felt like I’d won the lottery.

Having taken up moth-trapping on an ad-hoc basis this last couple of years, I’m finally starting to get to grips with the identification of these fascinating insects. But there are plenty of other types of invertebrates that I’m still almost completely ignorant about; I’ve often said that being a naturalist gives you a healthy sense of perspective in terms of your own ignorance. You won’t meet too many ‘know-it-alls’ in this game, as we’re all acutely aware of how much we don’t know.

With this in mind, I’ve tried to expand my knowledge into some of the other insect taxa, one example being bumblebees. Following the usual baby-steps at the outset, I am now confident with identifying the ‘Big Seven’ – the seven commonest and most widespread bumblebee species in the UK, all of which occur here at Forvie. But this week I was delighted to find this little fellow on the heath, who didn’t quite fit any of the species with which I was now familiar. A bit of research ex post facto then appeared to confirm my first suspicion, and here indeed was a different species. I give you the Heath Bumblebee – along with the usual apology for the quality of the photo.

Sometimes in this job, the wildlife comes to you, and this was the case mid-week when this Marmalade Hoverfly landed on my notebook, presumably checking my record-keeping was up to scratch.

This common species is rather beautiful when seen close-up. On this occasion – and it’ll probably never happen again – my usually-lamentably-useless smartphone generously (and uncharacteristically) decided to actually focus on the object I was trying to photograph for once. Miracles apparently do happen.

Marmalade Hoverfly numbers in Scotland are massively supplemented by immigration from the south-east when favourable weather allows them to cross the North Sea. Likewise, Painted Lady butterflies are long-distance migrants, and we’ve been surprised to see a few on the wing at Forvie lately. In what’s been a dismal spring for bird migration, these immigrant insects are a breath of fresh air.

Speaking of birds, it’s all go down at the gullery, where our Black-headed Gull chicks are now getting past the ‘cute, golden and fluffy’ stage, and entering the ‘gawky, scruffy teenager’ phase. Given the chance, the first ones could be on the wing within a couple of weeks – fingers crossed.

And on the subject of growing up fast, we recently received a couple of lovely photos of Forvie-bred Sandwich Terns at large in the wider world, courtesy of our friends at the Grampian Ringing Group. The first was a youngster hatched in 2025, currently residing on its wintering grounds in South Africa. Sandwich Terns don’t breed in their first year – so no point in making the huge trek to Europe when you can just stay put in the African sunshine!

The second, meanwhile, was much nearer to home, having been photographed at Girdle Ness in Aberdeen. Sharp-eyed readers may spot the colour ring combination on the bird’s right leg: green over red, with both colours severely faded with age. That’s because this bird was ringed at Forvie in 2000, and at 26 years old is still going strong. And that’s a lot of return trips to South Africa!

That’s about all for this week folks, so we’ll see you again next time, a week into the long hot summer of 2026. Well, I live in hope…

This week’s title, far from being an exaggeration, was basically what greeted the four intrepid observers who ventured into Forvie’s Sandwich Tern colony last Wednesday, for one of the big milestones in the Reserve’s year. With three weeks having elapsed since the appearance of the first Sandwich Tern eggs, it was time to undertake the whole-colony nest census, which is not a job for either the faint-hearted or the well-dressed. After all, neither the terns nor their Black-headed Gull neighbours are inclined to welcome intruders into their world, and make their displeasure quite clear by liberal applications of verbal abuse and recycled fish. But you certainly can’t complain that it’s a boring job.

The nest census is relatively straightforward, with the Sandwich Tern colony occupying a small area of open ground within the larger Black-headed Gull colony. To aid navigation, and thus ensure a 100% accurate count, we use a harmless blue dye to divide the colony into sub-sections. Thankfully, the resultant psychedelic crazy-paving effect soon fades away with the action of sunlight and rain. Then all that remains to be done is to wash the ‘whitewash’ out of our clothes and hair, and everything’s back to normal once again.

Following the recent discovery of a rubber duck in the gullery, which we speculated might have been brought back by a parent bird to keep its chicks amused, this week produced another curious find. This cork from a bottle of sparkling wine appeared along the fence line on Friday morning, and can only have been brought in by one of the gulls (it certainly wasn’t left by the Reserve staff, as we don’t drink on duty, and even if we did, we’d probably all choose a pint over a flute of Cava in any case).

We’ve remarked before about the summer season being stressful for both Reserve staff and wildlife alike, and consequently everyone has to have their own coping mechanism for those times when it all gets a bit much. But I must admit to being surprised that our Black-headed Gulls are now apparently hitting the booze in order to get them through. Needs must and all that – who am I to judge?

Occasionally when I’m out and about on the Reserve, I’ll get stopped for a chat by folk who read this blog, which is always good fun and often provides me with some useful feedback too. One such recent conversation concerned those dreadful ‘spot the bird’ photos I sometimes put up, comprising a perfect blend of nature’s best camouflage and humankind’s worst photographic skills. Seeing as these are apparently quite a popular fixture, why not test your skills, eyesight, screen resolution and patience with this one, which I lovingly prepared on Friday morning.

This week, the beach barrier fence continued its proud record in 2026 of needing repair work every single week of the season (and often two or three times a week during the worst spells of windy weather). Sure enough, after Joe and Emma had mended the fence last weekend, it was wrecked again on Monday night, and I subsequently had to carry out further heavy repairs on Tuesday and again on Friday – by which time my sense of humour was wearing a little thin. Still, on the plus side, I’m acquiring a physique that the late great Chuck Norris would have been proud of, what with all that digging, hauling and sledge-hammering. Well, maybe not quite yet – but with three months of the season left to go, I’ll either be super fit or a total physical wreckage by the time the fences are taken down.

In the north of the Reserve, away from the whitewash and screaming mayhem of the bird colonies, things are somewhat more peaceful. A welcome increase in temperatures this week brought about a large emergence of St Mark’s Flies, which, as I’m always at pains to point out, are nothing to do with St Mark’s trousers.

These splendid insects are harmless to us, and contrary to popular belief they don’t bite or sting. The worst they’ll ever do is clumsily fly into you as you’re walking the trails, as they’re not the most agile fliers. Mostly they bumble along slowly, legs trailing, and tend to congregate in areas where nectar-rich flowers (such as the Sweet Cicely in the photo above) are available. And being abundant as well as slow, they’re on the menu for everything, from Meadow Pipits to Black-headed Gulls – making them a key species in Forvie’s springtime ecosystem.

Given a decent look, the sexes are easily told apart by their eyes. The female has a small head with smooth eyes, whereas the male has a much larger head dominated by a pair of large, bulbous and amusingly hairy eyes. I promise I’m not making this up. My attempt to photograph a mating pair was somewhat foiled by a combination of useless ‘smart’ phone and incompetent operator, but you can still just about make out the difference.

The warming temperatures that precipitated the St Mark’s Fly emergence also boosted the growth of wild flowers across the Reserve. These included the attractive (and delightfully fluffy) Kidney Vetch along the cliffs…

…and the first Northern Marsh Orchids of the year, which are always exciting to chance upon for the first time, though it’ll be another couple of weeks before they’re looking their best.

Forvie’s dune grasslands are also home to several varieties of hawkweeds and hawkbits – close relatives of Dandelions and Daisies – and these are notoriously hard to identify to species, with even seasoned botanists referring to them as ‘horrible yellow things’. However, one of the easier ones to identify is the diminutive Mouse-ear Hawkweed, with its distinctively pale, lemon-yellow flowers.

If in doubt about the ID, simply turn the flower over. Unlike its many similar-looking relatives, the Mouse-ear Hawkweed has distinctive red stripes on the underside of the flower. So if you turn over the flower and see red, it’ll be this species – but if not, it’s back to the drawing board (or rather the field guide).

And in case you’re wondering about the name, the ‘mouse-ear’ bit refers to the neat, hairy leaves, which are another useful identifying character – but I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether they do actually resemble a mouse’s ears.

On that note, I’ll sign off for the week – need to head off and rinse all the whitewash out of my clothes now. Oh, the glamour of Reserve work!

…till the May is oot – so goes the familiar Scots saying, with respect to the fickle nature of spring here in the north. Contrary to popular belief, the May in the saying refers not to the month itself, but to the blossom of the May Tree, an old country name for the Hawthorn. Regardless of the details, however, we’ve certainly not been casting any cloots (=removing any layers of clothing) here at Forvie, with the week having been dominated once again by blasting northerly winds and stingingly sharp showers. And as a result, there have been plenty other colourful sayings used this week, in both Scots and Anglo-Saxon – none of which are printable here.

On-the-ground conditions at the ternery this week have varied between moderate and outright dreadful; while I’m told that ‘gentle exfoliation’ is supposed to be good for you, I remain unconvinced that the severe version meted out by the elements at the ternery is good for anyone. Much to our relief, though, the fences, and more to the point the breeding birds present within, generally seem to be standing up to the onslaught reasonably well. Even so, the fence at the north end required a good deal of reconstructive surgery on Friday morning following overnight gales – a pleasant job in 45 mph of wind.

Unfortunately for us (and more pertinently, for our Little Terns), the continuing high winds and their associated sand-blow are also very efficiently burying all the shingle that we took great pains to fence in. What with this and all the recent Badger bother, I’d say that the early part of this season has been a trial of our patience, but to do so would be an understatement of Michael Fish proportions.

At times in this job, it’s easy to feel like everything’s ganging up on you – whether it’s wind, weather, predators, faulty equipment, paperwork, bureaucracy, recalcitrant visitors and their pets (thankfully a small minority), climate change, world politics, the levy on alcohol, or – worst of all – the very wildlife you’re trying to protect. In recent days we’ve had a series of Eider nests appearing within a few feet of the electric fence, but on the wrong side – I mean you can take the horse to water…

On a lighter note, the endlessly windy conditions and squally showers did somehow contrive to sculpt the ‘big dune’ – the broad, open sand-sheet to the north of the ternery – into an amusing tiger-striped pattern. Every cloud and all that.

Moving northwards through the Reserve, the estuary side opposite Newburgh quay is resplendent in bright yellow as the Gorse reaches its peak flowering period. On those rare days without a gale of wind (and rarer still, when the air temperature gets into double figures), the scent of the flowers hangs heavy in the air. Sweet, creamy and strongly reminiscent of coconut, it’s a smell you could almost drink. Pina colada anyone?

A Gorse thicket in full bloom in spring is about the only place and time that the male Yellowhammer could ever be considered well-camouflaged. Gorse is brilliant nesting habitat for small birds such as Yellowhammers, with the dense spiny foliage providing excellent fortification against potential predators, and I’ve often wondered whether the birds evolved their yellow plumage specifically for a life spent in and around this habitat. We often hear Yellowhammers singing from the tops of the Gorse bushes on both sides of the estuary; being yellow on yellow they can be surprisingly difficult to spot!

Continuing the yellow theme, the Primroses on the cliffs between Collieston and Rockend are now over and gone to seed, replaced instead by a flush of Cowslips. These distinctive and instantly-recognisable flowers are close relatives of the Primrose, and the two readily hybridise. The resulting hybrid offspring, known as False Oxlips, resemble a halfway-house between the two parent species, and these too are common on Forvie’s cliffs.

Also beginning to come to prominence along the cliffs is Thrift, with the first few clumps bursting into flower this week.

The cold and rough conditions we’ve experienced this week haven’t been conducive to lots of insect activity. Butterflies and moths have been painfully thin on the ground so far this season, though we did recently note the first Cinnabar Moths of the year on the wing. This species overwinters underground at the pupal stage, with the caterpillars having fattened themselves up on last summer’s crop of Ragwort before pupating in early autumn. When the adults subsequently emerge in late spring, it’s a lottery as to what the weather will throw at them, and the unlucky few to hatch this week were looking battered and bruised almost as soon as they had emerged.

Forvie’s other black-and-red day-flying moth, the Six-spot Burnet, is still at the larval stage of its life cycle just now. The bright-green-and-black caterpillars can be seen anywhere in South Forvie where the food-plant, Bird’s-foot Trefoil, is found growing. Once fed from end to end with trefoil leaves, the caterpillar will spin itself a papery cocoon attached to a stem of grass (or perhaps one of the tubular posts of the barrier fence) in which it will pupate, emerging as an adult just a fortnight or so later.

Other species of caterpillar are rather better adapted to the bitterly cold springs we so often seem to experience here these days. When it’s cold, you really want a nice fluffy jumper or fleecy coat on – which is exactly what the following two species have. The Garden Tiger moth is probably the most frequently-encountered hairy caterpillar at Forvie, in its distinctive orange, black and grey ‘British Rail coach upholstery’ colour scheme. I can almost smell the diesel and feel the itch of the velour. Happy days.

The Dark Tussock, meanwhile, has an amusing row of black-and-white tufts along the back of its green body, looking like miniature shaving brushes. However daft they may look, they’ll at least be helping to keep the caterpillar fine and warm – I’ve owned a few hats that fit exactly the same criteria.

Lastly, a bit of staffing news – we recently welcomed new warden Emma to the Reserve, where she will be taking up the role vacated by Danny at the end of last year. This being the case, you might say she has big boots to fill in every sense – but don’t worry, I promise we haven’t given her Danny’s old footwear. In the short time she’s been with us, Emma has already proved a capable, hardworking and popular member of the team, and with the summer just around the corner (or so we hope), it’s great that Forvie is back to having a full complement of staff once again.

That’s about all for this week, folks, so we’ll see you again in seven days. Wrap up warm in the meantime – and dinna cast ony cloots jist yet.

The first full week of May at Forvie turned out distinctly cool, and despite there having been a good deal of sunshine this past few days, conditions on the Reserve haven’t felt very spring-like. This was a little disappointing given that we’re now coming towards the business end of the spring (in fact, meteorological summer is now just three weeks away), though it is fairly representative of the late, cold springs that seem to be the norm nowadays. So there was nothing for it but to get happit up in our coats and toories (here in the North-east, we never properly put away our winter togs until at least the beginning of July anyway), and to carry on regardless.

One task that had to be completed this week was the annual nest census of Forvie’s Black-headed Gull colony. With the first chicks due to hatch any day, this wasn’t a job that could wait. However, it also isn’t a job that can be done in cold or wet conditions, as the risk of eggs becoming chilled is too great. So at the end of the previous week, when I saw the weather forecast for the week ahead (Tuesday onwards: 7^oC, feels like 2^oC…), my heart sank.

As it turned out, the only day of the week when conditions were suitably warm was Monday, which meant a frantic scramble to assemble a team of observers at short notice. Thus the team which convened on Monday morning basically consisted of all the poor unfortunates who hadn’t clocked off by 5pm the previous Friday, when I was casting about for help. Sorry folks – that’s several pints I owe you.

Anyway, with the priceless help of volunteers Jim and Richard, and colleagues Simon, Rhona and John from our ‘sister NNRs’ Muir of Dinnet and St Cyrus, we got the job done. The final score was 1,471 nests containing eggs – about 230 down on the previous year, but still a substantial colony, and one of considerable regional and national importance.

Earlier in the season it looked as though the breeding population would be bigger still, but with a series of Badger incursions into the colony occurring during late April (as reported by Catriona in her recent blog post), we think some of the gulls may have been put off from settling, and subsequently departed the colony. This is a stark example of the ‘frightening effect’ of mammalian predators upon ground-nesting birds: it’s not so much the actual damage done (e.g. eggs eaten or birds killed), but more the perception that the site isn’t a safe place to nest, resulting in abandonment.

It’s the exact same reason we ask our visitors to keep their dogs under close control on the Reserve: the sight of potential predators – whether Badgers by night, or off-lead dogs by day – is enough to cause birds to abandon their nests, or to dissuade them from settling in the first place. Think about it: would you choose to set up camp if you knew there were Polar Bears roaming the area? Chances are you’d probably not want to take the risk!

During the course of the gull nest census, we also happened upon the nests of several other species which share the habitat within the electric-fenced enclosure. These included a couple of Gadwall nests, typically well-hidden and snuggled down among the tussocks…

…and by way of contrast, the rudimentary scrapes of Oystercatcher and Ringed Plover upon the open sand and shingle.

As of Friday, the Ringed Plover’s nest in question contained two eggs, half the usual clutch size, with the remainder probably due to be laid over the weekend that followed. A full clutch of ‘Ringo’ eggs is a delight to see, as they have a habit of arranging the eggs with their points inwards, forming a perfect lucky four-leaf-clover shape. Here’s one from a previous season by way of illustration.

While a handful of pairs of Ringed Plovers nest at Forvie each summer, many hundreds (if not thousands) more pass through the Reserve en-route to breeding grounds much further north. A mixed flock of ‘tiddlers’ (my completely unscientific term for the various species of small waders) on the estuary this week contained over 220 Ringed Plovers, some of which may well have been bound for summer quarters in the Arctic Circle – quite a journey for such a small bird.

The Ringed Plover’s migratory exploits pale into insignificance compared with those of the Wheatear, the only songbird in the world which routinely crosses an actual ocean – the North Atlantic – in order to reach its breeding grounds. Some individuals spend the winter in central and southern Africa before migrating through Europe and across to Greenland and arctic Canada for the summer – just the three continents then – before returning again in the autumn. And this is a creature not much bigger than a sparrow – respect. This fine male Wheatear was bouncing around beside the estuary on Tuesday afternoon; we spent a few moments watching him, and wondering about all the places he’ll see in his lifetime that we never will.

Other migratory species arriving from Africa will possibly be having doubts about their wisdom, having received a cool reception from the North-east’s fickle weather. At least one Cuckoo has been present on the Reserve lately, bravely cuc-koo-ing away in spite of the chilly conditions, and generally staying well hidden in the dense cover of the willow scrub on the heath.

Also newly arrived from Africa are Forvie’s Sedge Warblers, those irrepressible singers whose scratchy and excitable song is uttered from the tops of the loch-side bushes by both day and night. This is one species whose spirits aren’t dampened by the cold.

The cold spring means a slow start for Forvie’s wild flowers, though the dunes are now beginning to brighten with the blues and purples of Wild Pansies and Heath Dog-violets – two closely-related species with an obvious family resemblance, though they’re easy enough to tell apart given a close enough look.

The slow start for plants means a similarly slow start for invertebrates. Volunteer Richard’s weekly butterfly transect at Forvie is usually hard going for the first few weeks of the season, though it’ll pick up markedly (we hope!) from next month. In the meantime, the Common Heath moth has begun to appear across the Reserve, adding some welcome variety.

So that just about sums up a chilly spring week at Forvie. We’ll see you again next week, hopefully this time without our coats and toories!

“There’ll be a robot doing my job in fifteen years’ time!” This is my standard (and only half-joking) reply when I get asked about the use of technology in our work at Forvie. After all, the past fifteen years have seen monumental changes in how we work, communicate, live and interact with the world around us, with electronic tech at the centre of it all. And who knows how the world will look in a further fifteen! We’re currently going through the most rapid and dramatic period of technological change since the Industrial Revolution, and life on the Reserve is no exception.

Although my opening line probably sounds a bit flippant, there is more than a ring of truth to it. In my working life, I count birds and their nests: a drone could do that. I survey plants: a drone could do that too. I write reports and newsletters (and blogs, for that matter): AI could do that. I look after the groundskeeping: a robotic mower could do that. I engage with the general public: a chatbot could do that. The list goes on! There’s no doubt that at least some of these examples will become everyday reality in the foreseeable future.

Already, the life of a Reserve warden is unrecognisably different from that of his or her 20th Century counterpart. The laptop and smart phone have become indispensable tools of the trade, alongside the more traditional binoculars, notebook and spade, and all of us – even workaday folk like your author here – need to have some degree of technological savvy. Like any sort of change, this has both positive and negative sides to it.

As a naturalist, having a world of information available at your fingertips – in the literal sense – is a real game-changer. I am a frequent user of Google Lens (other similar programmes may also be available – maybe – I’m really not sure!), which can be very helpful indeed when you’re faced with an unfamiliar plant or insect, for example. Take a quick photo, feed it through Google Lens, and it’ll tell you what species you’re looking at – bingo! However, it’s by no means 100% accurate in its pronouncements, and it often requires a bit of further research on the part of the user in order to arrive at a correct identification. But what it does brilliantly is to point you in the right general direction, thereby saving you a huge amount of time and head-scratching.

I’m also a big fan, by proxy, of the Merlin app for identifying bird sounds (again, other similar things might be available…). I say ‘by proxy’ because I’ve never actually used it myself, having instead learned to ‘speak bird’ through many years of field experience – but I love the fact that it gets folk engaged with bird sounds, and thus with the natural world around them. We’ve observed in previous posts on this blog that nature somehow becomes much more accessible when we start to put names to things. Suddenly that babble of sound resolves itself into a Robin, two Willow Warblers, a Blackcap and a Song Thrush all singing over one another – and a whole new vista opens up to the would-be naturalist.

Like the aforementioned Google Lens, Merlin is far from 100% reliable (like all such programmes – and indeed like human naturalists – it’s still ‘learning’ all the time), and its pronouncements must sometimes be taken with a substantial pinch of salt. But that doesn’t matter: if it’s helping to get folk interested in nature, then it’s 100% positive as far as I’m concerned.

Drones are another piece of 21st Century technology with game-changing possibilities for nature conservation work, particularly when combined with AI (and just to be clear, that’s Artificial Intelligence – when I was a lad, AI meant something different, involving a man from the ministry of agriculture with a long rubber glove). The ongoing study of the Grey Seal haul-out at the mouth of the Ythan Estuary, being undertaken by researcher Claire Stainfield, is a great example.

Claire is using a drone, under licence and in carefully controlled conditions, to systematically photograph the haul-out on a regular basis, then ‘training’ an AI programme to identify and count the seals in the photos. This allows for much greater accuracy than a ‘manual’ count using telescope and clicker, and also captures data on population demographics (i.e. age and sex of each individual seal), which would be impossible using conventional methods. Claire’s work may well go on to set the standard for marine mammal survey in future, and we’re delighted to be able to host her ongoing study here on the Reserve.

Drone and camera technology are advancing all the time, and we have an eye on the future in terms of our seabird monitoring at Forvie. While the tech’s not quite there yet, there may come a time when we can carry out some of our nest censuses by similar methods to those used by Claire for counting the seals. This would clearly be easier for a species that nests entirely in the open (e.g. Sandwich Tern) than one that tends to hide in dense cover (e.g. Eider), though thermal-imaging technology may provide a solution to that particular problem.

Then there is the issue of deciding whether a bird captured on camera is actually sitting on a nest, or just sitting down and having a rest, or whatever. It’s likely that a good deal of ‘ground-truthing’ work would be required – i.e. conventional nest counts carried out by observers on the ground within the colonies, alongside the drone counts, to see how the two compare. And there’d also be the issue of establishing the birds’ own tolerances to the presence of a drone (some species are already known to be averse to drones, and recreational drone use already causes a huge amount of disturbance to nesting, feeding and roosting birds in some places). But if it did work, it could obviate the need to actually enter the colony and put all the birds off their nests, which would be a win all round. Time will tell!

My overwhelming hope, as the meteoric rise of electronic technology continues, is that we as human beings are able to retain our connection with nature. This is where the tech can be a double-edged sword: while we have more information available to us than ever before, we can end up living our lives through an electronic interface rather than experiencing things first-hand. I could almost weep when I see somebody out on the Reserve with headphones on and head bowed, eyes to their phone: you’ve no idea what you’re missing! But as long as we can use technology to enhance our experiences with nature, and not to replace them, all to the good.

One final point to make, and in my own defence too. I realise there’ll be folk reading this who know me reasonably well, who are probably thinking “I can’t believe he’s writing about technology” – fair point, given my fractious relationship with all things electronic. Sure, I remain happier working a spade than a smart phone, and that’ll likely never change. But like every other creature on planet earth, I’ll have to evolve and adapt, or go extinct. Perhaps I’ll book myself some evening classes…

Another bright and breezy week at Forvie has passed by since our last update, and once again it’s felt like we’ve been running to stay in the one spot. In this respect, it’s been a typical April week: this is the time of the year when nothing stands still for any length of time – not least those of us who work on the Reserve!

The landscape of South Forvie certainly hasn’t stood still this spring. Since we put up the ternery electric fence in early March, the wind and weather have been continually moving the sand around, causing us a weekly maintenance headache. Moreover, the precious and coveted areas of exposed shingle – first-class Little Tern habitat – have correspondingly moved too, and we’ve had to work hard to keep up with the changes.

What we don’t want to do is a) go to the trouble of maintaining a fence around a load of useless drifted sand where nothing will nest, and b) leave lots of great Little Tern habitat outside the protection of the fence. Do this, and the inevitable will then happen when the birds arrive back from Africa: after all, Little Terns aren’t known for their intelligence or sensible decision-making.

Consequently, this week we had to re-route a substantial length of the electric fence in order to accommodate the changes in the landscape in the past couple of weeks. This is only possible before the birds have settled; once they’re nesting, we can’t carry out intrusive work like this. Fingers crossed, then, that we don’t see further dramatic change in the coming weeks.

As we’ve long said, the shingle areas of South Forvie act as a time-capsule for both geological and human history. Sure enough, Catriona found two distinctly-contrasting fragments of history during the course of the job: a piece of worked flint from a previous millennium, and a .303 cartridge from the Second World War. Two items spanning three thousand years of human history, side by side among the shingle, each unearthed by the relentless wind.

Moving around in windy conditions isn’t easy when you’re the size of a Bumblebee. Thus when the wind gets up – which is frequently at the moment – many of our flying insects are forced to keep a low profile. This White-tailed Bumblebee was found clinging grimly onto a wildly-thrashing Daffodil flower on one of the windier mornings this week.

No such bother for terrestrial beasties though: this Banded Snail, with its low centre of gravity and ‘low-ratio gearbox’ (i.e. low speed and high tractive effort) remained completely untroubled by the gale raging above.

The sands of South Forvie may be moving in all directions at the behest of the wind, but on the adjacent estuary, the movement of waterbirds is distinctly northward. Some, like this Sanderling, will eventually turn north-westwards towards Iceland and Greenland…

…while others, like these Bar-tailed Godwits – in contrasting winter (grey) and summer (brick-red) plumages – will be bound north-eastwards to the tundra of Scandinavia and Arctic Russia.

These Golden Plover, also resplendent in their summer plumage of black and gold, may be headed in either direction; some may even stay and breed on the hills here in Scotland.

In addition to the northward movement of birds, there was also one notable westward migration this week. On Wednesday we were delighted to welcome a group of visitors from the county government of Rogaland, Norway. The group comprised thirty staff from the county’s environmental protection department – essentially our counterparts on the other side of the North Sea – and it was both interesting and enlightening to compare notes with one another.

In chatting with the delegates, I learned that there are certain parallels between Rogaland and Aberdeenshire in terms of climate, wildlife, and elements of landscape and culture. But there are notable differences too, and I was surprised that certain species that we take for granted here are scarce or absent just across the North Sea. Grey Seal and Sandwich Tern were two particular favourites of the group…

…while I was astonished to learn that Rooks – abundant and widespread in lowland Scotland – are almost entirely absent from similar-looking agricultural areas in Rogaland. I said that I’d happily swap some of our Rooks for some of their Bluethroats, but unfortunately I don’t think it works like that – and given that we’re each essentially government bodies, the volume of paperwork involved in such an exchange would be horrific. Ah well, I’d better just be content watching Rooks then!

Some of the group were fascinated to learn that we had European Wild Rabbits here at Forvie – though I did point out that our present-day Rabbit population is a mere relict of that which existed in the 20th Century, before the advent of myxomatosis and viral haemorrhagic disease. I suppose it’s easy for us to forget that the humble Rabbit is an iconic species in Europe, and an environmental keystone too, shaping the landscape through its intensive grazing and digging.

This was a fine example of the joy inherent in showing people from other parts of the world around your own patch. Such occasions can offer new perspectives on the familiar, which feels enjoyably refreshing – especially for us old-timers who have been working the same patch for many a year!

We’ll finish up this week with a couple of ‘how did you get here?’ curiosities. First up, the desiccated remains of this little flatfish – presumably a Dab or Flounder – which was sitting high and dry atop the cliffs just south of Hackley Bay. Presumably this had been captured by a large gull (or if not captured, then perhaps purloined from a fishing Cormorant) and taken ashore, only for the gull to eventually realise that the dimensions of the fish didn’t match those of its gape. I can’t be sure of course, but this seems the likeliest explanation… that said, however, we’ve had a few days lately that have been plenty windy enough to blow the fish out of the sea.

Stranger still was this dinky rubber duck that turned up inside the ternery electric fence, in the Black-headed Gull colony. I can only think that it was carried back to the colony by one of the gulls, having been picked up somewhere along the estuary or beach. Quite what the gull was thinking remains a mystery; either it mistook the duck for some sort of fast food item (right enough, it probably constitutes roughly the same nutritional value as the output from certain burger chains), or perhaps it was thinking ahead to egg-hatching time – a nice bathtime toy to keep the kids amused. How else, after all, do you entertain a brood of bored Black-headed Gull chicks?

On that note, it’s probably best that I get this piece wrapped up, before it descends any further into total farce. Can you tell it’s been a long week at work?!

April at Forvie is typically a month of contrasts. Any given day can feel like summer or winter – or indeed a bit of both in the same day – and this past week was a case in point. It’s also a month of change, with a constant turnover of arrivals and departures among our wildlife, as well as being a month of intense activity for the Reserve team – not to mention a rollercoaster of emotions too. Right enough, the past few days have ably demonstrated the ups and downs of life on the Reserve in April.

On Monday, with Storm Dave having vacated the region the previous day, we finally switched on the ternery electric fence. This had been scheduled for the previous week, but since we fully expected Dave to wreck the fence over the weekend, we’d left it switched off as a precaution. However, Dave wasn’t nearly as angry and destructive as we’d feared, and thanks to sterling work by weekend warden Joe (who has just returned to Forvie for his third summer season), the fence was in good shape on Monday morning, and ready to take power.

I often feel we ought to get some sort of minor celebrity to carry out the grand switch-on, much as they do with the Christmas lights in seemingly every town and city in the UK. However, owing to an acute shortage of available soap-opera stars, TV chefs and retired sportspeople, Catriona and I had to do the honours instead.

As it happened, the switch-on occurred not a moment too soon. By Wednesday, the first Black-headed Gull eggs had appeared in the colony, just a day later than the first laying date in 2025. You could almost set your calendar by them! This means we’re now plotting for the whole-colony nest census, which we’ll aim to undertake in the first week of May, immediately prior to the first chicks hatching.

The fine weather that undoubtedly spurred on the gulls also produced an uptick in flying insect activity. Bumblebees were plentiful on the fine days (chiefly the White-tailed and Buff-tailed varieties), and several butterfly species occurred for the first time this year, namely Small White, Green-veined White and Peacock. The latter, especially, is always a treat to see, with its vibrant colours and those incredible false eyes.

While the sunshine has been very enjoyable for our visitors, staff and wildlife alike, it has often been accompanied by a variable breeze and a lively swell at sea. The net result is a lot of damage to the beach barrier fence, which is currently requiring maintenance several times a week.

All that digging and sledging in such a wet, salty and abrasive environment is hard on our footwear, as I found out to my cost on Friday while carrying out yet another repair down by the low-water mark…

I chose ‘ups and downs’ as the theme for this week’s musings for a number of reasons, and the latter included a couple of long-dead trees at Waterside Wood that dear old Dave had partly pushed over. With high numbers of visitors using the Reserve during the Easter holidays, we had to get an early start one morning in order to get the hung-up trees safely down and dismantled before the majority of folk were up and about. Then it was back up to Collieston for a well-earned breakfast-time cuppa!

One of the major ‘ups’ this week has been the arrival of several of our summer visitors to Forvie for the first time this year. Swallow, Sand Martin, Blackcap, Wheatear and Osprey have all made their 2026 debuts in the past few days, fresh from their winter quarters in Africa. It’s invariably an uplifting experience to meet with your first summer migrants – a bit like being reunited with old friends after months of absence.

Many of these migrant birds are arriving on our shores in the hope of raising a family in the coming few months. In theory, Forvie is a great place for them to do just that – a nature reserve, a specially protected site, and thereby a sanctuary for wildlife – but only if the people who also use the Reserve are sufficiently careful and considerate. To this end, we’ve been dismayed so far this spring to see how few dog-walkers on the Reserve are respectful of our ‘dogs on leads or at heel’ request, with the compliance rate at times less than 30% (and we’re extremely grateful, of course, to the 30% who do act responsibly). With a high visitor footfall at Easter, that’s a lot of uncontrolled dogs, and a lot of needless disturbance.

Indeed, it’s not ‘just’ the wildlife that suffers from this lack of consideration; the Reserve team is affected as well. Every time I see people disrespecting the Reserve and its wildlife, and treating it as a personal playground for themselves and their pets, another little piece of my soul dies. At this rate, I’ll need to get myself a new soul (or at least a reconditioned second-hand one) by the end of the summer season. Working on the Reserve is a vocation, and this comes with both an up side and a down side. On the up side it can be utterly fulfilling, but on the down side, it can hurt too. Thus is life!

While we can’t help but get a bit downcast sometimes in the face of unhelpful attitudes and behaviours, at other times our faith in humanity receives a welcome boost. This was very much the case on Wednesday, when we teamed up with Lauren from East Grampian Coastal Partnership to carry out a beach clean along the shores of the Ythan Estuary. Lauren did a great job of drumming up interest – and we were helped too by a very pleasant day’s weather – with no fewer than 28 folk showing up to help out. After a lively morning’s teamwork, and some great craic with some lovely people, we found that we had collectively lifted a whopping 365 kg of litter from the estuary – more than a third of a ton. What a great result.

So after a week of ups and downs, we were exceptionally grateful to everyone who attended for their hard work, their good company, and – perhaps best of all – for giving us a lift when we most needed one. Thanks a million – and we’ll hopefully see you all back on the Reserve again in the future.