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!

Please don’t shoot the messenger here, but the summer on the Reserve is now officially over and done. Maybe not in the strictest sense – meteorological autumn doesn’t actually begin until 1^st September, after all – but as far as the Forvie calendar is concerned, it’s a wrap. The milepost was passed on Tuesday of the past week (the 18^th of August, as it happened), when the barrier fence was dismantled and brought in for the season, thus heralding the end of the bird breeding season and its associated workload. Phew!

Having spent much of the previous week taking down and packing up the ternery electric fence, what we all really needed was a couple more days of hard labour. I mean who doesn’t love lugging mountains of fencing equipment over miles of soft and sinky sand, in 100% humidity? So after last week’s marathon of mesh, steel wires and fence posts, this week it was wooden signs, plastic tubes and rusty scaffolding poles, not to mention 150 metres of rope encrusted with barnacles and various other forms of seafood, all smelling highly in the warm temperatures. The very duff that screams are made of.

As was the case in the early spring when the whole kit and caboodle was put up, we had no vehicle access to the beach, due to the shifting sands having cut off the track at Rockend. So everything from the seaward end of the fence – three big wooden signs, 17 scaffolding poles full of wet sand, several floats and flags, and a massive hank of that honking rope – had to be carried the entire length of the fence across to the estuary, and into the waiting pickup truck. No wonder Catriona looks so happy in the photo below.

Duty staffers Catriona, Daryl and Emma were grateful (as ever) for the assistance of regular volunteer Richard, and of colleague Anne-Marie from our regional office in Aberdeen. With the right people, and copious application of caffeine and biscuits, a job such as this is made considerably lighter. Thanks folks.

As the barrier fence was taken in for the season, so too were the various notices around the Reserve advising of the sensitivities of the bird breeding season. Most of our visitors are quite respectful of these seasonal notices (although those who don’t are a constant source of stress for us – not to mention the wildlife – each summer), and we’ve tried hard over the years to promote responsible access on the Reserve, especially when it comes to dogs. So we’re really grateful to everyone who takes this on board and acts responsibly, allowing Forvie’s wildlife the space and peace to raise their young each year.

The down side of this campaign, though, is the perception that come the end of the summer, it’s a free-for-all as soon as the signs and fences come down: that it’s fine to let your dog(s) charge all over the Reserve, because the birds have stopped nesting. However, the old line that I’ve used a thousand times before is that Forvie doesn’t stop being a nature reserve at the end of the bird breeding season. It remains a sensitive place, of both national and international importance for wildlife, throughout the year – and as such it needs to be treated with a bit more care and consideration than the average park or urban green space (not that these should be taken for granted either, of course!).

The advice that we dispense during the breeding season holds true throughout the year: enjoy your visit to Forvie, but please take care not to disturb or damage its wildlife and landscape. And definitely please don’t fall into the trap of “Well, it’s OK if it’s just me / my dog doing it” – these days Forvie has over 75,000 human visitors a year (plus how many dogs?!), and if everyone took this view, there’d be no nature left on the Reserve! So in short, please be respectful of nature when you’re on the Reserve – and spread the word to others too!

With the barrier fence down and the ternery season over, and South Forvie open to the public once again, the chief area of sensitivity is now the Grey Seal haul-out at the mouth of the estuary. The seals’ own breeding season is approaching fast (we usually expect a few pups here each year, starting in mid-autumn), and consequently we had to make sure the advisory signage was in good order. One such sign is located on the beach to the east of the ternery, where it receives a fearful sandblasting every time the wind gets up (i.e. about two days out of three at Forvie). As a result, one of this week’s jobs was to replace the worn-out facing with a fresh one. Feel free to place your bets on how long it’ll last, but I’m not a gambling man!

Anyway, never mind all this housekeeping talk. The onset of autumn on the Reserve means an exciting time ahead for the naturalist, not least because it’s the season where more often than not, the wildlife comes looking for you rather than the other way around. This even applies when the working day is over, you’re back home enjoying a quiet brew after supper, and a bit of movement catches your eye. Early autumn is the season when the male Giant House Spider goes a-roving after the ladies, and this one required a full-sized pint glass for the old catch-and-release-outside routine.

Another sign of the times this week was the appearance of the attractive Grass-of-Parnassus alongside the Dune Trail footpath – a classic wild flower of early autumn…

…while another was the colourful traffic-light sequence of Bittersweet berries, ripening to red after having changed from green through amber.

Meanwhile, I was lucky enough to capture this remarkable sequence of a Field Digger Wasp capturing an unfortunate Marmalade Hoverfly along the estuary-side footpath. Field Diggers are solitary wasps which, as their name suggests, excavate little tunnels in the earth. In a chamber at the end of each tunnel, they lay a single egg, and provision the chamber with food – fresh meat, in fact – in the form of other insects such as flies. Rather than killing the flies outright, the wasp’s sting causes them to enter a state of suspended animation, thus keeping them fresh for the wasp larva when it hatches. A little macabre perhaps, but an effective life strategy it remains. Don’t have nightmares!

If you’re still not sold on this whole autumn thing yet, then consider the fact that sunrise and sunset are beginning to occur at sensible times of the day now, when you can actually get out and enjoy them. Just one more benefit to what I strongly believe is the best season of the year!

No need, then, to mourn the end of the summer at Forvie. Autumn is just about upon us, and there’s much to look forward to in the coming weeks. See you out there!

As the calendar ticks over into the second half of August, so a major landmark in Forvie’s year is reached. For those of us who work on the Reserve, six months of hard graft, hair-tearing and head-pecking has at last come to and end, as the ternery season finally draws to a close.

Having now worked through twenty (yes, 20) seasons of looking after the ternery and its inhabitants, the recurring feeling at the end of each one – for me at least – is that of overwhelming relief. After all, the season is a long slog, starting out in mid-February and reaching its crescendo in June and July; by the time August rolls around each year, we’re physically worn and mentally frazzled. But at the same time, after a season as successful as 2026, we’re enjoying the satisfying afterglow too. It’s a bit like the feeling you get the morning after a mad but exhilarating party – you might be a bit sore, but it was totally worth it!

While this year’s results have been excellent, with all the key species enjoying a highly successful and productive season (of which more at a later date), there’s no time for resting on our laurels. Instead, there’s the mammoth task of dismantling and removing all the electric fencing and its accoutrements, all of which must be recovered to the workshop at the Forvie Centre for safe keeping until next spring. So with the hard graft not quite over for the season just yet, we took advantage of a largely dry and settled week to get the work done.

This time around, there was more equipment than ever to dismantle and recover. As the landscape of South Forvie constantly changes according to the influences of wind and tide, so the distribution of tern nesting habitat changes too. And it’s up to us to enclose as much of it as possible within the protective fence. Thus in 2026 the fence stretched to a total length of 1,100 metres – up from 1,000 in the previous year – in order for us to protect the key areas of habitat. So that’s 22 rolls of mesh netting as opposed to 20 last year, and 550 fence posts as opposed to 500, and so on. Without the help of our superhuman volunteers Richard, Vikki, Jim and Elaine, all of whom put in a magnificent shift, we’d still be out there now.

Probably the most loathsome job of all is transporting the electric fence batteries back to the pick-up point on the estuary foreshore. With vehicle access to much of the ternery area impossible, a quarter-mile trek through soft sand is required to get the batteries on and off site. And at 33 kg each, they take a bit of lifting too. In order to make our lives a bit easier, reserve manager Catriona recently sourced a foldaway sledge-type contraption that allows us to haul the batteries over the dunes rather than carrying them, and this was duly pressed into service. With this not being a job we’d wish upon anyone else, Catriona and I got ourselves yoked up and hauled away, and soon had the job done – and unlike a mid-season battery change, we didn’t have an entourage of furious Arctic Terns trying to kill us as we slogged through the sand. Small mercies eh!

We started out on Monday morning with the fence still fully operational, but by the close of play on Thursday we had everything dismantled, lashed up and tripped back to the pickup point on the estuary, ready for uplift on Friday morning’s low tide. As Richie Benaud would have said, “a maaarvellous effort that”.

On the Friday morning, when we collected all the fencing gear from the estuary side, we took advantage of having the pickup truck on-site and carried out a bijou beach clean. This involved lifting a quantity of vintage marine litter that had been exposed by the eroding sand just to the north of the ternery, having probably originally washed ashore there several decades previously. And you know what happens when you find the end of a wee bit of rope, and start pulling it out from the sand…

It was something of a heads-down-working sort of week, such that we didn’t have much time for wildlife spotting. Sometimes, however, the wildlife comes to you whether you’re looking for it or not, and this was certainly the case with this Red-legged Shieldbug which was perched proudly atop one of the fence posts. As a species that lives on various deciduous trees, it was something of a mystery as to what it was doing in the wide open landscape of the ternery.

Meanwhile, it was actually a good job we had our heads down while working, as we narrowly avoided treading on this tardy Common Tern fledgling along the fence line. Although fully grown and feathered, and apparently in excellent condition, it chose to hide in the grass under our feet rather than take flight. My theory was that it was so well-fed that it had entered a sort of post-Sunday-lunch food coma, though it did in fact try to eat Joe as he was giving it the once-over.

Most of our terns are now long gone, setting out on their long and leisurely southward migration. We actually got a small insight into this during the week when a flock of some 70 Arctic Terns appeared high from the north-west over our house in Collieston. If you know our area, you’ll know that north-west of Collieston means inland, so presumably these birds had completed an overland crossing of North-east Scotland from a starting point somewhere in the Moray Firth. This is just one early stage of a journey that will eventually take them to the Antarctic Ocean.

The high-altitude tern flock was considerably more impressive than the solar eclipse that took place the same evening. Or apparently took place anyway – at home here in Collieston we were treated to a stubborn overcast at the crucial time. Typical!

In between fencing duties this week, we crammed in the last public event of the 2026 summer season. Ever popular, our Moth Morning attracted visitors of all ages, and showcased the wonderful world of Lepidoptera to an audience of beginners and experienced observers alike.

Speaking of Lepidoptera, this week also brought a welcome splash of colour in the form of an influx of Peacock butterflies. Surely one of the most striking and attractive of all insects to occur in northern Europe, there seemed barely a patch of thistle or scabious this week that didn’t have at least one of these beauties in attendance.

So on that colourful note I’ll finish up for the week, before heading off for a couple of headache pills and a lie-down in a darkened room. The ternery season is over and done for the year – and it was some party indeed.

Our thanks are owed to Scottish rockers Travis for the title of this week’s piece. Just like them, I can’t really answer this eternal question either. I may well have lied when I was seventeen (probably to get into the pub), but that was a long time ago, and I should hope to think the weather gods might have forgiven me by now. Nevertheless – and I didn’t think I’d ever be saying this – we’ve been rather grateful to have been rained on lately. The Reserve and wider region were each in need of a good drink of water, and we’ve certainly had that during the course of this past week. Friends and relatives further south, roasting in 30-plus degrees of heat and in the grip of a fierce drought, were positively green with envy.

The sudden spate of dampness brought about a mass emergence and dispersal of baby amphibians on the Reserve, taking advantage of the favourable conditions for travelling. When you’re as dinky as a newly-metamorphosed Common Toad, you’re at grave risk of dehydration during the sort of warm and windy days we’ve experienced over the past month. So a cool and rainy day offers the perfect opportunity to break cover, leave your natal wetland, and take your first tiny steps into the world.

These wayfarers-in-miniature often follow the footpaths, where the short-cropped vegetation and crushed-stone surface makes for easier and faster progress than the long grass either side. But it’s a hazardous business. Mid-week, it was impossible for us to traverse the footpaths in North Forvie without dancing the ‘tiny toadlet two-step’, as we endeavoured not to tread on any of them.

Hardly any larger was this juvenile Palmate Newt, which was on the same sort of mission as its toadish cousins: take advantage of the wet conditions for travelling, and find somewhere safe to see out the rest of the year. Newts look rather more incongruous out of water than toads or frogs, and as such it’s easy to see how they often get mistaken for lizards. In terms of size and shape, if not colour, they superficially resemble the little geckos that are often found sharing human dwellings around the Mediterranean region.

A walk down the coast path to Hackley Bay on Wednesday resulted in the most comprehensive soaking I’ve received for a long while. Having set off from Collieston in sunshine, there was soon a darkening of the sky, accompanied by some ominous rumbles of thunder to the west. While the electrical storm never reached us on the coast, the rain certainly did, and I literally couldn’t have been any wetter even if I’d waded into the North Sea for a quick douk. Actually, it was all quite enjoyable in a masochistic sort of way; many of us spend so much of our lives hiding from the weather that we sometimes forget how refreshing it feels to be out in the elements.

Down on the shore, numerous jellyfish were in evidence this week. A neighbour of ours who regularly swims in Collieston harbour recently described the water there as being “like jellyfish soup”. A rare onshore blow of wind early in the week served to beach many of these free-floating jellies, depositing them on the strand-line like a collection of glass paperweights. Forvie volunteer Richard took the following photo on Forvie beach, depicting two of the commoner jellyfish species to occur in our waters: the Moon Jellyfish and the Compass Jellyfish. Richard’s photo shows to good effect the distinctive and diagnostic blue markings of each species – an excellent ‘compare and contrast’ exercise.

Ever eagle-eyed, Richard also spotted and photographed this Antler Moth feeding on the flowers of Ragwort alongside the Dune Trail footpath. So named for the whitish antler-shaped markings on each forewing, this is a species that’s active by both day and night. This no-sleep-till-Hammersmith lifestyle means that we often see Antler Moths nectaring at flowers by day, viz. Richard’s photo, while also regularly catching them in our light-trap overnight.

Also busily nectaring at path-side flowers were these Marmalade Hoverflies, perhaps freshly arrived from a North Sea crossing. Although almost any nectar-rich plant will do, they seem particularly drawn to the ragged, bright yellow flowers of Sow-thistles, where at times they blend in remarkably well.

With this week having been rather cooler than the preceding month, many of the flying insects were a good deal drowsier and more approachable than usual. Not least among these were the currently-abundant Dark Green Fritillary butterflies, and on this particular individual it was possible to get a good view of the rarely-glimpsed underside of the wings for once. This is what lends the species the ‘dark green’ bit of its common name, a title that makes no sense when you only see the orange-and-black upperside!

All these flying insects at least have plenty to eat just now, with an abundance of nectar-bearing flowers forming a richly colourful tapestry on the heath.

August is heather season at Forvie, and it’s possible just now to see all three species of heather – Ling, Bell Heather and Cross-leaved Heath – in flower at the same time. Indeed, in certain spots you can find all three growing in the same place. Like our jellyfish earlier on, this provides a great opportunity to learn the differences between the three kinds of heather.

In the bird world, the latter part of the summer and the early part of the autumn blend seamlessly into one another, and that’s where we currently find ourselves. Sure enough, John Keats’ twittering Swallows are gathering on the lines at the Collieston end of the Reserve just now.

Much to the Swallows’ consternation, they were joined this week by a juvenile Cuckoo, another species ultimately bound for Africa in the coming weeks. The Cuckoo’s superficial resemblance to a bird of prey – possibly a deliberate tactic for frightening songbirds away for just long enough to lay an egg in their unattended nests – means they tend to get short shrift from most other birds. But in reality, the only things that really need beware of a juvenile Cuckoo in August are hairy caterpillars – the Cuckoo’s favourite food.

Our neighbour Laura captured this lovely photo of what we initially thought was the same bird near the Reserve office – though it later transpired there were at least two, possibly three, Cuckoos doing the rounds. It’s likely that these each fledged from Meadow Pipit nests (a favourite ‘host species’) on the Reserve, representing a successful season at Forvie for this declining summer visitor.

Lastly, a vote of thanks to everyone who turned out for our Beach Clean on Tuesday, in partnership with East Grampian Coastal Partnership, on what turned out to be a properly dreich old day. It’s always good to get marine litter lifted off the Reserve, and we were very grateful for everyone who put in a shift – especially given the soggy working conditions. Good effort that!

So in conclusion, that was an enjoyably wet week on the Reserve, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. See you again next week – come rain or shine!

As the dust settles on a breathless and action-packed month of July, and the calendar duly ticks over into August, we find ourselves now entering the final, and most enjoyable, chapter of the northern summer. For much of Forvie’s wildlife, the season’s hard work is over and done: plants have flowered and are setting seed, insects are advancing through their rapid life-cycles, most of our birds have fledged their young, and this year’s cohort of tiny juvenile amphibians, freshly-emerged, are on the march. The Reserve and wider world are teeming with new life; this is a time for us to take stock, and to enjoy the fruits of the spring and summer’s labours, while hopefully basking in some late-summer sunshine – if the fates be willing, of course!

Another largely dry and warm week was dominated, as so often here, by a frequent strong breeze from the westerly quarter. Early in the week, this brought with it an acrid smell of smoke from the colossal wildfire which has devastated a large area of the Cairngorms National Park, some sixty miles to the west of us. This was a sobering reminder of the dangers of fire in the natural environment, and with our summers increasingly featuring high temperatures and long periods of drought, it’s an issue that is unlikely to go away.

Here at Forvie, with its dry coastal heathland and grassy dunes, the risk of fire is always at the forefront of our minds these days. Our advice to any would-be visitors is much the same as that given out by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service: don’t light barbeques or camp fires, and be exceptionally careful when disposing of cigarette ends. Please don’t let Forvie feature on the news as the next unfolding disaster.

It was with mixed feelings, then, that we found this disposable barbeque at our Waterside car park in the week. Whoever had left it had clearly tried to do the right thing, and had left it on the concrete slabs by the bins, rather than dumping the hot coals in the bin itself (or worse still, in the undergrowth beyond). But at the present time, with the fire risk in the region remaining exceptionally high, and the emergency services already stretched, why would you even take the risk of lighting one of these things in the countryside? Do us all a favour, and pack some sandwiches for a picnic instead – thereby eliminating the risk altogether. Personally, I love a good bonfire or BBQ as much as anyone – but now really isn’t the time!

We’re lucky at Forvie to have a lot of good neighbours in our local communities of Collieston and Newburgh, with many local residents going out of their way to help maintain and improve their local environment. Among these unsung heroes are some neighbours of ours from the High Town in Collieston, who for many years have done yeoman work in clearing marine litter off the beaches and coves of Forvie’s coast. This leaves the Reserve staff with the relatively minor job of tripping the rubbish down to the collection point in the pickup truck, where it is subsequently uplifted by our counterparts in Aberdeenshire Council. A true team effort, and something that wouldn’t be possible without the community-spirited residents of Collieston and Newburgh – we owe you a debt of gratitude.

Speaking of teamwork, on Monday we teamed up with Robert, Lewis and Nicole from Scottish Invasive Species Initiative for our annual Himalayan Balsam-bashing expedition along the Foveran Burn. We were grateful to Forvie volunteers Vikki, Richard and Jim for their respective contributions, and the company and craic helped to offset the inevitable nettle stings, and the attentions of the biting insects! This year we tackled the task a little earlier than in 2025, and hopefully this will result in less Balsam seed having been set this year. But only time will tell of course!

Summer at Forvie means, among other things, the staging of our annual programme of public events. We’re well through these now, with just a Moth Morning and a Beach Clean left to go. This past week, our evening talk at the Forvie Centre (entitled ‘Fluffy Chicks and Whitewash’, as per last week’s blog!) was well attended, with some excellent, intelligent lines of questioning in the Q&A that followed the talk. At times like these, my wavering faith in humanity is restored somewhat, and I am almost tempted to think that the future of nature conservation might yet be in good hands!

The subject of the talk was the Forvie ternery, and by Thursday, the slide show contained substantially more birds than the actual ternery itself. A real clear-out had taken place since the previous week, with the colony site now assuming a desolate, ghost-town sort of feel. But what a season it’s been – in my twenty summers at Forvie, this year’s results from the ternery would comfortably make it into the top five.

Even the insects down at the ternery are packing it in for the season. This year’s batch of Cinnabar moth caterpillars, stuffed to bursting point with Ragwort leaves, are now perambulating in all directions looking for somewhere to pupate. We’ll not then see them again until late spring in 2027, when they will emerge as newly-minted adult moths.

In the meantime, their chosen Ragwort foodplants have been stripped to the bare bones by the hungry catties, and you’d be hard-pressed to identify the plant from what remains. Only the shrapnel of yellow petals beneath the skeleton of the plant, and the attendant caterpillars themselves, offer any clues as to the stricken plant’s identity.

Another floral feature of the ternery just now is Sea Rocket, which is abundant on the shingle areas at the north end of the enclosure.

The dense growth of Sea Rocket provides useful cover for the few remaining chicks of Arctic and Little Terns, all of which will likely be fledged and gone within a few days of this piece going to press.

On the bird front across the wider Reserve, migrant warblers have been very prominent this past few days. Willow and Sedge Warblers are the most plentiful of the various species that pass through our area in late summer, and most of these will be young birds setting out on their very first southward migration. While watching a svelte little Sedgie bathing at the garden pond, or admiring the lithe agility of the tiny Willow Warblers flycatching in the trees overhead, it’s a marvel to think that these diminutive birds will be crossing the mighty Sahara in a few short weeks’ time.

Ahead of them lies an epic journey, and likewise ahead of us lies arguably the most exciting season of the year for those of us with an interest in migrant birds. Hopefully we’ll have much more on which to report in the coming weeks, as we advance through August – be sure and watch this space!

People who work in nature conservation tend to be stoically pragmatic. Perhaps it’s a symptom of being constantly bombarded with bad news (climate change, habitat destruction, species in decline, and the ongoing demolition of the entire biosphere), and choosing to spend a working life swimming against this proverbial flood tide. Either way, we’re generally not given over to excessive optimism or hyperbole, even when things appear to be going well (though I promise we’re still reasonably good fun over a pint or two). Having said all this, I’m now going to go completely against the grain, and say that in twenty summers at Forvie I can’t ever recall the Reserve looking as good as it has this past week.

This uncharacteristically upbeat assessment comes after another dry and settled summer week, during which we’ve enjoyed some warm temperatures and pleasant sunshine without ever receiving the toasting meted out to our neighbours south of the border. This has been the case for much of the past month, and combined with the occasional splash of rain, has treated us to a magnificent display of wild flowers right across the Reserve. The coast path from Collieston to Rockend, via Hackley Bay, is particularly impressive just now, and sadly the following photos, taken on a sub-standard phone camera, don’t begin to do it justice.

The current smorgasbord of wild flowers is comprised of so many different colours, shapes and textures that it’s impossible to pick a favourite species from the mix. This is much the same situation as being faced with a winter flock of ducks: is the Pintail drake the handsomest, or is it the Teal, or the Wigeon? Or even the humble Mallard? In truth they’re all delightful, but better still when viewed together, forming a rich tapestry of colours. Likewise, the current floral scene on the Reserve is exactly that: a rich tapestry indeed.

So without picking any particular favourite, there follows a selection of species, illustrating just some of the variety on offer at Forvie this week.

Bluebells (and for clarity, that’s the species that English folk call Harebells, and not the woodland spring flower; here in Scotland, the latter is often known by the name Wild Hyacinth) are a typical fixture of late summer and [sorry!] autumn here at Forvie. Usually, and as the name tends to suggest, they are a delicate pale blue, but on the Reserve we often find a white version as well. This particular patch of paradoxical ‘white Bluebells’ was found on the re-routed section of the Heath Trail.

Also along the route of the Heath Trail, the strange and distinctive fruiting stems of Stag’s-horn Club-moss are now in evidence. These form dense stands of lime-green among the lichens and heathers, and as such they stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. Despite its name, this isn’t a true moss, but rather a vascular (i.e. ordinary) plant masquerading as one. Anything to try and confuse us amateur botanists!

A curious fact about this species is that it produces spores (like a moss) rather than seeds (like a vascular plant). When dried, these spores are highly flammable, and can form a dust-explosion when mixed with air. Consequently they were historically used as photographic flash powder, and for special effects in theatrical productions and magic shows (think of the ‘puffft‘ of light and smoke as the poor old rabbit is pulled out of the hat, and you’ve got the picture). Jeez, this blog doesn’t half go off-piste sometimes.

We were visited mid-week by former National Nature Reserves colleague Stewart, who also noted the Club-moss on the heath. While checking it out, he went one better and found three flowering stems of Creeping Lady’s-tresses, a rare orchid and a ‘Forvie tick’ for all the current staffers (and yes, we did go out and ‘twitch’ it). This was a remarkable find indeed: this species is a pinewood specialist, usually associated with old-growth Caledonian pine forest. Here at Forvie we only ever had two (count ’em) Scots Pine trees; one blew over and was lost during Storm Arwen, and the remaining one (now the Lonesome Pine, obviously) is more than half a mile away from the spot where Stewart made his discovery. Go figure.

Our ‘stock’ orchid at Forvie, the Northern Marsh, is more or less finished for the year, with most of the flowers having now gone to seed. These have now been superseded by two other species: the rarer, smaller and more cryptic Frog Orchid, and the showier Heath Spotted Orchid. Neither is nearly as plentiful as their Northern Marsh counterpart, but they do both have a habit of popping up next to the footpaths. Eyes to the ground, and you might strike lucky!

The profusion of flowers just now is accompanied by a similarly rich insect fauna. Among the most obvious of all Forvie’s invertebrates are the Dark Green Fritillary butterflies which can be found throughout the Reserve, with many of them still in freshly-minted condition.

By contrast, this Common Blue looked a bit of a sorry sight, and had likely survived a very close call with a predator of some description.

We didn’t have to look far, either, to spot the likely culprit. This fine male Stonechat was perched atop a nearby willow, on the lookout for another meal on wings. Having narrowly missed out on the Common Blue, he probably wouldn’t have had to wait long for another insect to pass by. This, after all, is the season of plenty on the Reserve.

This summer has been richly rewarding for our waterbirds too, with all Forvie’s key species having enjoyed a bumper breeding season. While the final results are not yet in, the preliminary returns for our Eiders, Black-headed Gulls and four tern species have all been superb. Seeing the estuary heaving with fledglings and ducklings is indescribably uplifting for those of us involved in protecting and monitoring these vulnerable birds. These are scenes and memories to treasure.

Confession time now. I can’t say that summer is my favourite season here (normally, in fact, it wouldn’t make it into my top three). This relentlessly busy time of the year demands a lot of hard work and nervous energy, and it’s usually a relief when it’s all over. But without wishing to hex what remains of the summer of 2026, it’s been a golden season at Forvie. At times, it’s even been quite enjoyable. And coming from a stoically pragmatic, ageing and occasionally grumpy conservationist, that’s high praise indeed.

JFCI. Just Flippin’ Count It! That’s what a lot of early July is for us here on the NNR. We always say that about 1/3 of our job is field biologist, and these are the months when this part of the job comes to the fore. Just 6 weeks ago, we had our first big count, with the black-headed gull nest census and, since then, we have been constantly counting.

The past couple of weeks have been focussing on monitoring fledging success of breeding birds in the ternery. The first to fly are always the black-headed gulls; they do, after all, return first and have laid eggs by mid-April. The first gull chicks fledged on the 7th of June and we know that their numbers will usually peak about a fortnight later. But we have to count them for several days in a row to make sure we do catch the peak number of fledglings. This will be the measure of how well the birds have done this year and can indicate the wider health of the population.

So far, at least, it looks like a good year for black-headed gull breeding success. From 1,471 nests, we know we’ve had a minimum 1,534 fledgers – so more than 1 per nest. We know this is a minimum count, as birds will fledge before and after our peak count – but it’s a consistent way of monitoring these birds year on year.

Next up are the Sandwich terns. This year, we had 891 nests and their peak fledgling should be this week. In fact, I’m going to have to stop writing this for a couple of hours to go and count them……

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……right, that’s me back. Slightly fewer fledglings today than on Tuesday, when we had 719 between the estuary and the colony, which means they could be starting to fly off into the wider world. There’s always a bit of mixed feeling when the birds leave – while the colony seems silent and desolate without the birds, we’re always hugely relieved to see them go.

It’s then usually a toss-up as to which species we’ll be counting next. Will it be the ‘commics’ or will the little terns fledge first? This year, unusually, it’s the little terns that have started to fledge first. We know we have at least 11 fledged so far, with at least another four medium-sized chicks, plus two really dinky ones still running around in the colony. If they all make it to adulthood, we’ll be delighted.

Our next counts will be of common and Arctic tern fledglings. We only had the first of these flying on Monday, so they’ll probably peak late next week sometime. We hope they’ll grow up and fly soon, as the news of another marine heatwave is very worrying. This can affect fish distribution and therefore food availability for the birds. If the food supply fails before the birds fledge, we will see mass starvation of chicks in the colony, and more widely up and down the east coast. A potentially sad result of our rapidly warming planet.

But, to cheer us all up from the thought of all our seabirds dying, here’s some cute duckling pictures. First up, the iconic eider duck. Last count of these revealed 316 well-grown ducklings, so, fingers crossed, it looks like eiders will have a good breeding year

Possibly even cuter, there are 54 shelducklings on the estuary, ranging form small and fluffy to adult sized. This, too, represents a good breeding year for these birds.

Walk through Waterside wood in spring and you’ll likely hear a weird assortment of honks, screeches and bill-clattering coming from above. This is all from the 15 heron nests that make up the Forvie heronry. Thanks to volunteer Richard for counting these!

It’s not just birds we count here, although they do make up the bulk of our survey work. Regular readers of the blog will know we regularly count seals and, for the past couple of years, we’ve been aided in that by PhD researcher Claire. However, she’s coming to the end of her fieldwork as described in her blog here… Aberdeen Marine Mammal Project – News …so it’ll be back to Eyeball Mk 1 plus telescope. And a big thanks to Claire for all the data she’s given us over the past couple of years.

We also have a long-standing butterfly transect on the reserve, which was set up in the late 1970s. This runs between the start of April and the end of September and counts butterflies within a set distance either side of a set route. It has to be done on a fine day and that, as I’m sure you can imagine, is a huge challenge in some years! Butterflies – and moths – are really good indicators of environmental change. We see some species move north as the climate warms (cinnabar moth) but others have disappeared from the reserve (small pearl-bordered fritillary) and we’re not really sure why. Sadly, butterflies and many other insects are generally on the decline, due to changes in land management in the wider countryside.

So, why do we count all these things? It’s not just because we enjoy looking at them, though that is true. It’s for the very simple reason that you have to know what’s there to know how to look after it. Monitoring populations can also let us know about any ‘red flags’ in the wider world – if the birds have had a good season here, why are fewer coming back? What’s happening elsewhere – are they getting killed on migration or starving because food stocks are failing? If butterflies are declining here, are they also declining across the UK? And, if they are, are other insects? And if they’re declining, who is going to pollinate all our food? While we might only ever have a snapshot of what happens on our reserve, the data we gather helps feed into a wider picture of the health of our natural world.

It’s ironic, looking back at this blog, all about counting things – I was rubbish at maths in school. It was my least favourite subject by far. I mean, I could do arithmetic, if you gave me a pencil and paper and some time, but anything involving long division, simultaneous equations or a Greek letter was black magic. I’m still of that opinion 35 years later and think I’ll just stick with basic counting. Speaking of which, it’s almost the weekend (when this is being written, at any rate), so I’m off to count the bubbles in a cold one. See you next week!

The unsettled theme to summer 2026 continued this week, as June segued seamlessly into July. The working week thus comprised several mild and indifferent days, one decent splash of rain (Wednesday), a spell of violent high winds (Thursday) and one proper scorcher (Friday). Unsurprisingly, given our high latitude and coastal location, even the hot days here are mild and gentle when compared with what’s being experienced elsewhere in the UK and Europe this summer, and much to our relief too. We northerners – people and wildlife alike – just aren’t cut out for serious heat.

The warmer days have been excellent, though, for insect action. July is probably the best month of the year at Forvie for Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), and the new month certainly started off in a lively fashion with numerous species on show throughout the week. Unusually, some of them even deigned to pose for the camera for a change, thereby presenting a rare series of opportunities to observe and record them in real detail.

Some species, of course, are more easily identified than others. Local knowledge can help you out massively as well: you know, for instance, that any blue butterfly you see on Forvie is going to be a Common Blue. This makes life considerably easier than in many other places in Europe, where there are multiple similar species all on the wing at the same time. On the chalk downland in southern England, where I learned my butterflies, you also had to rule out Holly Blue, Small Blue, Chalkhill Blue and Adonis Blue for starters. In Europe, flying insect diversity tends to decrease with distance travelled north and west, and here on the Reserve – at 57 degrees north – we’ve just got the one species of blue to worry about. But what a beautiful species it is, as we’re reminded on the rare occasion that one stays still long enough to afford us a decent view!

Common Blue is one of our smaller butterflies, with a wingspan of little more than an inch. Similar in size, but with a very different colour-scheme, is the Small Heath, which can be found in large numbers throughout the Reserve during high summer. Once again, the identification is made straightforward by a lack of similar species in our area; their small size and orange-and-silver colouration are unique in a local context. Like the Common Blue, they are lively and active, and getting close views isn’t always easy – unless you’re lucky enough to happen upon a mating pair, as we did in South Forvie this week.

Ringlet butterflies, so named for the row of golden-ringed ‘eye spots’ on the underside of the hindwings, are a common sight at Forvie in July. They’re most often encountered around the Forvie Centre and along the track to Collieston village, where their larvae feed on various grasses. Their dark-chocolate ground colour and weak, fluttering flight make them easy to identify too.

If you cross paths with a bright orange, fast-flying butterfly on the Reserve in July and August, chances are it’ll be the paradoxically-named Dark Green Fritillary (it’s actually the underside of the wings that are dark green). There are dozens of fritillary species in Europe that all look confusingly similar, but at Forvie we only have two: this one, and the much dinkier Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary. The latter, however, has become very rare here, and may indeed now be locally extinct. So if you see an orange butterfly with black markings here, there’s a 99% chance it’ll be a ‘DGF’.

Not dissimilar in appearance, but with black-and-white wingtips more reminiscent of the famous Monarch butterfly of North America, is the Painted Lady. We’ve been seeing small numbers of these migrant butterflies from the south for several weeks now, and it’s possible that these are the vanguard of a larger immigration to come later in the summer. Like many wildlife spectacles, these periodic invasions are seemingly random and hard to predict. However, we live in hope that we might see the scenes of July and August 2019 repeated, when literally thousands of these attractive insects passed through the Reserve.

Associated with the Painted Lady immigration was this Hummingbird Hawk-moth at Collieston. Another long-distance migrant, these cross the North Sea each summer from their strongholds in southern and central Europe, and this week’s individual was the first we’d crossed paths with this year.

Speaking of moths, and firsts for the year, this rather lovely Angle Shades turned up just outside the office door early in the week. This is a moth more usually associated with the autumn – whisper it quietly now!

Meanwhile, this cryptically-patterned moth was spotted roosting on a post down at Waterside car park, and it wasn’t a species to which I could instantly put a name. A quick bit of research, however, revealed that this species actually has a rather splendid name. Meet the Brussels Lace moth.

Much more straightforward was this mighty Northern Eggar which we discovered along the Dune Trail footpath mid-week. Its large size, delightfully fluffy body and distinctive wing markings rendered it unmistakable, while its magnificent feathery antennae identified this individual as a male.

We don’t often see Northern Eggars as adult moths (apart from the odd one buzzing past at 40 mph), but their caterpillars are a very familiar sight on the heath. What a delight to see the different stages of these beautiful moths’ life cycle during the course of the year.

In addition to the Lepidoptera, it’s been a good week for the more obscure invertebrates too. En-route to the ternery on Monday, I happened upon this chunky-looking beetle just emerging from its subterranean quarters in the dunes.

Closer inspection revealed that the beast in question was a Dune Chafer, a scarce species with a predilection for sandy places. Which makes perfect sense, of course. I too share the Dune Chafer’s love of this sort of habitat: this is a beetle after my own heart.

Other invertebrates are so cryptic or obscure that I am forced to admit defeat. Ichneumon wasps are a case in point. These solitary wasps are important predators of other invertebrates (including various ‘garden pests’), and in the UK alone there are upwards of 2,000 species (compared with just 60-odd butterflies, for example). Identifying them to species requires expertise I can only dream of. Even the word ‘ichneumon’ is difficult to fathom. Consequently, and to my amusement, reserve manager Catriona simply refers to them as ‘icky newmans’ – think I’ll just do the same.

Spending a wee while looking at and photographing all the ‘small things’ on the Reserve this week was a timely reminder of the importance of insects in the natural world. These are the creatures that make the biosphere tick, fulfilling a vast range of roles from pollinators to recyclers, and everything in between. They also form critical links in the food chain, supporting everything from amphibians to insectivorous birds to top predators, not least Homo sapiens. You really can’t say fairer than that.

Of all the threats facing the natural world in the 21st Century, the one that terrifies me most is the collapse of our insect populations. Lose these, and the battle to save nature (and, by definition, humanity too) is also lost. Good reason, then, to sweat the small things: our existence and theirs are inextricably bound together. We might get irritable when being bitten by a Midge, or when a Wasp tries to share your pint, but all these insects are critical cogs in the great machine of life. Spread the word!