Midsummer at Forvie – even in dismally cold and wet years such as this one – is the time when our wild flowers are at their zenith. The few weeks from early June to late July each year see an explosion of colours throughout the Reserve, from the footpaths and loch-sides of the Heath Trail in the north, to the plant-rich dune-slacks in the south. For the botanically-minded visitor, this is a great time to get out and do some exploring.

Mind and bring your knee pads though. Owing to the harsh climate and the nutrient-poor, free-draining soil, life for plants here is not easy. As a consequence, most of our more interesting plants are really tiny – but as this week’s title says, small can be beautiful.

On Friday we welcomed onto the Reserve a group of colleagues from headquarters, and their guided tour of South Forvie had elements of an impromptu botanical field trip. Our route around the Dune Trail took in some of the wildflower-rich dune slacks along the line of the barrier fence, which runs west to east from the estuary to the North Sea. These dune slacks are home to some of Forvie’s rarer plants, as well as a colourful array of its commoner ones, providing us with plenty to enthuse about to our visitors.

In mid-June, much of the background colour is provided by Bird’s-foot Trefoil, whose yellow-and-orange flowers form a dense, soft, sweetly-scented carpet. This is one of the quintessential plants of the duneland environment, and is also the larval foodplant for the Six-spot Burnet moth – one of the quintessential insects of this landscape. Despite the cool and capricious weather, these moths have begun to emerge in good numbers in this past week, and it’s getting to the point now that you’d be hard-pressed not to notice them on your walk around the Dune Trail.

In other places, the yellows of the Bird’s-foot Trefoil are countered by the blues and whites of Wild Pansies, or the tiny, bright-red sprays of the diminutive Sheep’s Sorrel. These are each typical plants of dune grassland, and like so many others, they look their best during this fleeting few weeks of high summer.

Some of Forvie’s rarer and more unusual plants are similarly pint-sized. Purple Milk-vetch is known to grow in just one spot on the entire Reserve – halfway along the estuary-side track between the ‘Eider bench’ and the barrier fence – and unless you’re specifically looking for it, you’d likely just walk right past it. Tiny and low-growing, its flowers are nevertheless a treat to behold: sumptuous royal purple with little white insets. One of life’s pleasures.

Less brightly-coloured, but no less distinctive, are the strange yellow-green protuberances of the Small Adder’s-tongue Ferns that can be found in the damper dune-slacks. This is one of Forvie’s rarities that seems to be doing rather well just now, with several new large populations of the plant discovered in recent years. The continued wetting-up of certain areas of the Reserve, as a result of high rainfall during recent years, appears to be benefitting this species – every cloud and all that.

Sadly, it’s not all good news though. Another of our rare and unusual plants, the enigmatic Oysterplant, has gradually been getting scarcer at Forvie. This species is adapted for life at the top of the littoral zone; that is to say the seashore above the high-water mark. Here it grows among the shingle, and and loose rock, able to survive the harsh and salty environment where most other plants would perish.

Twenty or so years ago, Oysterplant could be found on several of the rocky and shingly beaches beneath the cliffs between Collieston and Hackley Bay. In recent seasons, though, it has become confined to its last remaining stronghold next to the Poor Man, a prominent rocky stack just south of Collieston village. However, an inspection of this area in early June failed to produce any sight or sign of the plants, and it’s feared that the massive high tides that we experienced during the winter have washed out the remaining population. A sad loss for the Reserve, and an illustration of the fragility of some of our wildlife in the face of changing climatic and sea conditions.

The Poor Man takes its name from its distinctive appearance. From certain angles, it supposedly resembles a hunch-backed old man carrying a sack upon his back, perhaps gathering driftwood for the fire from the shore. It’s a bit like the ‘man in the moon’, in that some folk can see it, and others just can’t. Judge for yourself!

Cutting our losses from the failure to find any Oysterplant, we at least got the chance to explore the rocky shore around the Poor Man. Here, as in so many places along our coast, we were amused to find Thrift growing in apparently-impossible situations.

A poke around in the rockpools is always enjoyable, and here, once again, is a world in miniature. Sadly we didn’t have enough time to really make the best of it, but a quick search soon found some Beadlet Anemones stuck fast onto the tidal rocks. Out of the water, these look like nothing so much as an amorphous blob of strawberry jam, but if you find one submerged in a rockpool, their true form is revealed – tentacles and all!

Just occasionally, the littoral zone produces something really special. This happened to volunteer Elaine once at Rockend, when she happened upon this beautiful Octopus in one of the tidal pools where the beach meets the rocky shore. To say I was envious of the sighting is a preposterous understatement.

Meanwhile, a walk along the coast path in the week turned up another slightly unusual bit of marine wildlife. An odd shape among the heather and grass caught my eye, and on closer inspection it turned out to be a rare extra-limital sighting of a species not usually found in this sort of habitat.

Rather than being an attempt by this species – probably a Flounder, by the way – to colonise new ground, we suspect that this unfortunate ‘sole’ (sorry) ended up in this strange ‘plaice’ (sorry) after being captured by a gull, who then found it too difficult to swallow, and eventually gave up and left it. Eyes bigger than belly, I reckon.

This seems to me to be a case-in-point that sometimes – even when it comes to selecting your supper – small is beautiful.

The first week of June at Forvie is informally known to the Reserve staff as Seabird Week. This time each year, we take to the cliffs in order to census the seabirds that nest there, as part of a national monitoring programme which dates back to the 1980s. The job itself is undeniably enjoyable, and in terms of methods and setting, it’s a marked contrast to our ongoing work at the ternery – which incidentally feeds into the same national database of seabird knowledge.

Data, of course, is the lifeblood of science, and science is what underpins our efforts to conserve what’s left of the natural world. Consequently, Forvie’s seabird colonies – despite not being of the same scale or grandeur of the Fowlsheughs, Shiants and St Kildas of this world – have an important role to play in providing long-term data for the purposes of seabird conservation.

The photo below is a fairly typical example of what we’re faced with. Our cliff-nesting seabird census takes place from land – no messing about in boats for us, unfortunately – and the aim is to establish the breeding population of each species, each year. Sounds fairly straightforward, right enough.

The first part of the equation is to identify the species in question, which is easy enough for those of us with a good deal of seabird experience. The second, and by far the more awkward part, is to decide whether that particular bird, or pair of birds, is actually tending to an active nest. For most of Forvie’s seabirds, the ‘count unit’ for the purposes of this survey is the Apparently Occupied Nest (or the AON, for all you acronymophiles out there) – the key word being Apparently.

The standard survey methodology defines an AON as ‘a well-constructed nest, capable of holding eggs or young, with one or more adults in attendance’, or words to that effect. You don’t need to actually see the eggs or young, which is a good job as most of the parent birds tend to sit tight. But it therefore requires a judgement-call on the part of the observer as to whether that Herring Gull/Kittiwake/Shag is a parent bird sitting on an actual active nest, or just a non-breeder having a rest on an old nest or pile of dead grass.

Each species has its own niche on the cliffs, and nesting habits to match. Kittiwakes, for instance, occupy the most precarious ledges, and make snug cup-shaped nests from vegetation, glued onto the almost-vertical rock with a liberal application of home-made adhesive (which is white in colour, and smells strongly of second-hand fish). ‘Malodorous but effective’ is probably a fair description of this method of nest construction.

Larger gulls, by contrast, throw together a rough bowl of dead grasses and other plant material on a broader ledge or outcrop. As a breeding bird, Herring Gulls have declined at Forvie by some 99% since these annual surveys began in the mid-1980s, and this year we found just 19 nests between Collieston and Rockend. So when you read the inevitable newspaper articles about the ‘gull menace’, and how these ‘vermin’ ought to be culled, take it with a massive pinch of salt. But as we know, balance and perspective don’t sell newspapers quite as effectively as sensationalism and outrage.

The largest species of gull on Forvie’s cliffs, and for that matter the entire world, is the Great Black-backed Gull. These build their scruffy nests of vegetation on the very tops of the cliff stacks, where they have the best view of all their neighbours (and their potential next meal – same thing). Despite their fearsome reputation as formidable predators of other seabirds (to the extent that in a previous workplace, we referred to them as ‘GBH Gulls’, as opposed to the usual abbreviation of GBB), these too have declined from six or seven pairs in the recent past to just the one pair this year.

Fulmars have also endured a rise-and-fall scenario in recent years. Their population at Forvie grew to several hundred nesting pairs in the early 2000s, yet this year we recorded just 41 apparently-occupied nest sites. A change in fishing policy, with fewer and larger vessels operating, and less in the way of discards available to the birds, may have had an impact. But for now, these characterful birds – our nearest relations to the albatrosses of the southern hemisphere – are just about hanging in there.

Other seabird populations in the North Sea have suffered greatly over the past twelve months, firstly at the hands of avian influenza, and latterly from the effects of a particularly bad storm season last autumn and winter. One of our contacts in the bird-ringing business reckons that Shags have declined by a whopping 85% in our region since last summer. With this in mind, we considered ourselves lucky that from three breeding pairs last year, we still retained one pair this year; we fully expected to find none at all.

Auks, too, have had a hard time of it over the last couple of years for the same reasons. our small populations of Guillemots and Razorbills had also taken a substantial hit compared with last season, but are both gamely hanging on. Forvie’s cliffs would certainly be a good bit poorer if we lost our complement of these comical and endearing birds, bobbing and bowing on the ledges like little wine-waiters, each smartly turned out in starched white shirt and black tailcoat.

The long hike along the cliffs involved a substantial amount of ‘off-piste’ walking, in order to get a view of all the rock faces. During the course of the day we also encountered a nice selection of other interesting wildlife, not least when Joe happened upon this perfect little Meadow Pipit nest among the long grass. Although Meadow Pipits are common enough throughout the Reserve, it’s not every day – or indeed every year – that you find a nest, so well are they hidden. This is why we ask folk to keep their dogs under control and on the footpaths – there are nesting birds out there, even if most of the time you can’t see them!

A little further along the cliff, we found this explosion of feathers. These were identifiable as belonging to a Feral Pigeon, the gone-wild former domestic doves that nest commonly among the rocky crags. It’s highly likely that this was the work of a Peregrine. These iconic falcons don’t nest at Forvie, but frequently visit the Reserve from territories further north along the coast – pigeons beware.

Offshore, further interest was provided by a small pod of Bottlenose Dolphins. This was the third occasion in the past month or so that we’ve seen these lively and exuberant beasts off Forvie’s cliffs, and an encounter with them is always guaranteed to raise a smile. Cetaceans such as these, and others such as Minke Whales, are probably more common here than we realise – but we simply don’t get to spend enough time staring out to sea!

We were also treated to the sight of at least four Arctic Skuas heading north up the coast, pausing en-route to harry the local terns and Kittiwakes for their catch of fish. These swashbuckling pirates of the high seas are one of the most agile fliers in the bird world, combining the muscle and power of a falcon with the elegance and effortlessness of a tern. Substance and style – a rare combination!

Luckily for us, the forecast rain didn’t materialise until the very end of the census; wet conditions make the survey work awkward, and the grassy clifftops dangerously slippery. But by the time the heavens opened, our work was safely done.

When you work on Reserves, you can’t afford to be shy of the weather, and I think most of us actually get some sort of masochistic pleasure from being out in the worst conditions going. Judge for yourself from the following photos anyway.

So after completing the census, and having received a comprehensive drowning, we had a mile and a half’s walk to get back to the office, all of us soaked to the skiddies. But after a great day on the cliffs, there was no dampening of anybody’s spirits. Given the choice between this or driving a desk for a living, there’s no doubt that we’d all choose the soaking every time.

By the time this article goes to press, the month of May will be over and done, having gone by in a blur. Looking back over the eighteen Mays that I have worked here on the Reserve, I can’t think of any that have been busier, more exciting or more exhausting than this one. In any given year, May is usually a fast-moving and action-packed month at Forvie, but this year it’s been exceptional from start to finish. The sightings board in the visitor centre stands testament to this, being possessed of a distinct ‘read-’em-and-weep’ sort of quality just now.

For the second week running, there was a great deal of excitement in our area concerning drift-migrants. In fact, this started off before the working week had even begun. Strolling up the garden to open up our polytunnel before heading onto the Reserve on Monday morning, I was astonished to flush up a Nightjar which had apparently been sitting on the garden fence. I’m not sure which of us got the biggest shock.

Having been rudely (and unintentionally on my part) awakened from its slumbers, the ‘Jar headed off towards Sand Loch, where it promptly sat down in the middle of the road which forms the north-eastern boundary of the Reserve. Its raptor-like appearance in flight meant that it garnered a lot of unwanted attention from the local Starlings, Jackdaws, House Martins and others, none of whom had probably ever seen one of these before. This entourage kicked up an almighty racket, thereby telegraphing its whereabouts to all and sundry – including reserve manager Catriona, who hurried to the scene in order to catch up with one of her most sought-after species in the entire natural world.

The continued attentions of Jackdaws and Starlings soon served to push the poor old Nightjar off the road (in all honesty probably for the better), and it swiftly returned to the same stretch of garden fence where it had started out. This gave us, and a handful of other lucky local observers, the once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a Nightjar at close quarters and in full daylight – a chance to appreciate its intricate plumage and bizarre appearance.

This is one of the true weirdos of the bird world. Usually strictly nocturnal (hence the strangely large eyes, and the sleeping in the daytime), the Nightjar feeds on large flying insects like moths, which it catches in flight by ‘trawling’ with its huge mouth open. Its colossal gape is further enhanced by a surrounding array of bristles, which help to funnel insects into the yawning chasm of its mouth. The Nightjar’s voice is no less weird: the male’s song (given at night, of course) is an unearthly ventriloquial noise known as ‘churring’, which sounds more mechanical than natural. By day it relies on its exceptional camouflage to avoid detection. This works supremely well in a natural environment such as heathland or woodland floor, but isn’t quite so effective on a post-and-wire fence.

Regular readers of these missives will know that I am very keen on my ‘garden list’, and the itinerant Nightjar constituted the 175th bird species we’ve recorded here (don’t get me started on the moths or the plants though, or we’ll be here forever). I love ‘garden listing’ for a number of reasons; I am a big advocate of letting the wildlife come to you, though I suppose this is easy when you’ve got one of Scotland’s premier National Nature Reserves literally just over the back fence. But it’s become almost a citizen-science experiment to see how many different species drop in by one small back yard over the course of time.

A substantial part of making a garden good for wildlife is the provision of something approaching ‘natural’ habitat. This we did when we built a small pond and introduced some native water-plants, which have since developed into a magnificent three square metres (count ’em) of something approaching fen meadow.

The old line ‘build it and they will come’ is never truer than in the wildlife-gardening sense. Unbelievably, our three square metres of fen on Thursday lunchtime played host to a Marsh Warbler, yet another rare migrant to our shores, that for a short while looked completely at home in our tiny patch of contrived wetland. Like the Nightjar, this elicited considerable punching of the air after the event – species no.176!

The continued arrival of drift-migrants extended onto the wider Reserve, with at least two more Red-backed Shrikes passing through since our last update. A superb male, resplendent in his full spring finery, spent a morning outside the Forvie Centre, where once again the local insect populations took a hammering.

At one point he came face-to-face with one of the Yellowhammers who are nesting in the hedge nearby. Small birds such as buntings, finches and pipits tend to ‘mob’ shrikes, recognising them as potential predators. Although a Yellowhammer is barely any smaller than a Red-backed Shrike, it is a potential meal-in-waiting, so you had to admire this particular Yellowhammer’s courage. Catriona captured a nice photo of the two of them together, which would actually make for a good caption competition. Please leave your entries in the ‘comments’ section – first prize will be a day out birding with me on the Reserve; second prize will be two days.

In other news this week, we were pleased to get the Heath Trail wildflower information-boxes back out on site. These will remain in-situ for the rest of the summer while Forvie’s plants are looking their best. It’s a bit early yet for some of the species in question to be in flower, which made our lives awkward when trying to find examples of each species with which to match the boxes! Others, however, are now looking really good, with the Northern Marsh Orchids in particular putting on a really good display just now.

Insects at large on the heath this week, spotted while we were distributing the wildflower boxes, included the lovely yellow-and-black-chequered caterpillars of the Six-spot Burnet moth, while now and again the amusingly tufty Dark Tussock moth caterpillar could also be found.

Other moths are more well-advanced through their life-cycle by this stage of the year, and can be seen on the wing as adults. As well as the red-and-black Cinnabar, which is easily recognised and frequently seen around the trails, you may also spot the more cryptic yet subtly-beautiful Common Heath.

Lastly, a bit of an update from the ternery. In mid-May we carried out the Black-headed Gull nest census, finding 1,831 nests containing eggs. This is about 25% down on last year’s total, which isn’t necessarily surprising given the impacts of avian ‘flu (and besides that, 2023’s population was an all-time site record in any case, so probably isn’t the most realistic baseline). Last week it was the turn of our Sandwich Terns, and again we expected to record a significant decline from last year’s total, with the species having been decimated by the ‘flu throughout Europe.

Much to our surprise, however, the census revealed a total of 911 nests – actually a modest increase (of just eight nests) since last year. This goes to prove, for the umpteenth time, that it’s almost impossible to gauge what’s going on in the colony from outside its protective electric fence; it’s not till you actually go in and get your hands (and hats, and overalls) dirty that you can be sure of what’s happening in there.

The census also produced the first Sandwich Tern chicks of the year. Even when they’ve dried out after hatching, these retain a ‘wet-combed’ appearance, with spiky-looking down when compared with the adorably-fluffy Black-headed Gulls alongside them.

By way of comparison, Catriona photographed this nest which contained a Sandwich Tern egg, a Sandwich Tern chick and a stowaway Black-headed Gull chick. This appears somewhat unusual, but the chicks of both species are quite mobile, and are apt to wander around and mingle with one another. And when danger looms, such as a Reserve warden towering overhead (though these aren’t nearly as scary as they look), it doesn’t matter who you snuggle up with, as long as you’re out of harm’s way!

So May’s done and dusted, and more’s the pity, for what a May it’s been. Onwards then into June, which is traditionally another manic month here on the Reserve. There’ll doubtless be plenty to report. Meantime, though, I’m off for a couple of ‘jars’ – cheers!

Here at Forvie, perched as we are on Scotland’s east coast, we occupy the frontier between the British Isles and the continent of Europe. The proximity of the continent, and the salty moat of the North Sea that divides us from it, have a profound influence upon both our climate and our wildlife.

This continental influence gives the east coast a generally dry climate (don’t laugh), with cold winters and dry summers, compared with the milder and wetter maritime climate experienced by Scotland’s west coast. Admittedly this seems hard to believe after the washout summer of 2023, and the largely mild winter that followed. But while spring was late to arrive this year, mid-May finally put together a series of fine days that actually made us believe in this phenomenon.

The fine weather corresponded with a period of easterly and south-easterly airflow from continental Europe. This provided ideal conditions for an early-season immigration of insects to our shores. After the first couple of fine days in a row, we started to notice Silver Y moths everywhere, bombing around the Reserve by day and nectaring at various flowers. One or two also found their way into the moth trap, allowing for a close-up view of their intricate markings, including that lovely silvery squiggle on each forewing. This is a moth whose common name makes perfect sense.

When moth-trapping in May, our ‘stock’ moth – i.e. the species that makes up the bulk of the numbers – is the Hebrew Character. Like the Silver Y, its common name derives from the distinctive markings on the forewings. In theory, this is the only species of moth on the wing in May to show such a marking, rendering identification very straightforward (this is seldom the case with moths at the best of times). However, the south-easterly airflow threw an entomological spanner in the works – have a look at the photo below.

Sure enough, the moth on the left is a ‘standard’ Hebrew Character – but try a wee game of ‘spot the difference’ with the one on the right…

After consulting moth oracle Helen Rowe (of Aberdeenshire Council Ranger Service fame), we established that the right-hand moth was in fact a Setaceous Hebrew Character – a bigger-and-grander name, as befits a slightly bigger-and-grander moth than the ‘standard’ one. But the rather preposterous name isn’t the main point of interest here; the curious thing is that this species shouldn’t actually be on the wing until midsummer. Helen’s theory was that this too was an immigrant – likely from somewhere far to the south and east of us, where the species emerges much earlier in the year than it does in Scotland.

Mystery solved then. And what an amazing migratory feat for so small and delicate a creature.

We also noted the presence of Marmalade Hoverflies along the coastal strip in the week. Though these occur commonly in Scotland, their numbers are significantly bolstered in some years by mass immigration from the Continent. Such influxes of Marmalade Hoverflies are usually noted here in late summer, often in conjunction with arrivals of Painted Lady butterflies, and the two species share the same life-strategy: advancing northwards through Europe each summer over the course of several generations, with the final generation then making a southward journey in autumn to complete the cycle. To see arrivals this early in the year is more unusual, but it’s likely that the same south-easterly winds that assisted the moths on their North Sea crossing also gave the hoverflies a helping hand.

Around mid-week, the wind changed to a straight easterly and thence north-easterly, accompanied by a deterioration in the weather. Initially, the clear skies and warm temperatures were replaced by the dreaded haar, but by Wednesday afternoon a belt of heavy rain had set in. This meant a switch in wildlife interest from immigrant insects to migrating birds.

In spring, birds moving from Africa and southern Europe towards Scandinavia can be subject to a mechanism known as drift-migration. This is when a crosswind ‘drifts’ them off their usual course; if the crosswind is blowing from an easterly direction, birds may be ‘drifted’ across the North Sea onto the eastern seaboard of the British Isles. A promising-looking set of weather charts can thus prompt excitable discussion among students of bird migration, and last week was a case in point. You see, the rain is the key ingredient here.

Under clear skies, drift migrants pass over our coast at great height, eventually settling somewhere inland and likely going undetected. But throw in a bit of rain and bad visibility, and these travellers are forced to make landfall on the first solid ground they encounter after crossing the North Sea. This is what gets the juices flowing for the east-coast observer: the chance to encounter species not often seen on our shores.

Wednesday’s rain didn’t take long at all to do its stuff, and by supper-time we had already clocked an Icterine Warbler on the north-eastern boundary of the Reserve – a rare species that we’ve only recorded here on a handful of previous occasions. Game on!

I was out of bed ridiculously early on the Thursday morning, slightly delirious from a combination of lack of sleep and wild optimism about all the fabulous rarities I might see. As it turned out, the Reserve proved remarkably quiet, but it was the unlikely setting of the back road between Collieston and Whinnyfold, just to the north of Forvie, that provided the pot of gold.

Here, working the fence-lines, was one of the finest sights in Scottish ornithology. A spring male Red-backed Shrike, a picture of European flair and extravagance, brought to our doorstep by a favourable wind and a drop of rain at the right time. Surely one of the handsomest of all birds, dressed in fine pastel shades, a flashing black-and-white tail, a dashing bandit-mask, and an attitude to match.

The small size of a shrike – somewhere between a warbler and a thrush – belies its true identity as a predator. Red-backed Shrikes can take prey items as diverse as reptiles, amphibians and even small songbirds, but their real stock-in-trade is large insects. The abundant St Mark’s Fly appeared to be the lunch of choice on this particular Thursday; the rain had served to make them sluggish and easy to capture, and we saw a number of them disappear down the hatch.

Red-backed Shrikes are a former breeding species in the UK, but went extinct as a breeder during the late 20th Century. This was likely due to a number of factors, with the decline in large insect populations probably at the top of the list (but dishonourable mentions must also go to climate change, agricultural intensification, and illegal egg-collecting, which did for the last survivors in East Anglia in the 1980s). This past week has seen a notable influx of Red-backed Shrikes into the UK – all drift-migrants assisted by the easterly winds, of course – but such events raise the hopes that one day these magnificent little birds may once again raise their young on our shores.

In your author’s humble opinion, the only drift-migrant to beat a male Red-backed Shrike for aesthetics is the male Bluethroat. So for good measure, the same stretch of local back road also produced one of these. For the keen naturalist, some days just turn out lucky, and last Thursday turned out one of the luckiest days I’ve experienced in some years.

This is another species that really ought to be a UK breeder. Problem is, their favoured habitat is upland willow scrub, on the tree-line between the forest and montane zones. This is a habitat woefully lacking in Scotland, due to centuries of over-grazing by sheep and deer. It’s a brutally simple equation: no trees in the uplands = no Bluethroats. Sadly, therefore, the only chance the Scottish naturalist has to catch up with one of these stunning birds is to encounter a coastal drift-migrant such as this one – and take it from me, these opportunities are few and far between!

There may be some cause for optimism though. Through the efforts of landscape-scale conservation projects such as Cairngorms Connect, and the pioneering work of NatureScot colleagues at National Nature Reserves such as Creag Meagaidh and Beinn Eighe, significant areas of the Scottish uplands are on the road to recovery. Meanwhile, drift-migration, such that we’ve seen in the past week, can provide a source of birds from the apparently-healthy Scandinavian population to colonise – or indeed re-colonise – the rejuvenated upland forests. This fabulous little bird is a jewel in the crown of our uplands, just waiting to be restored to its rightful place. I very much hope that I live to see that day.

I’ll say no more for now, but instead will leave you with a short clip of ‘our’ Bluethroat indulging in a bit of singing-practice, set against a backdrop of Skylark song. Surely the voice of optimism itself. Enjoy, and be hopeful!

Despite this past few days having been dry, settled and at times pleasantly sunny and warm, the Reserve is still very much living the legacy of the preceding ten months of rain. Although things are definitely beginning to dry out now, it’ll likely take a long time for water levels to drop back to where they were a year ago. Some of the deeper floods, such as those on the heath of North Forvie, and in the hollows near Rockend, still hold a substantial amount of water, and it’s been interesting to see how Forvie’s wildlife has reacted to this changed environment.

We humans tend to think of flooding as a problem, something to be worked against and engineered into submission. True, for some wildlife, flooding can be pretty disastrous. For burrowing mammals like Moles and Rabbits, the problems are fairly obvious. Likewise for insects that pupate or hibernate underground, or plants whose roots cannot tolerate prolonged immersion.

Or indeed ground-nesting birds. For example, the patch of willow scrub in the photo below usually stands on dry ground. A single Willow Warbler, a songbird which nests on the ground, was singing rather forlornly from this patch when we visited it on Monday. In a dry year this would be an ideal territory, but this year the opportunities for nesting under the trees are somewhat limited to say the least; not an ‘easy sell’ to a potential partner. No wonder he had the trees to himself.

However, for other wildlife, flooding presents a world of opportunities. For aquatic insects such as Pond-skaters, there is suddenly an abundance of habitat away from the usual permanent water-bodies. Such species are quick to take advantage of these new opportunities, and immediately look very much at home. Aquatic plants, from simple algae to more complex vascular plants, also rapidly move in, and before long a wetland food web starts to come together.

The presence of these pioneer species then attract others further up the food chain. The same patch of flooded willows where the optimistic Willow Warbler was singing also played host to breeding Mallards, doubtless attracted by the good feeding and the remote, undisturbed location. At least one brood of ducklings was present this week, unusually attended by a drake rather than the mother duck. Another big advantage for the Mallards in breeding on a temporary pool is that the water doesn’t contain predatory fish – so the ducklings are safe from being swallowed by a hungry Pike, for instance.

Leaving the ephemeral wetland behind, we headed across the dry heath and soon came upon this remarkable pair of wings by the footpath. These are bits of Emperor Moth, a not-uncommon but seldom-seen inhabitant of the heath, and this one had clearly fallen foul of some predator or another.

Not far away, a likely culprit sat up on a dead stem and eyed us beadily. His distinctive appearance – burnished orange breast, white dog-collar and black cap and bib – immediately identified him as a male Stonechat, a specialist insect-eater. As if to confirm our suspicions, he dashed after another passing moth, which managed to evade him in a series of wild, looping manoeuvres. But I reckon that’s pretty incriminating evidence: surely this is the villain who did for the Emperor. Still, a Stonechat has to eat after all!

It was a very happy coincidence, then, that during the same week we trapped an Emperor Moth – alive and well this time – in our moth trap on the north-eastern edge of the Reserve at Collieston. Whereas the wings of the predated moth had been from a male – easily told by the gingery ground colour – the one in our trap was a female, larger and more silvery-coloured, but still with those incredible false eyes. While Emperor Moths are relatively common at Forvie, with their larvae feeding on the abundant heathers and shrubs, to see one as well as this is a rare treat indeed. So after a photo-call, and having even been ‘twitched’ by one of our neighbours, it was released unharmed to get on with its life.

The same trapping session also produced this rather lovely Marbled Coronet, whose elaborate name is well-matched to its exquisite markings. This was a bit of a surprise to us; this species tends to be associated with calcareous (lime-rich) habitats, whereas most of Forvie is composed of distinctly acidic soils. Despite this, these moths can make a living here due to their predilection for Sea Campion, which grows abundantly on Forvie’s cliffs.

While an increasing number and variety of moths and butterflies are on the wing in May, others are still at the larval stage at this point in the year. This magnificent Northern Eggar moth caterpillar was discovered alongside one of the footpaths in the week, and in their final instar (i.e. the stage immediately before they pupate), these are among the largest caterpillars you’re likely to encounter here.

Down on the estuary and beach, other wanderers were very much in evidence this week. An abundance of small wading-birds could be seen busily feeding across the mussel-beds and mudflats, and in-between-times, little gangs of them could be found roosting and recovering their strength for the next phase of their spring migration. This need for food and rest is hardly surprising, for despite their small size and unassuming looks, these are long-haul travellers. Most of these little waders will be en-route to the Arctic Circle for the forthcoming summer, a brief and bounteous time of plenty – but they must work hard to even get there in the first place. This means that places like Forvie are critically important service-stations for them on their long journeys.

Dunlin and Ringed Plover are typically the most abundant of the passage waders, with Sanderling in third place. Among these, smaller numbers of other species such as Turnstones can be found, resplendent in their summer plumage of black, white and brick-red. These look a different beast altogether to the dowdy-plumaged ones that we see on our midwinter wader counts on the estuary.

For the keen naturalist, sifting through the rapidly-moving flocks of waders can be a rewarding exercise, as scarce and rare species sometimes hide out among their commoner cousins. Sure enough, this week brought sightings of Little Stint and Curlew Sandpiper among the Dunlin, while your author also got lucky in finding a Pectoral Sandpiper, a vagrant wader all the way from North America. This was loosely associating with a small gang of Knot and Turnstone out on the mussel-beds. Cue one of those dreadful spot-the-rare-bird-at-1000-yards photographs – sorry folks.

One last piece of bird news this week concerns our Black-headed Gulls. At the time of writing, we are just about to embark upon the annual nest census of the gull colony – a marathon piece of work that we’ll all be grateful to get done and dusted. Hopefully we will have some positive results upon which to report in due course.

Wish us luck for the count, and we’ll hope for a dry and warm day to help us out. Watch this space, and we’ll report back – by which time another mad May week will have been and gone. Keep up!

In this job, there are few weeks that go by without someone or another lecturing us on how lucky we are. Some folk say they’d give their eye teeth for a job like mine; others are incredulous that we should actually get paid for it at all: surely the pleasure and privilege of working in a location like this are payment enough? (Try telling that to the mortgage firm or the electricity company though.) Looking in from the outside gives people an interesting and perhaps slightly rosy-tinted view of the job, and they maybe don’t consider the unglamorous side of things, like emptying the dog poo bin or unblocking the public toilets (both duties we’ve had to perform in the last few days).

But for all the popular misconceptions, this past week has been one in which working has indeed been a real pleasure – notwithstanding the odd blocked toilet. A fine May morning out on the east coast, with wild flowers and seabirds and sunshine, is hard to beat. These are the moments that inspire the ‘best job in the world’ narrative.

We’re now into that part of the season wherein the Reserve’s population of Eider ducks is censused on a weekly basis, in order to ascertain the potential number of breeders. As well as the estuary, with its obvious concentration of birds, the census also takes in the rocky coastline from Collieston to Rockend, where a few pairs of Eiders breed each year. This is one of the more pleasant jobs on the roster, and as well as taking in the sights and sounds of the seabirds, it also allows for a bit of casual botanising as well. And now is the time that the plants of the coastal strip are beginning to look their best.

In botany, there are three broad categories into which plants fall, according to their life strategy. These are known by the following terms…

• Ruderals – quick to colonise new ground, quick to grow, quick to set seed; live fast and die young; what gardeners would refer to as ‘weeds’.
• Competitors – obvious really: their strategy is to out-compete everything else; these tend to be long-lived; think trees and vigorous perennials.
• Stress-tolerators – these find a niche in places that other plants can’t survive, by being able to tolerate stressors such as drought, salt, cold, heat or nutrient-deficiency.

Thrift, a common plant on Forvie’s cliffs, unequivocally falls into the latter category. This little plant is a real specialist in the salty coastal environment, able to tolerate the harsh conditions with ease. It can sometimes be found growing in seemingly-impossible situations, clinging to tiny ledges and cracks in the living rock, eking out an existence from nothing more than stone and fresh air. A stress-tolerator indeed, and a true champion.

Red Campion, by contrast, is more of a generalist. It grows quite happily on the clifftops, but can also be found in gardens, waysides and woodland edges. It’s quick to take advantage of new opportunities such as landslips and disturbed ground, but it also grows vigorously and competes strongly, so it has both ruderal and competitor characteristics. This is an easy wild flower to grow in your garden, and as well as being attractive to look at, it’s also very popular with pollinating insects.

The short grass sward of the clifftops is also home to a colourful array of low-growing wildflowers, keeping their heads down out of the salt wind. Violets can be found throughout the Reserve and are at their best about now. There are several similar species that are tricky to identify from one another, and I don’t mind admitting defeat in leaving this one labelled as ‘Viola sp.’ – shame on me!

This next species is a bit easier to recognise. Most folk will be familiar with the delicate pale yellow colour and exquisite form of the wild Primrose, and this is the ancestor of all the gaily-coloured domesticated versions that you see for sale in every garden centre throughout the land. But for my money at least, you can’t improve upon the original version.

Closely related to the Primrose, and bearing quite an obvious family resemblance, is the Cowslip. These are quite common on Forvie’s cliffs between Collieston and Hackley Bay, where they share turf with their Primrose cousins. They’re easily recognised by their deep egg-yolk-yellow colouration and their distinctive form, with small flowers borne in clusters at the top of a single stem.

In fact, Primroses and Cowslips are so closely related that they readily hybridise. The resultant offspring are known as False Oxlips, and in terms of both form and colour, they are a halfway house between the two parent species. Again, they are common along the northernmost of Forvie’s cliffs, and can be seen growing alongside both of the ‘pure’ parent plants.

At Hackley Bay there is a slight change of soil chemistry from the coast on either side, and certain plants can consequently be found here despite being absent from the rest of the Reserve. The prolific and distinctive white blooms of Meadow Saxifrage are a good example, occurring only on the stack at the south end of the bay, with the odd plant also appearing on the neighbouring coast path. Early May is when these attractive flowers are at their peak.

Across the wider Reserve, many other plants are also springing into life now. Across the heath, the fuzzy bright-yellow catkins of Creeping Willow are in evidence, and these serve as a reminder that you’re walking through woodland here. True, it’s not a woodland of mighty oaks or majestic granny pines, but this is a woodland that befits our harsh, salty climate and nutrient-poor ground conditions. Going back once again to our plant categories, Creeping Willow has elements of both the competitor and the stress-tolerator in its makeup.

Likewise the Gorse along the estuary-side footpath, which is positively glowing with flowers just now. This shrub is a ferocious competitor for sure, but it’s also a very effective tolerator of stress, being able to thrive in dry, nutrient-poor soil conditions. Being a member of the pea family, Gorse is able to ‘fix’ nitrogen from the atmosphere, allowing it a crucial advantage in places that are deficient in soil nitrogen. In addition, its wickedly sharp spines are a defence against grazing and browsing animals – again, a stress-tolerant adaptation. Like it or loathe it, Gorse is a plant that is good at what it does.

This sudden bonanza of nectar and pollen finds a great deal of favour with flying insects. We reported recently upon the upturn in bumblebee numbers, especially ‘BLTs’ (Bombus lucorum / terrestris = White-tailed / Buff-tailed Bumblebees). BLTs are our ‘stock’ bumblebees here, but they’re by no means the only species to be found at Forvie. This week they’ve been joined in good numbers by Early Bumblebees and Common Carders; the latter can be easily recognised by their golden teddy-bear-like appearance.

The other insect to make a big comeback this week is the Garden Tiger moth caterpillar. We’re now getting to the phase of the year where these are abundant throughout the Reserve, from the grassland in the north right down to the ternery in the south. Again, this is an easy insect to recognise, with its black, silver and orange livery and its distinctively hairy appearance.

Hairy caterpillars, including those of the Garden Tiger, are hairy chiefly as a defence against predators: after all, who wants to swallow an oversize bottle-brush? This works well against most predators, such as small passerine birds that might like an insect or two for lunch. The one exception to this rule, however, is the Cuckoo.

Far from being put off by the potential for a mouthful of bristles, Cuckoos actually specialise in scoffing hairy caterpillars, and the large numbers of Garden Tiger caterpillars here at Forvie represent a Cuckoo banquet. Added to this, there are plenty of Meadow Pipits to act as foster-parents for Cuckoo chicks – so it’s no surprise that the last few springs have seen at least one Cuckoo holding territory on the Reserve. Sure enough, this week we welcomed our first one back from his winter travels in Africa, and his repetitive refrain could be heard for miles across the heath.

So a full-on May week comes to an end, and at this fast-paced time of the year we wonder what the next few days might bring. At the time of writing, the weather charts look promising for a fresh arrival of migrant birds from the east – maybe. But if we do get lucky, and the Reserve does turn up that elusive Bluethroat, I might be forced to concede that this is indeed the best job in the world.

In what seemed like some sort of divine pardon, the changeover-week from April into May finally delivered to Forvie a series of days that actually felt like spring. In fact, the working week dealt us just one soaking that required a complete change of clothes (on Wednesday morning), as opposed to the usual three or four (or more) to which we’ve become accustomed. Further to this, we probably also saw more of the sky than at any other time in the last six months. And there were several mornings where being up and about early was a real pleasure, rather than a battle of wits against weather. Hallelujah!

The wildlife very much responded in kind to the improved conditions, and this was a week of arrivals. Down on the estuary, we finally welcomed our first Little Terns of the year, back for their breeding season at last. Their arrival date of 3rd May is the latest ever in the eighteen springs that your author has worked on the Reserve. But for a species on the proverbial knife edge, it’s emphatically a case of ‘better late than never’.

Nearby within the electric-fenced enclosure, the Sandwich Tern colony at last begun to look and sound the part. Towards the end of the week upwards of 300 birds were present on the colony, and the sharp-eyed Catriona spied one that looked to be sitting particularly comfortably – see the foreground of the photo below. When a tern or gull is snuggled right down, with the wingtips and tail pointing obliquely upwards, it’s often a good sign that they’re about to start laying, or are already sitting on eggs.

Sure enough, a quick dash in and out of the colony confirmed the suspicion that laying had commenced. Ascertaining the date when each species starts laying is critically important for us in monitoring Forvie’s breeding terns and gulls: this allows us to plan ahead for the nest census work that will ultimately tell us how many breeding pairs of each species we have.

Essentially, for each species, we take the first laying date and add the average incubation period, to give us a projected hatching date. In the case of Sandwich Tern this year, this works out as 2nd May + 25 days = 27th May. At the point the first chicks are due to hatch, the number of nests in the colony containing eggs is at its highest (and, importantly, there aren’t chicks running around under your feet risking getting trodden on). This, therefore, is the key time to carry out the nest census. So, 27th May it is then – I’ll go fetch the diary.

The upturn in the weather this week was allied to an easterly wind blowing from continental Europe. And as any regular reader of the Forvie blog will already know, in spring and autumn an easterly wind means one thing – time to fetch your optics and get out birding! Sure enough, from mid-week onwards we enjoyed a decent arrival of migrant songbirds of various species.

Among these were a couple of real gems. In Europe there are few finer sights in the natural world than a male Redstart in breeding plumage. An explosion of fiery orange, slate blue, jet black and shining white – all packed into a slender, Robin-sized package – these birds are real showstoppers. Catriona was lucky enough to find this one just on the boundary between the Reserve and the village of Collieston.

Redstarts are scarce passage migrants here at Forvie, and on average we maybe only see them on two or three occasions each year. Most of these are in immature or ‘female-type’ plumage, lacking most of the bright colours; breeding-plumage males are very much in the minority. And of those that do occur, most are very shy and restless, and don’t often permit good views. So, a confiding and showy male Redstart in breeding plumage is a very rare beast indeed. We may never see a better one than this!

In terms of scarcity value, however, the Redstart was upstaged by a Wood Warbler in your author’s garden, which later wandered down to the Reserve boundary at Sand Loch. Aesthetically speaking, this is another crowd-pleaser, a tiny gem decked out in a bright lemon-and-lime colour scheme. As well as looking gorgeous, it also constituted the first record of the species for our garden, which is always a bonus. Trouble is, I was absent at the time on the Isle of May, helping out with the Puffin population census – typical! Luckily though, Catriona captured some lovely photos of it, with which to torture me later on.

The last Wood Warbler we recorded at Forvie was in 2015, so I may have to wait some years before the next opportunity to see one here! Ah well, thus is life…

As well as the transient birds-of-passage such as those described above, the week’s new arrivals also included those who will remain at Forvie and set up home for the summer. As of Thursday, the bushes around Sand Loch once again resonated to the excitable, stream-of-consciousness babble of Sedge Warblers setting up their summer territories.

We also received a notable influx of Willow Warblers, and although these have been present in small numbers for a couple of weeks now, this last few days is the first time they have seemed really numerous. Their sweet, melodic song can now be heard almost anywhere on the Reserve where there are trees or scrub. It’s a fairly easy song to recognise with a bit of practice – and once memorised, you too can wow your friends with your ornithological prowess. Well, maybe…

There were new arrivals this week in the insect world too. Fine weather on Thursday saw a flurry of white butterflies around the Reserve, but with a stiff breeze blowing, many of them were too quick and elusive to be identified to species. Possibly some of the ones around the fringes of the Reserve at Collieston may have been Small Whites, but those we did catch up with in the Waterside area were undoubtedly Green-veined Whites. These are abundant throughout the wetter areas of the Reserve in spring and summer where their larval foodplant, Cuckoo-flower, is also now starting to appear.

Other butterflies have also been in evidence this week, with the Vanessids well-represented. This family of butterflies includes colourful and familiar species like Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock, both of which have been seen on the wing in recent days, as well as Red Admiral, which first put in its first appearance of the year on Thursday.

After a day filling your proverbial boots full of newly-emerged butterflies and a smorgasbord of Continental songbirds, what better way to finish up than with a stonking sunset? The week even produced a couple of those too.

So although we’ve had to wait until the month of May for the spring to properly arrive, the last few days have helped to make up for lost time. This week’s wildlife has been well worth the wait. More of the same next week please!

Though it may seem a bit ironic coming off the back of ten months of rain, a hot topic on Scotland’s National Nature Reserves just now – quite literally – is wildfire. Our changing climate is delivering consistently higher temperatures than the long-term average, while erratic weather patterns are increasing the frequency of both flood and drought. And while the last ten months here in the North-east has been relentlessly wet, there have been other times in the past few years when things have been desperately dry, and this is when the spectre of wildfire looms large for those of us who work on the land.

Perhaps surprisingly, spring is the time of year when the vegetation is naturally at its driest. Most plants are dormant over the winter, and at this stage of the year they haven’t yet ‘greened up’ and become lush with new growth and moisture-rich sap. As a result, they can desiccate quickly when the sun comes out, especially when this is accompanied by a drying wind. Fine-stemmed plants such as heathers and grasses desiccate especially rapidly in such conditions, and just an hour’s drying time can make them quite flammable. This is always in the backs of our minds here on fine, hot days in spring – not that we’ve had too many of those so far this year of course.

Of course, we hope upon hope that a wildfire situation never arises at Forvie, but in reality it’s far from impossible. Almost all wildfires in Scotland are started by people, rather than natural forces such as lightning, and more often than not they are started accidentally. This may be something as simple as a carelessly-dropped cigarette end or an ill-advised campfire. Thankfully, the majority of our visitors at Forvie tend to be sensible and thoughtful, but we’d advise anyone visiting or camping in the countryside – whether here or elsewhere – to take extreme care to prevent wildfires, and never to light fires in places such as heathland, grassland or dunes. Just think before you strike that match!

In recent years we’ve had one or two incidents of inappropriate fires at Forvie – usually at the top of a beach, dangerously close to the dunes. The one in the photo below is a case in point: a large fire was lit on the beach and then left unattended, during drought conditions, with an onshore wind. The consequences of the fire having reached the dry grass nearby would have been catastrophic, with the nearest ‘firebreak’ in the direction of travel being the A975 coast road over a mile away. Mercifully we were lucky on this occasion, but this may not always be the case.

With all this in mind, our managers at NatureScot last week teamed up with the Fire & Rescue Services of both Scotland and Northumberland to deliver a two-day course for Reserve and Operations staff on how to deal with a wildfire incident. This involved a day at our headquarters in Inverness, where Bruce and Ian from Northumberland FRS imparted their impressive experience on the subject. The following day was hosted by our colleagues at Creag Meagaidh NNR, and involved a mixture of classroom-based (well, workshop-based) sessions as well as some hands-on exercises with some fire-suppression kit. As we’ve often remarked, you never stop learning in this job.

In fact, a lot of the course content was reassuringly familiar. A couple of us here on the Forvie staff are previously trained and experienced at carrying out prescribed burning on our sister reserve at Muir of Dinnet NNR. This involves the use of a controlled burn to manage vegetation on the heath, removing rank heather and grass, and promoting the growth of other dwarf shrubs such as Bearberry. Used sparingly and carefully, this can be a useful land management tool, while the equipment and experience can also be applied in a wildfire situation. Here’s hoping we don’t ever need to do so.

As well as the excellent course tutors and content, the highlights of the two days also included the chance to catch up with colleagues from distant Reserves, as well as to take in the sights and sounds of the magnificent Creag Meagaidh NNR. I am forced to admit that as landlocked places go, it is rather lovely.

By Thursday we were back on the ranch at Forvie, and undertook our first breeding-season Eider census of 2024. These counts will be carried out weekly from now until early June, with the aim of estimating the potential breeding population of Eiders. The word ‘potential’ is used advisedly here, since not all Eiders choose to breed in any given year; in some years many of them ‘opt out’ for whatever reason. This week’s count revealed around 270 birds on the estuary, a low number for this stage of the year – though this may be due to the continuing cold spring, which appears to be making everything happen later than usual.

A handful of interlopers were also recorded during the count, including a puckle of Long-tailed Ducks in their highly-variable harlequin plumage, and a slightly-lost-looking Common Scoter. The latter species is more usually seen in flocks offshore, and to see one in the estuary is relatively unusual. But it may be that this bird was breaking its journey en-route to the Flow Country in the far north of Scotland, where a few pairs breed in the peatland pools.

We were also pleased to note a handful of freshly-arrived Common and Arctic Terns, hopefully the first of many to settle and breed in South Forvie in the coming weeks. This allowed us to sharpen up our identification skills, having not seen either of these species since last autumn. Common and Arctic Terns are a classic ‘species-pair’, very similar in appearance, voice and habits, and they’re not always easy to separate from one another in the field. Have a quick game of ‘spot the difference’ with the following two photos, and see if you can sort them out. (Tip: compare the extent of the dark wingtips, the translucence of the flight feathers, and the proportions of wing / tail / head / bill. Easy, huh?)

Sadly, the fine spells of sunshine that we enjoyed for a short while weren’t to last, and by Friday I found myself attempting to mow the very shaggy lawn outside the Forvie Centre in the rain. Earlier the same day we’d had a couple of heavy hail showers; these are a bit less annoying than rain showers, because the hail at least bounces off, rather than soaking you to the undercarriage. But for a brief period everything was covered in those little white polystyrene-looking balls of ice.

For most right-thinking creatures, getting showered by lumps of ice is more or less guaranteed to banish any amorous thoughts. This was largely true for Forvie’s Black-headed Gulls, most of whom were either hunkered down against the onslaught on their colony, or sulking on the shores of the nearby estuary in protest. The cold spring has certainly resulted in a slow start to their breeding season this year.

Despite all this, the first eggs appeared in the colony this week – fully three weeks later than in some previous years. Hopefully these are the first of many hundreds – or indeed thousands – yet to come.

In a year where it’s felt like spring has never really arrived, this milestone in the season was met with some relief on the part of the Reserve staff. At last, some cause for optimism – notwithstanding the odd hailstorm in the meantime. Onwards and upwards.

So that’s another week of spring 2024 done, and once again we’ve found ourselves beset by single-digit temperatures, high winds and – quelle surprise – yet more rain. On the Reserve, nature is in something of a confused state: the lengthening hours of daylight are telling our wildlife to grow / flower / breed / migrate (delete as appropriate), and at the same time the dreich and wintry weather conditions are having the opposite effect. Certainly the conditions on the ground have felt more like late November than late April.

All the while, the Forvie staff have been encouraging one another (and moreover trying to convince themselves) that at some point this weather pattern must surely change, and that better times lie ahead of us. Hold on to that feeling.

To be fair, the week wasn’t end-to-end bad. Last weekend, Danny teamed up with new weekend warden Joe to put on a Seal Watch event on Newburgh beach. Tooled up with telescopes, a life-size plywood seal, two plywood Eiders and plenty of banter, Danny and Joe spoke to upwards of 150 folk during the event, helping to spread the good word about Forvie and its wildlife. Incredibly, as evidenced by the photo below, the sun even shone for them for a short while; they probably ought to have each bought a scratchcard that evening.

The ever-impressive spectacle of the Grey Seal haul-out wasn’t the only point of wildlife interest on the estuary though. This week saw Forvie’s first Osprey of 2024, with one or more birds trying their luck at catching a fish (usually an unfortunate Flounder) in the tidal waters. Many people still think you need to go to Strathspey or Perthshire to see an Osprey, but these days our very own Ythan Estuary is as good a place as any to see one of these spectacular raptors in action.

Nearby, an unusually-small-looking Curlew actually turned out to be the first Whimbrel of the year. Like the Osprey, these are summer visitors to the British Isles, but with an even more restricted breeding range. Whimbrel nest only sporadically on the Scottish mainland, with most of the small breeding population occurring on the Northern and Western Isles. Here at Forvie, we also play host to Whimbrel bound for Scandinavia for the summer, feeding up on the Ythan Estuary before making the jump across the North Sea. These Continental migrants far outnumber the Scottish breeders, and probably account for the vast majority of Whimbrel that we see on spring and autumn migration here in the north-east.

Danny, in fact, had a busy week on the Reserve. As well as running the Seal Watch event, and attending to the daily duties of maintaining the ternery electric fence and engaging with visitors, he also found the time to check and repair Forvie’s mink rafts. These are floating platforms fitted with clay pads for recording mammal footprints, and are an important means of monitoring for the presence of American Mink on our waterways – an invasive species and a voracious predator of small mammals, birds and their young.

Thankfully Danny didn’t find any traces of American Mink, but he did discover a likely clue as to why. It seems that our mink rafts are popular resting-places for Otters; the wooden canopy of the raft makes an excellent place to leave a deposit of spraint in order to mark their respective territories. Now Otters aren’t at all fond of American Mink, and will drive the latter out of their territory, thereby doing the rest of the ecosystem a favour, and saving us a job in the process. It’s ample recompense for having our mink rafts used as Otter toilets – though rubber gloves are a must for staff checking and repairing the rafts!

The weekend wardens also successfully reinstated Larry the Labrador at the end of Waterside Wood, following the completion of his rehab at the workshop. While having to repair deliberate damage is always irritating to say the least, there’s actually something quite therapeutic and relaxing about settling down in the workshop to do some old-school freehand signwriting. Or maybe it’s just the smell of the paint.

In spite of the perpetual cold and wet, some of Forvie’s wild flowers are gamely pressing on regardless. Down in the southern dunes, the strange leafless flowers of Colt’s-foot have begun to appear in the past few days; the leaves will follow later in the season.

A very welcome sight has been that of the first Wild Pansy flowers of the year. Their cute and cheerful little countenances will brighten the dune-slacks and waysides for the next few months, in a varied colour-scheme of blues, purples, whites and yellows.

The early wildflowers are very much appreciated by any insects already on the wing, and this week has been the first time that bumblebees have been really plentiful. Most of these have been Buff-tailed or White-tailed Bumblebees, and this closely-related species-pair aren’t always readily identifiable in the field. Consequently they go by the naturalist’s affectionate acronym of ‘BLT’, derived from their respective scientific names – Bombus lucorum / terrestris.

Also of note in the insect department this week, the ever-sharp-eyed Catriona spotted this rather magnificent caterpillar at large on one of the footpaths across the heath. The black-and-white ‘punk hairdo’ identifies this beast as the larva of the Dark Tussock moth, and perhaps slightly recalls Chris Packham in his Really Wild Show days.

As well as wildflowers emerging, the Reserve’s trees are also gradually and reluctantly waking up. The first few tender leaves are beginning to emerge from their buds on the various Willow species across the Reserve.

The new growth of leaves, and the corresponding emergence of small invertebrates, is perfectly timed for the arrival of insectivorous birds on their spring migration. This week Forvie recorded its first Willow Warblers of 2024, restlessly gleaning insects from the fine twigs, and occasionally – and delightfully – indulging in a bit of singing practice en-route. There are few sweeter sounds in the northern summer than the song of the Willow Warbler – a lilting, descending cascade of softly-exquisite notes.

Another northbound migrant, and another fine singer, is the Blackcap. In the time it’s taken me to write this piece, we’ve seen our first one of the year pass through the garden here. It’s always enjoyable to renew your acquaintance with a species you haven’t seen for several months, whether it be a migrant bird, a seasonal insect or a flowering plant.

Lastly, it’s with some relief that we noted the Black-headed Gulls back on their breeding colony towards the end of the week. Earlier they had abandoned the colony altogether, presumably in a fit of pique about the cold and wet conditions with which they were faced (can’t actually say I blame them). Now they’re back in-situ, we’re hoping they’ll stay put and start to get on with the breeding season in earnest.

As conservationists, we often find ourselves trusting to hope. For this next few months, we hope for success for our breeding wildlife, and not a repeat of last year’s avian ‘flu disaster. We hope everyone who visits the Reserve treats it with respect, and enjoys it with consideration. And we hope, after the dismal spring we’ve endured, to be dealt a fine summer…well, you never know!

Is all this too much to hope for? I hope to think not. Don’t stop believing.

One of the themes of 2024 so far, apart from the endless rain and gales, has been the extraordinarily big tides we’ve been receiving along our coast and estuary. Speaking to folk on the Reserve, including long-term residents from our local communities of Collieston and Newburgh, reveals a common consensus: nobody can recall a period of unusually high tides such as this. So, as the great meteorologist and marine scientist Marvin Gaye once famously said, what’s going on?

There are many factors that affect tide heights and timings; some of these are regular and predictable, and some rather more random. It’s fairly common knowledge that the tides are essentially controlled by the position of the moon relative to the earth and sun, whose magnetic fields push and pull the water. This is the predictable bit: the monthly lunar cycle produces a corresponding tidal cycle of spring and neap tides.

Spring tides occur when the moon is either full or new. The alignment of sun, moon and earth causes a strong gravitational pull, leading to a large tidal movement – basically, high tides are very high, and low tides very low. The term ‘spring’, therefore, relates not to the season of the year, but to the water extending and contracting like a coiled spring. Thus you can get spring tides in every month of the year!

Neap tides occur when the moon is halfway through the cycle from new to full and vice versa. Because the moon and sun are at ninety degrees from each other relative to the earth, the gravitational pull is weak. Consequently the high tides are not especially high, and the lows not very low. There is much less difference between high and low tide levels during neaps than there is during springs. Savvy?

Yes Daryl, we kinda know most of this already, I hear you say. What about the unpredictable stuff?

Here goes then. Firstly, atmospheric pressure has a big effect upon tide heights. High pressure – which often manifests itself in fine, settled, calm days with clear skies or high cloud – causes reduced tide heights. Put simply, the pressure of the air above presses the water down, reducing its height upon the shore. Conversely, low pressure – usually associated with wet, windy and at times stormy weather – allows tide heights to rise higher than normal, as there is less downward pressure acting upon the water.

Atmospheric pressure tends to be measured in millibars, and anyone who has ever watched a TV weather forecast will have seen the charts with their pressure systems all labelled with these magic numbers. Each millibar of change, either plus or minus, can lead to a sea level change of up to 1 cm. Average atmospheric pressure is about 1013 mb, but a deep low pressure system associated with a storm can get down to 960 mb or less. This equates to a rise in tide height of over 50cm from the average!

Then, of course, there’s Forvie’s ever-present old friend: the wind. An onshore wind – in our case, anything from a south-south-easterly to north-easterly – has the effect of piling up the water on the shore. The stronger the wind, and the more prolonged the blow, the greater the effect. This leads to higher-than-predicted tides, especially when combined with a low atmospheric pressure; this combination is often referred to as a ‘storm surge’.

Here at Forvie, such conditions can back the water up in the Ythan Estuary, preventing it from flowing out to sea. On days like these, we appear to have an all-day high tide, as the water simply doesn’t get the chance to recede before the tide starts to rise again. In extreme cases, such as we’ve seen in this last few months, the island of Inch Geck in the upper estuary can disappear completely; such a change to the familiar landscape can be quite disconcerting.

OK, it appears that the weather has a big effect on the tides, but can this fully explain what we’ve been seeing lately? We’ve certainly had more than our share of low atmospheric pressure (i.e. rubbish weather) this past few months. The high rainfall will undoubtedly have boosted the water levels in the upper estuary too, perhaps contributing to the disappearing-island phenomenon. But is there any long-term change happening, to back up the locals’ assertions that they’ve never seen anything like it?

Long-term data from monitoring stations around the UK coastline generally show an increase in mean sea levels over the past 150 years. The graph for Aberdeen, our nearest station, looks a bit like this:

Sea level rise can be caused by a number of factors, including the melting of sea-ice around the poles, thermal expansion of water due to climate warming, and isostatic adjustment of the land. The latter is an interesting one: it’s thought that up to now, Aberdeenshire has been gradually rising. This is the long and slow process of the land literally ‘bouncing back’ from the last Ice Age, when the sheer weight of ice on the land caused the earth’s crust to sink relative to sea level. However, are we now reaching the point where actual sea level rise is outpacing isostatic rebound? Probably beyond my qualifications as a nature-reserve dogsbody to comment: you’ll need to ask a ‘proper’ scientist. Food for thought though.

Anyway, if there is indeed a long-term change in sea level occurring, how is this likely to affect the Reserve?

In our day-to-day work, the extra high tides have made life a bit tricky at times. Massive amounts of erosion have occurred along the beach and estuary, and everywhere you go there are great rafts of debris washed up – a tangle of Marram Grass roots, driftwood, marine litter, the occasional dead whale, and other delights. Not only does this make accessing the beach in the pickup truck rather ‘interesting’, but it also plays havoc with the on-site infrastructure. For instance, the beach barrier fence that our team worked so hard to put up last week lasted just four days before being demolished by Storm Kathleen and her associated mega tides.

So on Monday morning – in another low-pressure system, needless to say – Catriona and I had to go back and do it all again. This is a delightful job to do in a downpour, as the wet sand sticks to absolutely everything, and we ended up taking a fair bit of beach home with us in the truck.

Then yet more windy weather and high tides meant it needed another rebuild by Friday – though a much lighter one this time around. And at least this time I had a nice day for it, for a change.

Anyway, as we’ve said before, it’s up to us as Reserve staff to roll with whatever changes the elements throw at us. We’ll manage just fine – but what about some of the Reserve’s wildlife?

Nature, of course, is supremely adaptable given the chance. With Forvie being a famously dynamic environment, much of our wildlife is well-placed to deal with any changes to the coastline brought about by differences in climate and sea conditions – within reason. One of the concerns with anthropogenic climate change (with its knock-on effects upon sea level and weather patterns) is the fast pace of change. Thus species that have a relatively tentative foothold may struggle to adapt quickly enough to keep up.

Species living ‘on the edge’, so to speak, include plants of the foreshore such as the rare and beautiful Oysterplant, and shore-nesting birds like Ringed Plovers and Oystercatchers. With the upper foreshore becoming flooded by massive tides on an increasingly regular basis, what does the future hold for these species at Forvie and beyond?

Meanwhile, the Ythan Estuary itself is an internationally important site for numerous species, including various wading-birds that depend on the inter-tidal mudflats for feeding and roosting. Any reduction in the availability of such habitat due to sea level change is likely to affect them too.

In summary, with regards to the recent mega-high tides, it’s difficult to sort out the ‘noise’ (i.e all the regular and weather-related tidal fluctuations) from any longer-term trends. Has this past few months been a freakish set of anomalies, or an indication of genuine long-term change? I suppose only time will tell.

So, what’s in store for this place in the future? Who knows; Forvie’s dynamic landscape and seascape are showing no signs of slowing down. But I’d advise you to bring your wellies just in case.