It’s never the best start to the working week when you’re soaked walking TO the office on a Monday morning. But it was a continuation on last week’s theme of soggy socks and (as we’d say in the local dialect) “sipin’ weet” staff – and that was before 9am! Still, time, tide and weather waits for no man – or indeed reserve staff – and we just had to get cracked on with continuing dismantling the old eider fence. Still, at least the sleet had turned to rain….got to look on the bright side!

While we were doing some of the work on the fence, we were accompanied by a cracking male stonechat, who spent much of the morning following us along the fenceline. It’s likely that pulling up wire was disturbing small insects hidden in the vegetation, which the ‘chat was gratefully snatching up.

We often only half-jokingly say a lot of reserve work consists of cutting something down, digging it up or, in extreme cases, setting fire to it. These can be oddly satisfying jobs but it’s always nicer doing something constructive, building or repairing something. Consequently, we jumped at the chance to help repair a bridge at our sister reserve Muir of Dinnet during the week. While the decking is sound, the handrail had seen better days and, for safety reasons, needed replaced.

Another thing we only say half-jokingly is that we’re jacks of all trades and masters of none. And it’s true of reserve work – you have to turn your hand to a bit of amateur joinery one day, then be a professional field biologist the next. While some people might struggle with the lack of consistency, it’s often the very thing that reserve staff enjoy – the sheer variety in our work. One minute it’s clearing out drains….

….the next it’s counting seals. There’s been anywhere between 150- 700 around the Ythan mouth lately, thought the number varies greatly from day-to-day. The seals here can go on fishing trips for weeks at a time, ranging as far as the coast of Denmark or Holland. It’s tempting to think of animals we see locally as ‘ours’ but it’s easy to forget that nature knows few boundaries, and animals will go wherever food, mates or undisturbed resting places (like the haul-out here) are available.

Our fortnightly low-tide bird counts are another reminder of nature without boundaries. Many of the birds we see here are fleeing colder weather elsewhere, be it from up in the Arctic circle or from hill tops closer to home. We know from rings that there’s a Finnish-hatched curlew holding a winter territory near the end of Inches Road and many of ‘our’ other wading birds will also have come from a long way north.

They may even overwinter here one year, and choose somewhere completely different the next year. A couple of years ago we saw these black-tailed godwits, which had been ringed in a previous winter in Ireland.

While heading down Inches Road to do our bird count, we noticed several smashed cockle and mussel shells on the road. No, Molly Malone hadn’t been pushing her barrow through Newburgh instead of Dublin, the culprit was a bit closer to home. Both gulls and crows have learned to pick up shellfish and drop them onto a hard surface to smash them open. And the bonus of dropping them onto tarmac is you can’t miss, whereas if you drop them on the beach there’s a chance they’ll hit a sandy or muddy bit and won’t break.

Away from the estuary, while out clearing drains, we took the opportunity to check in on the dead whale at North Broadhaven. While it’s always sad to see such a magnificent creature dead, it’s also interesting to see how it has decomposed over the past couple of years. This natural process helps put nutrients back into the marine environment and the carcass of the whale has fed a lot of creatures as it beaks down. Quite a change!

In fact, change is one of the few constants in the universe. And we certainly see that, with the changing seasons, the weather and the constant throughput of wildlife. Especially the weather – we’ve had a bit of everything this week, for a soaking most days, to clear nights and overnight frosts.

Still, this isn’t a bad view to open the door to in a morning. But, as they say, ‘red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning’… I’m off to light the fire and boil the kettle before the next lot of rain arrives!

The third week of November at Forvie saw the winds swinging to the north, bringing a blast of Arctic air to north-east Scotland. With temperatures plunging, and with snow, sleet and frost dominating proceedings, it appeared that winter had arrived early on the Reserve. In its suddenness and timing, this cold snap represented an uncanny mirror-image of late November last year, in both cases following on from a mild and nondescript autumn.

Here in the North-east, the open landscapes and huge skies make it easy to see what’s coming. Much of the sleet and snow this week arrived in the form of heavy squally showers, which you could see approaching for miles in advance. They looked spectacular in the distance, and you just knew that within half an hour, you were going to be on the receiving end.

I tried to photograph one of these incoming squalls early in the week, but was foiled by a combination of the cold and a recalcitrant ‘smart’ (sic) phone. Somehow the phone had burned through 35% of its battery power inside an hour (I’m not sure if it was shivering, or perhaps trying to boil some water or something), and the resultant ‘battery saver mode’ meant I couldn’t see the screen when attempting to take a photo with the last 3% of its battery life. Or at least that’s my excuse for the classic fingers-over-the-lens masterpiece reproduced below.

When the squalls did arrive, they were sharp and mean. Few people besides the Reserve staff were out and about in these conditions, but the few we did meet were dressed up like Kenny from South Park. At least it reminded you that you were alive!

We’ve remarked in the past about how November is the month for all the odd jobs and unglamorous tasks which are essential to life on the Reserve. One such job that we started to tackle this week was the removal of some redundant fencing in South Forvie. The fencing in question was a semi-permanent enclosure designed to protect nesting Eiders which, upon completion of the fence a number of years ago, decided to push off to the ternery and nest there instead. Honestly, you can take a horse to water and all that…

Old fences are a blight on the landscape, and not just in the aesthetic sense. They pose a collision risk to deer and flying birds, as well as an entanglement risk. Countless mammals and birds fall victim to fence collisions every year – and given that old fences may remain in the environment for decades after falling into disrepair, the butcher’s bill across the whole country is very high indeed. So with this particular fence no longer fulfilling any practical use, it’s best that we remove it from the environment altogether. And what better week to get started?!

The comprehensive soaking we received during the course of one such day’s work led to a familiar scene later on in front of the cottage fire. It’s on days like these that having warm and dry feet is thought of as a privilege, rather than being taken for granted.

As many folk take great delight in telling us on a regular basis, Reserve staff have The Best Job In The World. And while I’m not about to argue with that, the cold reality doesn’t totally accord with the warm rosy-tinted image. After spending two days hauling rusty fencing-wire out of the long grass, we spent the next day clearing ditches in the sleet. Living the dream or what?

Our vehicular steed for the ditching job was a Maxus electric pickup truck, currently outbased at Forvie for off-road trials. If successful, it’s likely that this sort of vehicle will eventually supersede the older diesel-engined type throughout the NatureScot fleet, leading to a reduction in our carbon footprint. First impressions were that it performed creditably over the rough Rockend track, though it won’t get a real workout until next week when we’ll put it to the test on the soft sand of Forvie beach.

Meanwhile we also undertook, in railway parlance, some ‘gauging trials’ – i.e. checking to see if it’ll fit through certain gaps, in order to determine its ‘route availability’. Catriona was in the driving seat when it breezed through the bollards at Waterside car park, with all of 25 mm to spare each side once the wing-mirrors were folded in. Easy!

Later in the week the snow and sleet, part-thawed, gave way to a hard frost overnight from Thursday into Friday. Getting around the Reserve, either by vehicle or on foot, required a great deal of care; this was not the time to be hurrying.

Frosty conditions represent the best opportunities to see Kingfishers at Forvie. Typically found around shallow fresh waters, Kingfishers can be frozen off some of their favoured inland haunts during cold snaps, and may head to the coast where the salty waters remain unfrozen. Catriona photographed this one on the Foveran Burn at Newburgh, taking a break between fishing expeditions.

Another classic hard-weather species to put in an appearance this week was the Snow Bunting, with several lone birds appearing at different spots around the Reserve and the village of Collieston (though I suppose there’s a chance that all the records involved the same ‘teleporting’ individual). While flocks of Snow Buntings can be skittish and difficult to approach, solitary individuals are often endearingly tame, preferring to sit tight rather than fly away. The chance of an encounter with one of these little birds, tough and hardy yet beautiful and approachable, is one of the up-sides of being out on the Reserve on the bitterly cold days such as we’ve experienced this week.

Finally, it looks like the breeding season for Forvie’s Grey Seals may be drawing to a close. The second of the two pups – the diminutive ‘class of 2025’ – is now just about weaned, and will soon be making its own way in the world. It’s not impossible that we may get one or two more births before the year ends, but with each week that passes, this is looking more and more unlikely. Still, two pups are better than none!

And on that note, I’m away to the fireside to see if my socks have dried out yet. See you next week – and wrap up warm in the meantime.

A colleague recently remarked to me about a strange phenomenon which occurs annually at Forvie, seemingly in contravention of the laws of physics and the space-time continuum. Basically, the summer here seems to go on forever, while the autumn comes and goes in the wink of an eye. This was an interesting observation, and one with which I was absolutely inclined to agree. It brought to mind the old analogy likening life to a toilet roll: the nearer the end you get, the faster it goes.

In truth, this perception is probably due to two things, namely the high seasonal workload and the endless daylight on the Reserve in summer. In autumn, by contrast, the former has simmered down somewhat, and the latter diminishes rapidly from one week to the next. Consequently the days pass quickly, and somehow we find ourselves in the last couple of weeks of autumn 2025.

One of the best things about late autumn is that dawn and dusk occur at times of the day when you can actually appreciate them (and not at 3am and 11pm respectively, as in high summer). While the previous Tuesday had produced a beautiful sunset over Sand Loch, this Tuesday offered up a fabulously still dawn, with the water of the loch mirror-calm under a pastel sky just before sunrise.

Early morning at Sand Loch can sometimes produce sightings of wildlife that you won’t see through the middle of the day. This might be a fishing Otter, a Water Vole motoring across the outflow ditch, or perhaps some roosting waterfowl waking up and heading out on their morning commute. Prominent among the latter recently have been Goosanders, with birds tending to flight into the loch in the last dregs of evening light, and departing in the dawn. This means they tend to slip under the radar most of the time, but a recent dawn count of the loch revealed a whopping 81 Goosanders at roost. Just half an hour later, as the sun rose, not a single one remained.

The reason for my slightly-earlier-than-usual start on Tuesday was a day’s work off-site at Muir of Dinnet NNR. No fallen trees to deal with this time, though; instead it was a day spent driving the Giant Snail (aka the Softrak cut-and-collect machine). Reserve manager Simon had arranged a loan of the machine to carry out the annual cut of Dinnet’s species-rich grassland. This operation is basically a massively scaled-up version of what we do with the meadow around the Forvie Centre each autumn, stripping away the nutrients to suppress the rank grasses, thereby favouring the growth of wild flowers.

Despite looking like something out of Thunderbirds, the Softrak is a straightforward machine to operate, with the controls more reminiscent of a child’s toy than an agricultural machine. And although the driving position is a bit awkward, with the operator having to lean to one side to see past the chute and keep an eye on the height of the cutting bar, it has a cosy cab with an excellent heater. This was very much appreciated given that the weather deteriorated through the day; after that stunning morning at Sand Loch, I ended up driving back to Forvie in heavy rain and fog. But that’s November!

As well as managing the wild flower meadow, we also used the Softrak to cut four experimental plots in the neighbouring grass fields in the hope that they may be occupied by Lapwings in the 2026 breeding season. This was a speculative move, with no guarantee of success – but nothing ventured and all that! We’ll keep our fingers crossed come the spring – watch this space.

Back at Forvie, we welcomed students and staff from the University of Aberdeen for their annual environmental sampling field course on Thursday. As usual, the Reserve staff were drafted in to help the bird-survey groups with their work, particularly in terms of species identification. And as usual, we had a cold north-easter and intermittent rain for company!

The bird groups were stationed respectively at the Tin Hut on the golf course at Newburgh, at Waulkmill bird hide, and in a lay-by overlooking the Snub. Of the three groups, the latter definitely drew the short straw, having neither a seat nor a roof. Fieldwork, like life, isn’t always fair!

The field course started just after 0700 on Thursday morning, finishing at about 1530, and thus making use of all the available daylight. For most of the day the tide, like the autumn itself, was ebbing, exposing more and more food-rich mud: an all-you-can-eat buffet for wading-birds.

This is probably the one occasion in the year that we get to spend the whole day observing the comings and goings on the estuary. And each time we do this, we’re given a reminder (as if we needed one) of what a remarkably rich environment the estuary provides. While you’d be forgiven for thinking that the barren-looking mudflats were little more than a wet and salty desert, nothing could be further from the truth.

While migratory waterfowl are hard to miss at Forvie in the autumn, the same can’t be said of migrant songbirds. The autumn of 2025 has generally been very poor for small migrants, with even supposedly ‘common’ species in very short supply. In some autumns we may see thousands of Redwings pass through in a single day, but this year the most I’ve seen on any one day was twenty-five – otherwise it’s just been ones and twos here and there. This week saw a handful arriving from the east, before quickly melting away inland; typically shy, they are notoriously difficult to observe at close quarters.

If, however, you are lucky enough to see a Redwing well – which requires either good fieldcraft or good fortune – they are remarkably handsome and charismatic birds. Treasure that moment!

Rather more approachable were the Long-tailed Tits that turned up unexpectedly in Collieston in the week. We see these reasonably frequently at Waterside and Logie Buchan, but in North Forvie and Collieston they remain surprisingly rare. They also rate very highly in the cuteness stakes.

Lastly, a visit to Logie Buchan bridge at the end of a mid-week waterfowl census found the Smew still present and correct on the river, and also revealed these rather lovely little mushrooms growing on the parapet of the bridge. As I’ve frequently admitted in the past, mycology is not my strong suit as a naturalist, but I think these are Moss Bells, or Galerina sp. to give them their scientific name. But I may of course be wrong…

I had never knowingly seen these delightful little mushrooms before, though of course in my ignorance I may have overlooked them on countless occasions in the past. Still, they stand as proof that even at this tail end of the year, as the autumn ebbs away, there are discoveries to be made in the natural world. Make the most of that daylight!

John Keats has oft been quoted in our writings on the Forvie blog, having famously described autumn as the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’. In our part of the world, however, a more appropriate description might be something like ‘season of gales and meteorological violence’ – but hey, let’s not allow reality to get in the way of romance all the time. And anyway, this past week has, genuinely, featured a lot of mist.

Actually, and in typical North-east fashion, it’s technically been fog rather than mist. The difference between the two, from a meteorologist’s perspective, is simply the density. If visibility is over 1,000 metres, then it’s mist. But if the visibility is less than 1,000 metres – which it was at Forvie for a big chunk if this week – then it’s fog.

For a couple of days, our visibility was well below 100 metres, never mind 1,000. Driving was a hazardous business, and even being out on foot was a strangely alien experience. The Reserve was wrapped in a thick blanket of silence; the stillness of the air was somewhat unnerving, given that we’re used to being lashed by the wind almost every day of the year. Even my ‘commute’ between the Reserve office and Collieston – a half-mile walk which I’ve undertaken at least twice a day for more than seventeen years – felt bizarrely unfamiliar.

All that moisture in the air led to prodigious dewfall. The grassland of the Reserve was saturated as if by a prolonged downpour, with all the spiders’ webs bejewelled with tiny beads of water. This was a dense, ‘searching’ sort of moisture that found its way through the slightest weakness in your boots; not for the first time this year, and probably not the last either, the house was bedecked with bedraggled socks on the radiators, and boots stuffed with newspaper steaming by the fireside.

The damp understorey of Waterside Wood this week played host to some late examples of fungi. These Parasol Mushrooms were beginning to look somewhat past their best…

…while some of Forvie’s wildlife had evidently been having a nibble at these Plums-and-Custard mushrooms – and who could blame them, given the delicious-sounding name?

By way of contrast, the following species has arguably the most revolting name in the entire natural world. Meet the Dog Sick Slime Mould.

Despite the family resemblance, a slime mould is not a fungus, but rather a colony of single-celled organisms known as protozoans. Like fungi, however, the bits we can actually see are the fruiting bodies which produce the reproductive spores. This particular species is usually found on damp grass, where it feeds on tiny particles of organic matter, and can even move around to find food. Thus slime moulds effectively do a great clean-up job in the natural world, while not causing any harm to the grasses on which they are often found. It’s just a shame about the name!

Casting our eyes up rather than down for a moment, a prominent species in our area this week has been the Starling. Despite being much-declined in recent decades, they are still very plentiful in our corner of the world; some impressive flocks have been present around the Forvie Centre all week, probably comprised of both Scottish-bred birds and Continental immigrants. Starlings are one of those ‘Marmite species’, in that folk seem to either love or loathe them – or, depending on the circumstances, perhaps a bit of both.

I must confess that I personally have a love-hate relationship with them as well. They’re far from being my favourite birds when brash parties of them gatecrash the garden feeding-station; they monopolise the feeders, throw the food everywhere, and remorselessly bully all the other birds. And they’re bad-tempered to boot, constantly squabbling and squealing at each other, their harsh voices somewhere between tortured metal and fingernails down the blackboard. Trust me, it’s not a soothing soundtrack by which to settle down at the laptop, and I often find myself slamming the door to shut out the racket, so I can hear myself think. Sorry, I love my birds, but give me a Chiffchaff or a Blackcap any day.

But on the flip side, Starlings en-masse are one of the planet’s great wildlife spectacles. Anyone who has ever been to a big Starling roost (or ‘murmuration’ in popular terminology) can hardly fail to have been impressed. Even the feeding flocks at the Forvie Centre this week have been breathtaking, lining up along the telegraph wires like musical notation before swarming down into the pasture – and they weren’t even ‘murmurating’. Judge for yourself in the following couple of short videos – I give you the Starling, the ‘Marmite bird’.

Speaking of Blackcaps, a small number of these distinctive warblers with their neat little skull-caps have continued to pass through this week. They, and the accompanying immigrant Blackbirds, remain grateful for any ‘mellow fruitfulness’ on offer in local hedges, copses and gardens.

A full moon during the week (the ‘Beaver moon’, apparently) brought about some conspicuously high tides on the Ythan Estuary. The island of Inch Geck, in the middle reaches of the estuary between Waterside and Waulkmill, all but disappeared, and the golf course at Newburgh was partially flooded too. A couple of the tees and fairways nearest the river were completely inundated, and the usual golfing clientele were replaced by a variety of waterfowl, all cashing in on the unusual feeding opportunities. It’s an ill wind and all that…

For all the preponderance of mist, fog and rain, the week wasn’t a complete write-off. Early in the week we did in fact enjoy a short period of sunshine, and Tuesday evening at least produced a fine sunset. It’s largely been an overcast sort of autumn: this week, somebody told me that last month was the dullest October on record, and for once I’m not talking about the lack of rare migrant birds. As a consequence, the rare clear evenings have been appreciated all the more.

That just about concludes this week’s missives then. See you again next week, folks – or at least I will if this fog ever lifts!

Since hitting the ‘publish’ button last time around, another working week has flown by in approximately five minutes, and with it October has receded into the rearview mirror. I hope to think that this apparently rapid passage of time has more to do with us working hard than getting older, but who knows? In any case, the year 2025 is indisputably growing old: ten months down, and just two to go.

The last week of October continued the pattern of the rest of the month; that is to say, there was actually no pattern at all. Cold, warm, wet, windy, settled, sunny, and generally just confusing – and sometimes all on the same day. But still a great week to be out of doors – aren’t they all though?

Late autumn, of course, is high season for Forvie’s Grey Seals. Their pupping season starts in earnest during late October, and notwithstanding a couple of earlier, unsuccessful, premature births, we have now had our first successful birthings of the 2025 season.

At the time of writing, there are two pups present at the haul-out. The eldest of these is about two weeks old, and belongs to a female known by local observers as ‘Eagle’. This particular female has been pupping at Forvie for several years now, and as a relatively experienced mum, she makes the whole process look easy. Her pup is looking exceptionally healthy and well-fed, and it won’t be long now before it’s fully weaned. Grey Seal pups are weaned within just 17-21 days of birth, after which they are fully independent, in spite of their small size and helpless appearance. This is due to the high energy content of the mother’s milk, which allows for rapid development and weight gain. All that weight that the pups put on during their first three weeks of life will help to sustain them as they set out on their own, and learn to fish for themselves.

The second pup arrived just a few days ago, and is consequently a good deal smaller than the first at present. These first few days of life are when the pups are most vulnerable, and without wishing to sound like a broken record, it’s worth re-iterating the importance of minimising disturbance to the haul-out at this critical time. Seasonal signage on the Reserve helps direct visitors away from the haul-out area, and we’re grateful to visitors for respecting this arrangement.

If you want to catch a glimpse of the pups, as well as taking in the spectacle of the haul-out as a whole, the best way to do so is from the splendid boardwalk at Newburgh, courtesy of the Newburgh & Ythan Community Trust. I appreciate that regular readers are probably all well aware of this arrangement already – but please help us spread the word, for the good of both people and seals!

Also present near the seal haul-out are Forvie’s remaining Eiders, whose numbers typically decline through the autumn as they head southwards down the coast to the Tay Estuary or beyond. We count them roughly every second week throughout the autumn and winter, and sure enough, our recent counts revealed that numbers had dropped from over 600 in the first week of October to just 270 in the last.

Also undertaken fortnightly are the corresponding low-tide counts of various wildfowl and wader species, with one such count taking place on Wednesday of this week. For once we had a decent day’s weather for the job, albeit with a bitterly cold north-wester blowing across the estuary, and the light was pretty good too. All we then needed was for the birds to co-operate, and sit still while we counted them…

…and not take off two-thirds of the way through – sigh.

Thankfully not all species are as jumpy and nervous as our Golden Plover flock; others such as Turnstones are much more obliging, and are approachable almost to the point of being tame. This makes life substantially easier for the fieldworker!

While out for the count, so to speak, we espied the unmistakable tracks of an Otter on the mudflats at the mouth of the Tarty Burn. Being largely nocturnal (or at least crepuscular) and discreet in their habits, we don’t see Otters nearly as often as we see their tracks and signs. But it’s nice to know that they’re out there all the same!

These wildfowl-and-wader counts start at the Ythan mouth, next to the seal haul-out, and end at Logie Buchan bridge near the town of Ellon, which is essentially the upper tidal reach of the estuary. Here the water is fresher than is the case further downstream (where there is more saline influence from the sea), and subsequently this part of the estuary sometimes plays host to species that favour fresh water over salt or brackish. One such example is the Smew, a small diving-duck closely related to the Goosander and Red-breasted Merganser which are ever-present on the estuary. In contrast to the two more familiar species, Smew occur less than annually here, and it’s always a bit of an occasion when you find one. Better still, Ron Macdonald was soon on the scene with his camera, and kindly allowed me to reproduce the following (beautiful, as usual) photograph.

With the clocks having been set back, dusk occurs all too early on these late-autumn afternoons. One of the biggest challenges with the wader counts in November through January will be finding enough hours of useable daylight to get the job done. These counts can only be carried out at low tide – and ideally when the weather isn’t trying to kill you either – and combined with the limited daylight available, this fairly narrows down your options. It’s a case of having to cram the counts in whenever the opportunity arises – and working as quickly as you can on the day!

One compensation for working up until dusk is that you get to jam in on the evening flight of wild swans and geese – one of life’s pleasures for sure!

And by the time you get home, there’s a chance to enjoy the North-east’s fabulous dark skies for a moment, before lighting the fire and putting the kettle on. Every cloud and all that!

A bit of a sad note on which to finish up this week. At the end of October we bade a fond farewell to seasonal warden Joe, whose season’s work with us has now come to an end. For the second year running, Joe has brought to the Forvie team a huge amount of energy, hard yakka and bonhomie, and we can’t thank him enough for his efforts, or indeed his company. We’ve been very fortunate at Forvie in recent years to have had some brilliant young seasonal staff pass through the doors, and none more so than Joe. You’ll be missed by us all!

So here’s wishing you all the very best, mate, and good luck with whatever comes next – and I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again!

By the time this piece goes to press, the clocks will have been set back their requisite hour, and once again we find ourselves in the latter stages of the northern autumn. In the natural world, this part of the season brings with it a new sense of urgency for those species still on their travels. No more the lazy days and leisurely wanderings of August and September; now, with the day-lengths rapidly shortening and the temperatures dropping, if you’ve got somewhere to go, you’d better get a move on. This is the business end of the migration season.

Sure enough, the pace has quickened noticeably this past few days, with various comings and goings noted across the Reserve throughout the week. Waterfowl have been particularly conspicuous, with huge gatherings of Pink-footed Geese on the estuary numbering well into the thousands, and a steady southward trickle of Whooper Swans providing a haunting musical backing-track to the working week. Meanwhile, a south-easterly blow and some rain on Monday delivered an arrival of small migrants to our shores too, notably Blackcaps, which were present on the Reserve and in the gardens of Collieston in substantial numbers. For these tired and hungry travellers, any soft fruit was gratefully seized upon, and here at author’s HQ we helped them out as best we could.

For small songbird migrants such as these, the North Sea is a formidable obstacle to have to negotiate; any navigational error, or deterioration in the weather during the crossing, may prove fatal. We know that for all the birds that successfully make it ashore, others will have perished en-route, disappearing without trace in the salt-water desert. Just occasionally this reality is brought home to us with eye-opening clarity, such as on Thursday this week when I walked a three-quarter-mile stretch of Forvie’s shore. Here on the strand-line, among the seaweeds and general flotsam, were the sorry remains of at least 19 thrushes (a mixture of Redwings, Fieldfares and Blackbirds) that had failed to complete the crossing. That their remains had washed ashore perhaps indicates that they were heartbreakingly close to the coast before succumbing to exhaustion – so near and yet so far. But that’s life as a long-distance migrant.

Larger species, despite having an advantage in terms of bodyweight and fuel reserves, are still subject to the same hazards. On the same stretch of beach were the remains of a Long-eared Owl, having met the same fate as its fellow travellers. Not for the first time we’re reminded of the hard lives lived by wild creatures, and increasingly so in a world so radically altered by humanity: who knows how the changing climate and continuing loss of natural habitats will affect migratory species such as these in future.

Even those lucky individuals that do make landfall aren’t yet out of danger. Tired migrants are easy meals for predators, and this Peregrine on the cliffs near Hackley Bay would undoubtedly have been awake to the opportunities presented by the autumn migration season.

Migratory waterbirds, of course, have the huge advantage of being able to put down on the sea for a rest if they so choose. One such species is the Slavonian Grebe, one of which turned up on Sand Loch on Tuesday. This is a scarce bird here, which we see just once or twice a year on average, so I was keen to capture a photo of it for the record. Local naturalist and photographer-extraordinaire Ron Macdonald had the same idea, but with somewhat different results. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which of the following photos was taken by Ron, and which was taken by me. No prizes though.

As we’ve said in the past, it’s not just birds that are migrants. Amphibians are short-distance travellers, commuting between their summer spawning grounds and their cosy winter lie-ups, and we’re seeing the tail end of that just now. Both Common Toad and Common Frog were noted this week, and in each case we wondered whether it would be our last sighting of the year.

From migrants to mushrooms now, and the Heath Trail on Monday produced a fine selection of fungi, mostly among the short grass of the path-sides. I’m the first to admit that my mycological knowledge is rather limited (actually, if I’m being truthful, it’s utter pants), so I won’t attempt to put names to the following. Suffice to say, though, there was a wonderful array of colours, forms and textures on show. And if any readers would care to help me out with the identification, please get in touch!

One of the few species I can actually identify is the Blackening Waxcap, which also goes by the name of Witch’s Hat based on its conical shape. This is a fascinating species due to its dramatic change in appearance between emergence and maturity; it’s difficult to believe that the following two photos depict the same species.

I’m also going to have a go at this one, which I believe is the Dusky Puffball… but once again I’d be happy to stand corrected by any readers whose knowledge out-rates mine (not a difficult feat, to be honest). For me, fungi are a salutary (and annually-repeated) reminder of how little I really know about the natural world.

Insect news tends to be a bit hard to come by at the hinner-end of the year, so it was nice to have at least a couple of items on which to report. First was this distinctive-looking Dipteran (two-winged fly) at the Forvie Centre, which turned out to be a Noon Fly. This is a species associated with cattle, which makes sense given the presence of beasts in the neighbouring park (sorry, cows in the neighbouring field, for non-North-east Scotland readers). In any case, I thought it a rather handsome species, with a nice easy-to-remember name to boot.

This brightly-coloured little caterpillar initially puzzled me, before I realised it was an early instar (=early larval stage) of the Northern Eggar moth. This is a familiar species on the heath at Forvie, but we more often see the much larger late instars – perhaps because they’re that much more conspicuous.

Lastly, a surprise find in our garden on the edge of the Reserve was this Comma butterfly, which was enjoying the apples we provided for the hungry Blackcaps. As far as we know, it’s the first ever recorded in the Forvie/Collieston area, and once again I was determined to capture a few photos for the record. This was easy enough while it was having a feed…

…but less so when it decided to fly up onto our chimney stack for a bask in the sun, necessitating using my binoculars as a makeshift long lens for the phone camera – this takes a steady hand and a good deal of luck!

And so an action-packed week comes to an end. About three more weeks of peak autumn migration lie ahead – who knows what they might bring, and what stories remain to be told. Stay tuned!

The first ten days of October in our part of the world were probably best described as capricious, showcasing the best and worst that autumn in the North-east has to offer. After the chaos and fury of Storm Amy last weekend, the week that followed produced some beautiful, settled and (whisper it quietly) summery days of calm, sunshine and unseasonable warmth. It felt like a different season every day, leaving you confused as to how many layers to put on each morning – but variety is reckoned to be the spice of life after all!

As Storm Amy set in with a vengeance at the end of the previous week, we had wondered whether the early part of this week would be spent clearing up the aftermath. In the event, Forvie got off more or less unscathed, but our ‘sister NNR’ at Muir of Dinnet wasn’t so lucky. On Monday, an early-morning message from reserve manager Simon reported numerous fallen trees blocking the footpaths, with a corresponding call for assistance. So by 0900 hours, the Forvie team were on the road westwards, in a car loaded up with chainsaws and all the associated paraphernalia. On what was one of the hottest October days I can ever remember in the North-east, with temperatures nudging 20^oC in the middle of the day, we managed to get the paths cleared by mid-afternoon before returning to the welcome coolness of the east coast – and I didn’t think we’d be saying that in October!

Tuesday saw us heading out onto the estuary for a routine high-water bird count, with the species in the spotlight being Red-breasted Merganser and Eider. While the former are still looking a bit scruffy and unprepossessing, having not quite completed their post-breeding moult, the Eiders by contrast are resplendent in their new season’s finery. In the summery autumn sunshine, they made for a fine sight indeed.

We count Eiders and Mergansers at high tide because this is when they tend to be least active, spending most of their time roosting rather than feeding; it’s tough counting diving-ducks when they’re actually diving. But we do the exact opposite for wading-birds, and count them at low tide when they’re actively feeding (Danny and Joe are out on the estuary doing just that as I type this). This is for two reasons: firstly, certain species such as Curlew, Lapwing and Golden Plover move off the estuary at high tide, congregating on neighbouring fields where we can’t see them; and secondly, those species that do remain on the estuary tend to roost in such dense flocks that it’s nigh-on impossible to tell where one bird ends and the next one begins. Have a go at counting the Dunlin in the photo below, and you’ll see what I mean!

Though we enjoyed some pleasant sunshine for the waterfowl count, the rain was never too far away, as evidenced by a splendid rainbow spanning the width of the lower estuary.

Meanwhile, on the strand-line under our feet, there appeared to have been a consignment of glass marbles washed up on the beach. This was a curiosity that required a closer look.

The reality was at once more prosaic and more interesting though. These transparent little beads were actually Sea Gooseberries, a species of comb-jelly (so-called due to the comb-like rows of cilia on the creature’s body, which it uses for propulsion). Sea Gooseberries spend their lives in the water-column of the North Sea, commuting between seabed and surface-water, and feeding on tiny morsels of plankton which they trap in their long, fine, trailing tentacles (not visible in the photographed specimen). We’re not sure what caused them to wash ashore – the winds have blown resolutely offshore recently, much to my chagrin as an east-coast birder – but here was a rare chance to see a strange, almost alien creature with which we wouldn’t normally cross paths.

On Wednesday we welcomed a group of colleagues from our Terrestrial Ornithology team to Forvie for their away-day. This was a mirror-image of our excursion to Loch Ness-side the previous week; this time we were the hosts rather than the guests, and we were delighted to be able to show off the Reserve to a group of like-minded and enthusiastic conservationists. It’s always enjoyable renewing acquaintances with long-lost colleagues, and meeting new ones for the first time; needless to say, conversation tended towards the ornithological, which suited us just fine!

To this end, I don’t think the group’s standout highlight was the expert insight from the dedicated, passionate and knowledgeable (not to mention good-looking) Reserve staff (ahem)… instead, the show was stolen by the Glossy Ibis that appeared on the estuary during the visit. This was our first record of this southern species in the local area for nearly ten years, and comes off the back of a large influx into England from the Continent in recent weeks. Glossy Ibises are odd, gangling, almost prehistoric-looking birds; visiting colleague Benjy described the bird as ‘a Gothic version of a Curlew’, and you can instantly see why!

Later in the week, a bit of progress was made on the necessary-but-wearisome annual task of cutting and raking all the areas of wildflower meadow around the Forvie Centre and its associated car park. The cutting is the relatively easy part; the really tiresome bit is having to rake up and remove all the debris. This is strictly necessary in order to keep the meadow nutrient-poor, thus favouring the growth of flowering plants, and suppressing the aggressive rank grasses which would otherwise dominate the meadow. But I can’t say it’s one of my favourite jobs!

Towards the end of the working week, and immediately before I settled down to write this piece, we received a very welcome visitor in the shape of the year’s first Yellow-browed Warbler. This tiny and delightful species hails from faraway Siberia – quite how and why they ever end up on our coast continues to puzzle, fascinate and thrill us in equal measure – and we’re by no means guaranteed to see them from one year to the next. With their neat green, yellow and cream plumage, diminutive size, and restless, hyperactive nature, they are always a joy to catch up with.

Where these little birds go after they make landfall here remains a mystery. But having brightened our day considerably, we made sure to wish this one the best of luck for its onward journey. Fare forward, tiny traveller!

At the time of writing here at Forvie, we find ourselves sitting in the calm before the storm, in the literal sense. According to the various forecasts to which we regularly subscribe, Storm Amy is rolling inexorably towards us, sleeves rolled up and rolling-pin in hand, ready to give the North-east a proper pummelling. Yep, more high winds on the way, folks; I can barely contain my excitement.

Autumn storms are part and parcel of life here on the Scottish east coast. The coming and going of each one – and these days most of them seem to have names, for whatever reason – always gets us wondering what they may or may not bring in terms of wildlife. For instance, a big onshore blow and a heavy swell may result in some interesting marine life being washed ashore, bringing us into contact with creatures we wouldn’t otherwise see. A blast of north-easterly carries with it the chance of excitingly exotic rare birds from Siberia, while a north-wester might bring a rush of wild geese and swans from Iceland. A big northerly gale, meanwhile, may bring seabirds from the Arctic to our shores. Hence the naturalist tends to keep a keen eye on the weather charts at this time of the year.

I shall report back in due course as to whether Amy brings us anything of interest, but in all truth it looks unlikely. As the centre of the storm passes to the north-west of us, following the familiar (and relentless) Atlantic storm track, the predominant winds here will be from the westerly quarter, the least ‘useful’ wind direction for delivering interesting wildlife to our east-facing coast. But you never know of course, and as former Forvie warden Dave Pickett was fond of saying, “It’s the hope that kills you!”

We actually spent a couple of days this week away from our beloved east coast. At Forvie, we’re part of the wider North Operations team in NatureScot, and it’s fair to say we’re a scattered family – the North Ops patch extends from St Cyrus in the south to Hermaness (at the very top of Shetland) in the north. Thus opportunities to meet up in person are rare and precious, and we were grateful to our area management and admin colleagues for making it happen this time around.

The venue was the lovely Dundreggan Rewilding Centre, operated by conservation charity Trees for Life, and tucked away in the hills not far from the shores of Loch Ness. This was a real change of scene for the Forvie team (I mean there were actual trees there for starters), and I must admit it was nice not having to lean into a 40mph wind for once. We were treated to a guided tour of a small part of the estate, where efforts are being made to restore the once-wooded landscape of the Scottish uplands, as well as a fascinating peek into the tree nursery at the nerve-centre of operations. You can read more about Dundreggan here.

Back on the home patch, we received an interesting communication via e-mail this week. A few weeks ago, Catriona noticed a Curlew on the estuary which appeared to be wearing a Darvic ring (i.e. a plastic leg-ring bearing a large and easily-legible code, allowing it to be read in the field through binoculars or telescope). Having the presence of mind to capture a photo (and a lens long enough for the job), she noted down the details with a view to finding out more.

Having submitted the sighting via the indefatigable Raymond Duncan from Grampian Ringing Group, Catriona received a message to say that ‘her’ Curlew, ring combination ‘White K4U’, had come all the way from Finland. Ringed as a chick in June 2024, it had travelled just over 1,000 miles in a west-south-westerly direction to end up here on our very own Ythan Estuary. An excellent record, and an example of how even familiar species like the Curlew may have travelled further than you think in order to be here.

Speaking of long-distance travellers, this week has seen a substantial influx of geese into our area. In contrast to the itinerant flocks of feral Canada and Greylag Geese that spent the late summer wandering around the region, these are genuine wild geese from Iceland, Greenland and beyond. The bulk of the numbers are made up of Pink-footed Geese, our ‘stock’ wild goose species here in the North-east, whose babbling calls provide the soundtrack to life here in the autumn and winter. On Thursday morning around 2,500 could be found bathing and roosting on the water and mud of the estuary, before repairing to the nearby stubble fields for a spot of lunch.

Among the throngs of Pinks were a substantial number of Barnacle Geese, with perhaps as many as 150 present on Thursday morning. Like the majority of the Pinks, it’s likely they will stay and feed up for a few days in our area before continuing southwards, using Forvie as a service station on the long journey to their wintering grounds.

Barnacle Geese are remarkably beautiful when seen close-up, their plumage intricately barred in black, white and grey, and I often think they must be a contender for the title of ‘world’s most handsome monochrome species’; a Black-throated Diver in summer plumage would certainly give them a run for their money though.

For all the winter arrivals, there are still some tardy summer visitors yet to depart. For most of this week, a handful of young Swallows have been present around Sand Loch and Collieston village, procrastinating about the long journey to South Africa that lies ahead of them. Seeing Swallows and wild geese occupying the same tract of sky always seems somewhat incongruous – though it’s awesome to think that you can effectively see wildlife from the Cape to the Arctic Circle at the same time on your own patch.

The remaining vestiges of summer are slowly and reluctantly fading away now, with just a few sorry Red Campion flowers remaining in bloom…

…meaning that any late-flying insects are forced to turn their hand (or proboscis) to other sources of food, such as the fruit provided by hedges, copses and village gardens.

Good luck to these delicate insects when it comes to surviving the oncoming storm. I’m away to lash myself to the mainmast now – see you again next week!

Autumn. Keats’s ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’, a glowing elegy to the turning of the year. And, like his poem, we are noticing that that the ‘gathering swallows twittering in the skies’ are now thinning out. They’ve discussed the way to Africa and are gone, and a lot of the birds we’re seeing here now have likely come from further north. They’re not ‘our’ swallows or martins, that built mud nest under the eaves and swooped joyfully after insects all summer – they’re travellers, passing through, on their epic, yearly migration.

Autumn and spring are migration seasons, and never is the passage of birds more pronounced than at those times. It’s perhaps harder to notice the disappearance of birds like swallows… you might glance at the sky and think ‘hmmm, haven’t seen a swallow for a week…’ but first arrivals are far easier to register. Foremost among those are the pink-footed geese, who arrive in great ‘V’s from Iceland and whose ‘wink-wink’ calls immediately announce their presence. Some people love to see them back, but for other folk, the return of the geese definitely marks the end of summer and the slide into winter. However you feel about it, it’s just one way migration can be a marker for the changing of the seasons.

While the geese are easy to notice, it’s mind-blowing how much movement in the natural world there is at this time of year, most of which slips by unnoticed. You might notice one young willow warbler in the garden, making its first trip south, but how many more sneak by unnoticed?

We also wonder, for every flock of waders we count on the estuary, how many other birds pass through when we’re not standing there with our binoculars and hand tallies? The mud of the Ythan estuary is full of invertebrates for hungry wading birds, so we’re an important service-station-type fuelling stop for waders, who are on their way south from Arctic breeding grounds. Dunlin, ringed plover, sanderling, golden plover, curlew, lapwing, oystercatchers and redshank are just some of the waders that pass through here every autumn.

And that’s just the birds we can actually see! Go outside on a still autumn night and listen – you may hear geese, or swans, or the high-pitched ‘tseeeeep’ of a redwing – but what else is moving up there in the darkness? Birds often travel by night – the stars and moon help them to navigate, and predators like peregrine falcons are sound asleep. We’ve been aware for a lot of years that this happens, but advances in technology mean we can detect more birds by call in the night time. Known as ‘noc-mig’ (nocturnal migration), it involves pointing an audio recorder at the sky all night to pick up the calls of any passing birds. Clever computer programmes then convert these to sonograms, and match their patterns to known bird calls. While this sort of thing is black magic to a complete Luddite like me, it’s produced some fascinating records of both rare and common birds.

‘Noc-migging’ has also picked up things like Sandwich terns passing over land masses. We usually think of ‘our’ terns as being totally bound to the sea, but they think nothing of migrating overland. Yes, some of our terns will go up into the Moray Firth – but they’ll then cut through the Great Glen to the west coast. Or nip across the narrow ‘waist’ of Scotland between the Forth and Clyde.

And migration’s not just about birds. Up in the hills, the deer move from the high tops to the valleys, while our seal numbers start to pick up as some come here to breed in between October and Christmas. It’s easy not to think of seals as ‘migrants’ but there is a definite seasonal pattern to their movements, with fewer coming here in summer and the numbers peaking in early spring post-breeding.

Autumn – August and September especially – are also good months to spot a Minke whale offshore. While you can see them at any time, summer and autumn are the best times to spot one as they follow mackerel and herring into our waters.

At the other end of the scale size-wise, insects migrate too. We’ve often written of the wonders of painted lady migration, but other insects migrate too. Red admirals are often the last butterfly you’ll see before winter sets in. Some do overwinter here, in a shed or some other frost-free place, but many will migrate south to warmer climates. The late admirals you see here are probably going to try and overwinter; we don’t see the migrating ones as they are travelling at high altitudes, being carried on fast winds away from the coming Northern winter.

All the creatures we’ve written about so far here migrate as part of their normal lifestyle. But any journey can be fraught with danger and subject to unexpected change. For us, that usually means waiting impatiently at a bus stop, wondering how our local bus company appears to have lost a bright yellow bus, or dozing in an airport wondering when under 5 hours late became ‘on time’ to an airline. For wildlife, though, it’s often a matter of life and death.

Getting lost in a storm in the North Sea at best means winding up in the UK when you didn’t mean to or, at worst, a watery demise. Many birds do get lost every year, and their appearance is here often greeted by great excitement in the birding community as it’s a chance to see something rare or new. Residents around the reserve will be fairly used to binocular-and-telescope wielding birders peering excitedly at something (often small and brown) in a bush or on a fence!

At least if a bird gets lost on its way south from Scandinavia to southern Europe and winds up in the UK, it has a reasonable chance of survival. Rare birds are often tracked, moving south through the UK before they jump the Channel and carry onward. But their appearance highlights just what a big undertaking migration is – it’s a risky business and any creature will only migrate if it improves its chance of survival. That might be moving north to exploit a food source in spring, or fleeing the winter in autumn…but that’s what migration is. It’s moving, to make the best use of the whole planet, in order to help you survive. The map below shows where just some of the birds we’ve seen here have come from. We’re literally part of a global network!

So, next time you see a ‘migrant’ be it a bird, insect or mammal, just pause for a moment and imagine where it may have come from or be going… it may just blow your mind.