With the latter half of August now upon us, the 2025 ‘tern season’ at Forvie is now officially over and done. This massive milestone in the Reserve’s year always brings with it a mix of emotions: a good deal of relief that it’s all over, a sprinkle of sadness that the terns are leaving us, and a substantial helping of either satisfaction or disappointment depending on how successfully the season has panned out. All garnished with a sprig of exhaustion, of both the physical and the mental kind; the season is a long haul, both for the birds and for the people who seek to look after them.

The departure of the last birds from the ternery heralds the start of the big clear-up. There are two Fensman hides to recover from the Sandwich tern colony; two 33kg batteries and their associated switchgear to remove; four earth rods and several wooden posts to come out; 2,000 metres of steel wire to reel up; about 450 plastic insulating poles to bundle up and take out; 20 rolls of mesh netting to pack up and carry out; and hundreds of pegs, guy ropes, ground staples and other ancillary bits and pieces to remove. Best get the sleeves rolled up then.

We’re lucky at Forvie to have a brilliant band of regular volunteers to help out with tasks such as these, and without them the Reserve would be a much poorer place. With staffers Catriona and Joe each away on some well-earned leave this week, I was especially grateful to volunteers Richard, Elaine, Vikki and Jim for their time; between us we got the entire electric fence packed up and returned, in instalments, to the workshop for winter storage. It was a phenomenal effort, and everyone did more than I would ever have dared ask of them. I honestly can’t thank you all enough.

Former Forvie tern warden Rob Ballinger, much loved and sadly missed, always used to indulge in what he called a ‘quiet reflective moment’ at the end of each summer season. It’s that contemplative minute or two you spend in the now-deserted ternery, taking in the strange silence and uncharacteristic serenity of the setting, which for the previous five months has been all noise and mayhem.

In this respect, the atmosphere at the ternery at the end of the season reminds me somewhat of the aftermath of a music festival. Gone are the crowds, the noise, the chatter, the excitable chaos; the showground lies deserted, except for a handful of stewards and roadies clearing up the debris and nursing their sore heads. And that’s exactly how it feels at the ternery: what a party it was. At its raucous midsummer peak, Forvie’s ternery is a festival of life.

So was all the effort with the fencing and monitoring worth it in 2025? The answer here is an unequivocal ‘yes’. Of my nineteen ‘tern seasons’ here at Forvie (how did that happen, by the way?!), this one ranks comfortably in the top five, if not the top three. All the key breeding bird species enjoyed a good deal of breeding success; some species had a solid season, while others had an outstanding one. What follows is a quick summary for each.

Black-headed Gull

1,705 breeding pairs; minimum 1,264 young fledged.

With Forvie nowadays hosting up to one fifth of Scotland’s breeding Black-headed Gulls, we have become a disproportionately-important site for this once-common-and-widespread species. The peak count of 1,264 fledged young will undoubtedly be an under-estimate of the colony’s total productivity, with birds continuing to fledge from the colony over an eight-week period. With favourable weather and low predation pressure, chick survival was very high. A rock-solid season.

Sandwich Tern

1,010 breeding pairs; minimum 1,102 young fledged.

Another species for which Forvie is hugely important in a Scottish and UK context, with up to 10% of the UK population breeding here in some years. This year’s 1,010 pairs represented a strong colony, and the peak count of 1,102 fledged young was a record in the nineteen years I’ve worked on the Reserve. And what a bounce-back from the devastation wrought by avian ‘flu upon this species just two years previously.

Arctic & Common Terns

621 breeding pairs (combined); minimum 272 young fledged.

These two similar species each had a better season than the figures might suggest. The total of 621 breeding pairs comprised 509 pairs Arctic and 112 pairs Common, in a loose mixed colony. Their young fledged over a protracted period of several weeks, which meant there wasn’t a single large peak count, but known losses were low. Like the Black-headed Gulls, these birds had a solid if not spectacular season. I’ll take that for a result.

Little Tern

9 breeding pairs; minimum 11 young fledged.

These were the real surprise package of the season. With their favourite exposed-shingle nesting habitat at a premium on the Reserve just now, only nine pairs settled to breed this year, and were very late in getting started. This late start, combined with the species’ poor recent track record at Forvie, meant I wasn’t optimistic about their chances of success. However, I was delighted to be proven wrong, and the peak count of 11 fledged young represents their second-highest productivity per nest in the last decade. Woot woot!

Eider

60-90 breeding pairs (estimate); minimum 98 young fledged.

Although a far cry from their mid-20th Century heyday, Forvie’s Eider population remains an important feature of the Reserve. Now mostly concentrated within the electric-fenced enclosure, where they nest among the terns and gulls, their rate of hatching success in 2025 was very good. In early summer up to 250 ducklings were seen on the estuary, but the usual losses to predators resulted in a final total of 98 surviving to fledge – in the scheme of things, a very solid season indeed.

And finally…

With the season now happily ended, we owe a great debt of thanks to everyone who has helped us with the maintenance and monitoring tasks at the ternery throughout the year, most notably our volunteers. But thanks are also owed to all the visitors to the Reserve who have respected the closure of South Forvie to the public during the bird breeding season, thereby minimising disturbance and allowing the birds the best possible chance of success.

All things being even, we’ll aim to get the barrier fence taken down at some point next week, at which point South Forvie will re-open to the public once again – watch this space for more. But I hope you’ll forgive us needing a break from fencing work for a few days in the meantime!

The Mediterranean feel to the summer of 2025 at Forvie continued this week, with a series of hot, humid days and stiflingly warm nights. As is often the way of such things, the build-up of heat eventually resulted in a significant electrical storm on Thursday evening, with some spectacular lighting strikes visible to the south-west of the Reserve. After their previous close shave with lightning earlier in the season, we were worried that Danny and Joe had somehow angered the gods again, but thankfully this time the storm passed safely inland of us. Thus we could all enjoy the thrill of the lightning without simultaneously having to worry about being vaporised by it. Happy days.

In the build-up to the storm, the heat and humidity had combined with a light onshore breeze to bring in the haar for a short period. This brought a refreshing mist of moisture to the parched vegetation of the Reserve, but I always feel for Forvie’s spider population at such times. All their carefully-set traps, woven from such fine silk as to be practically invisible in normal conditions, were now as obvious as if they’d been sprayed with silver paint.

Lurking in the gloom in the stubble fields adjoining the north end of the Reserve were a small gang of Curlew. Not long arrived from their travels – who knows where ‘our’ Curlew spend their summers? – it is possible that these are the vanguard of the small flock of forty-odd birds that overwinter in the Collieston area each year. While I know I’ll receive dog’s abuse from some of our readership for mentioning the word ‘overwinter’ in August, it’s nonetheless a sure sign that for many species, the summer breeding season is unequivocally over now.

Our summer visitors, meanwhile, are similarly coming to the end of their respective breeding seasons. At the north end of the Reserve, hirundines (i.e. Swallows, House and Sand Martins) are starting to gather with their fledged youngsters, lining up on the fences and rooftops and noisily discussing the route to Africa. It’ll be a few weeks yet until the majority depart our shores, and this year’s fledglings make that great leap into the unknown.

As well as a brilliant bird breeding season, and the best summer for insects in decades, 2025 also appears to have been a boom year for small mammals. As evidence of this, we often see them zipping across the footpaths on a regular basis, and occasionally also find dead ones on the roads and paths of the Reserve. One of Forvie’s more numerous small mammals is the Common Shrew, and rival individuals of this species regularly fight to the death when they meet with one another. More often than not, the ones that we find on the footpaths are casualties of these tiny yet brutal encounters.

In nature, of course, nothing goes to waste, and the deceased Common Shrew in the following picture has already attracted the attention of one of nature’s great recyclers.

Meet the Sexton Beetle. These instantly-recognisable and enterprising insects are so named for the way they make their living: burying bodies. Having excavated a hole beneath the corpse of a small mammal or bird, the male and female beetle, working as a team, lower the body of the deceased into it. The female then lays her eggs on or next to the body. When the larvae hatch, they feed on the ‘cured meat’ under the watchful eye of both parent beetles. However gruesome this whole endeavour may sound, it’s all part of nature’s circular economy, with these hard-working beasts fulfilling an important role in the great cycle of life.

For their size, Sexton Beetles are remarkably strong, and are capable of moving objects many times larger and heavier than themselves. Catriona captured this short film of a Sexton Beetle moving the corpse of a Short-tailed Vole, which I reckon is probably the equivalent of me lifting and carrying a pickup truck. Respect!

The enduring fine summer has also given us an excellent wild flower season, and although many species are now beginning to go over, the sides of the trails throughout the Reserve are still looking bright and cheery.

Along the coast path, a pink-flowered form of Yarrow is in evidence just now. Yarrow flowers are usually pure white, with the pink form a good deal rarer, at least here on our patch.

Yarrow also goes by the alternative common name of Milfoil, deriving from its scientific name Achillea millefolia. This translates as ‘thousand leaves’, and a close look at a single Yarrow leaf reveals why. The leaf is so finely divided – or ‘multi-pinnate’ if you prefer the posher term – that it looks like a thousand tiny leaves in one. Meanwhile, the Achillea bit of the scientific name refers to the Greek warrior Achilles, whom legend has it treated his battle wounds with Yarrow poultices. Sure enough, the plant has powerful astringent qualities, and at one time was widely used as a blood-stopper.

Another floral curiosity we noted this week was a patch of white Bluebells, if you can forgive the contradiction in terms. This is a moderately frequent aberration, having been seen in various places on the Reserve where the ‘standard’ Bluebells are abundant. For whatever reason, they reminded me of an old-fashioned set of Christmas lights, draped over a tangle of Marram grass. Ah, sorry – there I go referencing winter again…

More ordinary, but no less visually appealing, are the delicate pink flowers of Ragged Robins, which can currently be found abloom in the wetter areas of the Reserve, particularly in the marshy areas around the lochs and burns.

In the drier areas, a typical late-summer vista is that of Wild Angelica stems standing sentinel over the surrounding parched grasses. Strange to think that not so many years ago, the candied stems of this plant were used for cake decoration, before synthetic green food dyes were available. How quickly things change!

Taking advantage of the continuing crop of wild flowers are a plethora of flying insects, from hoverflies to beetles, wasps to moths. Although the butterfly scene has quietened down somewhat from its early August peak, there are still plenty to be seen. The last of this year’s Dark Green Fritillaries are now beginning to look a little world-weary…

…but the Vanessids (the famous foursome of Red Admiral, Painted Lady, Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock) are still looking magnificent.

What a summer we’ve enjoyed here in the North-east in 2025, and it’s not over yet. Keep the sunshine coming please – but spare us the thunderbolts!

Having blogged last week about what a fabulous summer’s weather we’ve been enjoying, it was inevitable that I’d get my comeuppance more or less immediately. Sure enough, the very next day after the blog was published, we received a summer storm of unusual violence and intensity. Gone were the balmy days and butterflies; this was a day of ferocious gales, ripping branches and somersaulting wheelie-bins. Lesson learned: don’t tempt the fates, or indeed the weather gods.

In all honesty, the Reserve got off very lightly. There was no significant damage to trees or buildings, and the ternery electric fence, standing as it does on the most exposed place on the planet, stood up surprisingly well too. In truth though, it wouldn’t have been a disaster if it had been flattened by the storm: the fence’s work is all but done now, with the ternery now 99.9% emptied of birds.

Most annoyingly, however, the vicious sand-blow did expose a substantial area of shingle – prime Little Tern real-estate – which would have been very useful at the start of the breeding season. Sigh.

Where the storm had churned up the waters of the estuary, a few artefacts had washed up on the strand line. These included examples of both Compass and Lion’s Mane jellyfish, bright blue and deep fox-red respectively. In some years, these wash up in prodigious quantities in late summer; time will tell whether or not 2025 is a ‘jellyfish year’.

The wind and wave action had also caused the Ythan Estuary’s famous ‘blue sand’ to settle out into a broad line along the high-water mark. This is actually formed from the crushed shells of countless Mussels, plucked from the river bed and eaten by Forvie’s Eiders. Unlike humans with their moules mariniere, Eiders don’t bother shelling theirs, and instead swallow them whole, shell and all. Crushed into fragments in the birds’ muscular gizzards, the shells pass all the way through the Eiders’ digestive systems, and are eventually, ahem, returned to the estuary. And that’s what you’re seeing as ‘blue sand’ on the estuary – nice, huh?

The Eiders themselves, of course, are busy moulting and sulking at the mouth of the estuary, passing the time until their bright new feathers grow in the early autumn. In the meantime, they are flightless and scruffy, and spend much of the day dozing peacefully on the foreshore.

The estuary also played host to at least three Spoonbills this week. These are bizarre and somewhat freakish birds, whose spoon-shaped beaks are perfectly adapted to sifting through estuarine mud and water to extract all the delicious wee beasties that live within it. Historically a southern species, with strongholds in the Mediterranean region, this is another species that’s becoming more and more frequent in our region as our climate becomes ever milder.

Thursday saw us out on the Foveran Burn for the annual Himalayan Balsam-bashing excursion, in a continuing attempt to eradicate this invasive non-native species in our local area. The job had been planned for the Monday, before being scuppered by the storm; better late than never though. We were grateful to volunteers Richard, Vikki and Jim for giving up their time, and to Lewis and (former Forvie summer warden) Robert for organising and providing refreshments. The latter were very much appreciated: it was a very warm day for wearing chest-waders!

Back onto the Reserve now, and this week we are indebted to local naturalist and photographer Ron Macdonald, who has kindly provided us with a cracking series of shots showing some aerial action above the estuary. With the breeding season now all but over, Forvie’s terns have begun to disperse into the world, scattering to the four winds, to return (or so we hope) next spring. However, small numbers of all four species remain in the area, with adults teaching their newly-fledged offspring the rudiments of fishing.

As ever, Ron has put himself in the right places at the right times, taking advantage of the golden light at either end of the day to capture some remarkably beautiful images. Not that we’re biased or anything, but terns are surely among the most elegant and photogenic of all Forvie’s birds: judge for yourself though!

In contrast to last summer, the terns’ food supply – chiefly small oily fish such as Sand-eels and Sprats – has held up throughout the season. Whereas last year the birds had abandoned the area completely by mid-July, with the estuary possessed of an eerie ghost-town sort of feel, this time around it’s a much livelier scene. However, the terns aren’t getting it all their own way, with their feeding activities attracting the attention of some notorious bandits.

Arctic Skuas are essentially pirates: sea-going buccaneers who make their living through larceny. Using a combination of fabulous flying skills and intimidating physical presence, they rob other seabirds of their catch of fish, twisting and harrying in breathtaking high-speed pursuit until their victim drops its catch (or indeed regurgitates its last meal: skuas are not fussy eaters, and aren’t averse to second-hand food). But for all this, they don’t usually resort to physical violence, and usually a quick tweak of the victim’s tail or wingtip in flight is enough to convince them to ‘cough up’ (sometimes in the literal sense). As such, their style of piracy is gentlemanly rather than brutal; more Captain Jack Sparrow than Edward Low.

Against a post-storm backdrop of black skies and milky sunshine, Ron captured an action shot of two Arctic Skuas pursuing a single Sandwich Tern over the mouth of the estuary. With the Second World War pillbox in the foreground, Ron reckoned the scene was more akin to a dogfight between combat aircraft than a pirate encounter – perhaps a pair of Messerschmitts closing in on a lone Spitfire…

…and in much the same way as a fighter pilot of old, it can’t be much fun when you’re outnumbered, with not one but two bandits on your tail!

Thanks once again to Ron Macdonald for the use of his superb photos in this week’s blog. See you again next week!

Most people with an interest in the natural world have probably, at some point, come across the term ‘shifting baseline syndrome’. It’s a neat way of expressing a well-known phenomenon: that we almost invariably use the world we knew in our childhood as a point of reference. Thus any changes we’ve witnessed in our lifetime will always be compared against this baseline. It’s an interesting, and totally understandable, quirk of human psychology.

I am as guilty as anyone of doing this (though in my defence, I’m at least self-aware enough to realise that I’m doing it!) – and can’t help comparing the world I see now with the world of my youth. Now we all know that nature has generally been in freefall for much of the past hundred years (and especially the past fifty), and as a result my own baseline (late 1980s-early 1990s) doesn’t exactly represent a golden age of biological diversity. That said, compared with today’s world, I’m sorry to say it does elicit a melancholic pang of nostalgia: a ‘delicious sadness’, as the naturalist Gerald Durrell once wrote.

Memories from this time come back with surprising, sometimes alarming clarity. Beakers of lemonade served on the back steps in scorching sunshine. Travelling by train in the dying days of BR, on faded velour seats behind clapped-out locomotives. Australia marmalising England in countless Test matches, coming through the long-wave radio in Dad’s Ford Escort. And most poignantly, all that wildlife, that I naïvely just took for granted.

Anyway, I promise there’s a relevant point to this ramble down memory lane. Back in the land of the here and now, we’re currently experiencing the best summer for a long while in terms of weather (mostly) and wildlife (definitely). This past week I have been unable to resist making comparisons with the summers of my childhood, but for once in a good way. Basically, this boils down to two things: sunshine and butterflies, both of which have been in unusual abundance at Forvie in the summer of 2025.

A quick walk from Collieston to Hackley Bay on Tuesday produced, without any real effort on my part, eleven different species of butterflies. At our latitude, that’s not too shabby at all, given that flying-insect diversity generally decreases the further north you go in Europe. But more than this, it was the numbers that were impressive. Rather than the odd ones and twos that we’re used to, this year we’re seeing butterflies in the sort of abundance that I recall from my youth: the very best kind of throwback.

Among the throngs of Red Admirals and Small Tortoiseshells – great to see these present in good numbers once more – Painted Ladies have been very much in evidence. This is something of a boom-and-bust species at Forvie; in some years we hardly see a single one, while in other years they can be super-abundant (the last year this happened was 2019 – or as we fondly call it, the Dave Pickett Era). This feast-or-famine pattern of occurrence is due to the vagaries of wind and weather, allied to the butterfly’s remarkable (bordering on unbelievable) life strategy.

The Painted Lady is a multi-generational, long-distance migrant. That is to say it migrates over vast distances – from sub-Saharan Africa north to the very edge of the Arctic Circle – in a series of shorter ‘hops’, each one undertaken by a new generation of butterflies. The first generation hatches in central Africa, then moves northwards to Morocco when it gets too hot south of the Sahara. Here they breed, and the resulting offspring then head northwards into Europe. Two or three generations later, if prevailing wind and weather conditions are favourable, what are perhaps the ‘great-grandkids’ of the original African butterflies make landfall here in Scotland, having crossed the North Sea in the process. And that’s what we’re witnessing right now at Forvie.

As if this wasn’t amazing enough (I mean how can a butterfly weighing less than a gram, with a wingspan of less than 6 cm, cross the North Sea or the Sahara Desert?!), it’s the last part of the Painted Lady’s life story that’s the really mind-blowing bit. What’s more, it was a mystery only solved within the past twenty years.

The key point to note here is that the Painted Lady can’t survive the Scottish winter, in any part of its life cycle (i.e. egg, caterpillar, pupa or adult). Consequently for years it was thought that the later generations of the butterfly were basically heading down a dead-end road, in the literal sense, on their northward migration. However, studies carried out in 2009 – another big Painted Lady year in the UK – employed ground-based radar to track the flying butterflies.

By these means, scientists established that the Painted Ladies didn’t wait to meet their inevitable fate in the British winter – instead, they upped and left for Africa. Ascending to altitudes of 500 metres and more – which explains why the phenomenon has never actually been observed by the human eye – they hitch a free ride on prevailing tail-winds, to end up right back where their ancestors started out in central Africa, a journey of 7,000 miles or thereabouts. In 2009, it was reckoned that 11 million Painted Ladies arrived in the UK during the 2009 study, while a whopping 26 million departed southwards in the autumn. Clearly, the long journey north (and thence south) is worth it for the seasonal glut of food available to the butterflies in northern Europe. It’s a strategy that works – however unlikely it may seem.

So when you’re walking the paths on the Reserve and seeing these butterflies zipping around, and supping nectar from the thistles and knapweeds, you’re seeing one of the true miracles of nature. Not that we even knew that during the heady days of my youth! Now, as then – and regardless of any shifting baselines – there’s so much more for us to learn about the world in which we live.

It’s said that time passes more quickly as you get older, which is a little bit worrying given that July seems to be flying past at a fearful rate of knots. Somehow we now find ourselves in the last few days of what’s been a jam-packed month, the past week having whistled by in the wink of an eye. That’s summer at Forvie right enough!

Actually, our week began with a day away from Forvie. We were invited to bring a stall to the Coastal Discovery Day at Greyhope Bay, an event which coincided with the Tall Ships coming to Aberdeen. Our colleagues Nicola and Alan from the NatureScot Aberdeen office also came along for an hour or so, allowing us to squeeze in a quick cup of tea in the Greyhope Bay café (the sugared dough-rings come highly recommended, by the way). Most importantly of all, this was a chance to chat to a new audience and spread the word about nature conservation, and how our work at Forvie fits into it all.

The day at Greyhope gave us some great views of Aberdeen’s famous Bottlenose Dolphins, which seemed to put on a show especially for the benefit of the assembled audience, leaping and splashing with great enthusiasm.

We had been invited to attend the event by Rosie Baillie from Greyhope Bay, and it was very kind of Rosie to arrange a flypast by the Red Arrows for us by way of thanks. We responded in kind by staging our own flying display, consisting of a procession of Sandwich and Arctic Terns heading southwards down the coast with their fledged youngsters; Forvie’s birds are now in evidence all along the coast of the North-east.

The following day, at the conclusion of the Tall Ships’ visit to Aberdeen, the scene off Forvie’s coast resembled the days of the Spanish Armada, as the fleet of ships set sail for Norway. This is actually an eerie echo of our past, with a ship from the actual Spanish Armada having been wrecked off Collieston (commemorated by the name St Catherine’s Dub – check out the Ordnance Survey map!). And what a magnificent and atmospheric sight they made, on a sultry and hazy July evening.

The Coastal Discovery Day wasn’t our only public engagement of the week. Thursday saw us running our annual Moth Morning event, which as ever was attended and enjoyed by people of all ages, and we were especially grateful to Aberdeenshire entomologists Shona and Morag for their assistance. The weather overnight from Wednesday into Thursday remained warm, humid and settled, with no moon and hardly a breath of wind – ideal moth-trapping conditions. Consequently, our light-traps produced an excellent haul of moths for everyone to have a look at on the Thursday morning.

Some of the species involved were familiar and instantly recognisable…

…while others were, for us at least, a bit more exotic, and required a good grilling and a check of the field guide!

Apart from their beautiful markings and colours, and their fascinating life-strategies, one of the most delightful things about moths is their weird and wonderful variety of names. Thus this smart-looking beast, with its distinctive green ‘face’ and its orangey-yellow hindwings (hidden from view when the moth is at rest, of course), goes by the name of Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing. And with a wingspan of about 35 mm, the name is considerably bigger than the moth.

This one goes by the more evocative – and much more easily remembered – name of July Highflyer, and was in part the inspiration for the title of this week’s blog post!

When speaking about moths, one question we often get asked is “what’s the difference between a moth and a butterfly?” – to which there isn’t a hard and fast answer! There are several general differences: moths tend to be nocturnal while butterflies operate by day; moths have feathery antennae while butterflies have club-shaped antennae, and so on – but there are exceptions, on both sides, to all these rules! Who’d be an entomologist?!

Either way, it’s been another excellent week on the Reserve for butterflies as well as moths (oh, the joys of a decent summer’s weather!). Capturing photos of the different species feeding on their favoured nectar sources made for an enjoyable few minutes en-route to my daily rounds at the ternery.

In fact at one point I lucked out completely, with a lovely fresh Grayling sharing a thistle flower with a Dark Green Fritillary, so I snapped away with the phone camera. However, it wasn’t until I looked back at the photos that I realised there was also a solitary wasp in the frame – perhaps a Digger Wasp of some sort. I would of course be delighted to hear from anyone who can help me out with the identification, though I appreciate it’s probably very difficult from my sketchy photo. In any case, it made for an interesting and very biodiverse picture!

Speaking of cryptic insects, I had recently noticed some unusual-looking, distinctive and silvery-coloured Dipterans (two-winged flies) in the dunes of South Forvie. This is yet another group of species shamefully under-represented in this blog; a reflection of my lack of knowledge of the subject. Although they looked interesting, I had never been able to approach one closely enough to get a proper look or a photograph – until last week. Finally, this obliging individual allowed me to identify it as a Coastal Silver-stiletto – I promise I’m not making this up. Actually, I reckon the fancy name quite befits this elegant little insect, a specialist of sand-dune habitats, with its silver body and bronzy eyes.

Lastly, and right in tune with the ‘flying high’ theme for the week, I am relieved to report some good news from the ternery. Forvie’s tiny and fragile population of Little Terns – just nine pairs – has successfully fledged at least eleven young. This is a great result, what with this species having the dubious honour of being Scotland’s rarest breeding seabird. After a tough few seasons, and a very late start to this one, I was doubtful they’d meet with much success. But when I saw the youngsters on the wing on Friday morning, I could have leapt over the moon.

After all the hard yards put in by the Reserve team this season – staff, volunteers, and colleagues from other sites too – it’s indescribably rewarding to see our combined efforts resulting in success for Forvie’s seabirds. Just like them, we feel like we’re flying high just now.

One of our key purposes here at Forvie is to engage with people. This is, in fact, a critical function of a National Nature Reserve – to cater for people as well as for wildlife, and to provide a place to showcase the latter to the former. Forvie currently receives around 75,000 human visitors a year (not including those to the Newburgh side of the estuary, numbering many thousands more); this is around three times the annual figure from the early 2000s when I started work here, and is only likely to continue increasing.

There’s no doubt that the rising visitor pressure can, and does, create challenges and problems for us, particularly when it comes to the conservation of sensitive wildlife on the Reserve. Resting seals and breeding birds are two obvious examples of wildlife that can be seriously compromised by the activities of people. But on the flip side, it also presents us with a great opportunity to engage with those people – to inform and to educate (and possibly even to entertain; you be the judge of that!), and to generally bang the drum about nature conservation. Right now, in high summer, this critical element of Reserve work is in full swing.

As of this month, our summer programme of public events is underway, with the Forvie Fun Day and Edible & Medicinal Plants guided walk having already taken place. In both cases, the weather gods smiled upon us; when you’re running outdoor events in north-east Scotland, this is always a bit of a lottery!

The Fun Day wasn’t actually as well-attended as we’d thought it might be, but it’s possible that the weather was actually too fine (oh, the irony) – most folk had likely headed for the beach or fired up the barbecue at home! Nevertheless, a final total of about 100 attendees was a decent result, and we were grateful to Lauren from East Grampian Coastal Partnership, Sarah from Aberdeenshire Council Ranger Service, storyteller Pauline and the ladies of the Collieston & Slains SWRI for their respective contributions.

The Reserve team certainly had fun (and thoroughly enjoyed the SWRI ladies’ home bakes), while the moth trap was once again a remarkably popular fixture, especially with the younger audience. Take note all you readers with children: live moths are like catnip for kids!

The following week’s Edible & Medicinal Plants event gave people the opportunity to learn about the uses – present and historical, obvious and obscure – for many of our common native plants. As well as a laid-back walk around the Sand Loch trail to see and identify the plants in-situ, there was also a ‘taster session’ in the literal sense back at the Forvie Centre, where folk could have a try of such delights as elderflower fizz, seaweed crisps and candied angelica – with the plants in question all having been foraged on the Reserve. Bon appetit!

Like the Fun Day, the ‘Eds & Meds’ event gave us the opportunity to meet and chat with some lovely and interesting folk, and some really good questions and discussion were forthcoming as a result. Disappointingly, however, the turnout on the day was very modest. We had capped the event at 24 attendees (which is the maximum we can accommodate for an event with two staff on duty), and the places had been booked up very quickly. Yet on the day, only 9 people attended, with the other 15 (!) failing to turn up. This would have been fine if (as requested) they’d let us know they weren’t coming, whereby we could have allowed other folk to book on instead – but frustratingly, only one of the no-shows actually bothered to get in touch. So other people ended up needlessly missing out as a result, which was a real shame – but thus is life sometimes!

Actually, this situation fairly typifies a working life on a public site – you see the best and the worst of humanity, or so it seems. Admittedly this is probably a bit melodramatic, but when you’re heavily invested in your work (physically, cerebrally and emotionally), it can certainly feel that way at times.

While the super-interested kids helping us empty the moth trap were among the best of humanity on the Reserve, the following piece of moronic behaviour rates among the worst. At the end of Inch Road in Newburgh, by the rough car-park that overlooks the estuary, stood a little sign informing watersports enthusiasts of the sensitivities of the Ythan Estuary and its wildlife. ‘Stood’ being the operative word here – note use of past tense – as someone had seen fit to demolish it and use the wooden frame to light a fire. So, two pieces of stupidity in one then: mindless vandalism, and lighting fires in drought conditions. Pure class.

But actually, and to my disproportionate delight, this story had a truly bizarre happy ending. Someone very kindly got in touch with our colleagues in Inverness to report that they’d found the panel from our destroyed sign – get this – in a lay-by on the A82 next to Loch Ness. Quite how or why it had ended up here defies all logic (I’m truly grateful not to understand what makes some people tick), but happily it’s now being returned to Forvie for a second life. Yes, I’ll have to make a new wooden frame, but that sounds like a nice job for a wet autumn day in the workshop… in solitary confinement! Anyway, I promise that’s the rant over now – thanks for bearing with me!

How’s about we’ll lighten the mood a bit then, and finish up with a bit of current wildlife interest on the Reserve. First up, Catriona did very well to get a photo of this lovely male Common Blue butterfly at Sand Loch, a species that’s usually too small and too quick for the camera.

While on the butterfly theme, I was most pleased to note the first few Graylings of the year in South Forvie. This is a scarce species on the Reserve these days, having probably suffered from the lack of Rabbit grazing in recent years (Graylings favour short-cropped vegetation and patchy bare ground). Brilliantly camouflaged at rest, they’re always a challenge to spot!

Meanwhile, Magpie moths have been super-abundant lately; with their showy markings and open-winged posture, they are often mistaken for butterflies, and likewise can often be seen flying by day.

And lastly, it’s that time of the year where you’ve got to watch carefully where you’re treading. This year’s cohort of baby Common Toads have now started to emerge and disperse from their native pools, and can turn up anywhere – especially under your feet on the footpaths!

And so a fun-packed week (well, most of it was fun anyway) comes to an end. See you again next week, folks!

A fine and at times scorching-hot second week of July – by North-east standards anyway – saw the Reserve team split up for a couple of days, with Catriona holding the fort at Forvie while the remaining three of us headed inland. Our destination was Creag Meagaidh NNR, halfway between Newtonmore and Fort William, where we had been borrowed to help out with a montane bird survey.

The main target species was Dotterel, a rare and particularly beautiful breeding wader of Arctic-alpine habitats, and a species apparently in long-term decline. Our warming climate is gradually ‘squeezing’ upland species out: as conditions on the high tops become more clement, so montane habitats are modified and taken over by lowland species moving uphill. And it appears that Dotterel is one example of an upland species metaphorically ‘feeling the heat’.

For those of us on the survey, the thought of seeing these stunning birds, against the breathtaking backdrop of their mountain environment, spurred us on throughout the gruelling climb onto the plateau in oppressively hot and airless conditions – but it’s fair to say that the three ‘Forvie boys’ weren’t a beautiful sight by the time we and our colleagues had reached the top.

By the end of the day we’d walked about seventeen miles, and negotiated several thousand feet of ascent and descent. Our team of seven people had covered a huge swathe of mountain plateau, carefully recording all bird species we encountered, as well as taking mental note of the fascinating alpine flora. This was about as far removed from our usual ‘habitat’ as it’s possible to get in Scotland!

So after all that, how many Dotterel did we encounter? Big fat zero – which although disappointing, still represents useful scientific data. And in any case, I suppose we should all be grateful for the physical workout!

Back at Forvie, meanwhile, Catriona was on ‘ternery duty’ in our absence. Here she found some of the late-laid clutches of Arctic Tern eggs just beginning to hatch, with the chicks drying their down in the warm sunshine. Other chicks, already a few days old and with a dense coat of fluff to keep them warm in the great Scottish summer, were quite literally feeling the heat.

Others, however, had already fledged, and were trying out their new-found flying skills over the colony and the adjacent estuary. This strangely staggered season, with some Arctic Terns having successfully fledged their young while others are still incubating eggs, isn’t actually that unusual. It’s possible that some of the later nests are second or even third attempts, perhaps due to the loss of eggs or chicks earlier in the season to predators or inclement weather. For the wardening staff this remains a perennial frustration, as we end up having to maintain both the electric and barrier fences, and keep South Forvie closed to the public, for that little bit longer until the latecomers have finished nesting. How we wish they’d all just get on with it!

Likewise our small and fragile population of Little Terns; with the colony’s continued survival on a knife-edge, we’re anxiously wishing away the days until the tiny chicks take to the wing – if indeed any do survive to fledge. Wish us, and more importantly them, luck!

Amid all the noise and mayhem of the ternery, a single Sedge Warbler continues to sing with great vigour, often using the electric fence as a handy and prominent song-post. ‘Sedgies’ are loud, enthusiastic and skilled singers, sometimes inserting expert mimicry into their long and rambling verses of scratchy warbling. But for all his ability and enthusiasm, this particular individual just can’t make himself heard over the colossal racket of terns and gulls. This probably explains why he’s still singing away, trying in vain to attract a mate, at this late stage of the nesting season when most of his contemporaries have gone quiet for the year.

Along Forvie’s footpaths, the first Bluebells of the year (or Harebells if you prefer – please yourself) make for a welcome sight. Delicate in form and exquisite in colour, they are one of the more easily-recognisable wild flowers on the Reserve, and are popular both with visitors and with invertebrates such as bumblebees.

The purple thistle-like flowers of Common Knapweed are at their peak just now, and like the aforementioned Bluebells, they’re a magnet for insects. There doesn’t seem to be a single patch of Knapweed on the Reserve just now that doesn’t have one or more Dark Green Fritillaries in attendance, the orange butterflies and purple flowers creating the sort of colour-clash that only nature can get away with.

But not every orange butterfly on the wing just now is a Fritillary. This week has seen a small but notable influx of Small Tortoiseshells, sadly now very much scarcer than they used to be, and thus a welcome sight indeed. Given a half-decent view, they are easily identified by the chequerboard pattern on the leading edge of the forewings, as opposed to the complex of dots and dashes worn by the Dark Green Fritillary.

In other insect news, we were also delighted to spot this Ruby-tailed Wasp. Only a fraction of the size of an ‘ordinary’ Common Wasp, and solitary rather than social, they feature a stunning metallic colour-scheme of turquoise-green thorax and wine-red abdomen. Owing to their size and restless behaviour, these tiny gems aren’t easy to spot, but spend a little time looking around the low stone walls outside the Forvie Centre on a sunny day, and you might be rewarded with a sighting.

Although the plants and insects are telling us it’s high summer, the migratory birds are already telling us it’s autumn (whisper it quietly though). The sharp-eyed observer on the estuary lately may have been able to pick out little parties of wading-birds quietly feeding or resting up, having already started their southbound migration. Some of these, such as Turnstone, breed in the high Arctic where the summer is brief; before the last birds have even finished passing northwards in June, so the first returnees are already passing southwards. By mid-July, however, any passage waders on the estuary will unequivocally be ‘autumn’ migrants.

Among the most prominent of these early southbound waders are Whimbrel; while superficially resembling a small Curlew, the Whimbrel’s true identity is often betrayed by its distinctive, rippling, ‘seven-whistles’ flight call. Because of its turning-of-the-seasons connotations, this is a particularly evocative sound, and utterly encapsulates late summer at Forvie.

And on that note I’ll finish up, before I get a row from any of our readers for having mentioned the ‘A’ word. Till next week…

When coming up with these weekly missives, the most difficult pieces to write are those where a clear theme isn’t easily forthcoming. On these occasions, you can end up pinging all over the place from one subject to the next, and I’m afraid to say that this week’s blog is one of those. Perhaps it’s due to the season: what with the workload and the relentless daylight, midsummer is when exhaustion and delirium can start to set in. After nineteen summers here, you’d think I ought to be used to it by now…

Anyway, midsummer it is then. As the first week of July comes to a close, so Forvie’s appearance has begun to change once again, with the two out of three heather species now bursting into flower. While the Ling won’t really start flowering for another month or so, the rich purple of Bell Heather and powder-pink of Cross-leaved Heath can currently be seen throughout the Reserve. These favour dry and wet areas of the heath respectively; like all wild plants, each has its own specific niche in the world.

Growing among the blooming heathers alongside the Heath Trail were our first Heath Spotted Orchids of the year. I am proud beyond measure to have taken what I believe to be the world’s worst photograph of this attractive plant:

…so by way of compensation, here’s a photo of one from a previous season, so you can see what it’s actually supposed to look like.

The glut of wild flowers in bloom just now provides an all-you-can-eat buffet for Forvie’s bees, with the heathers proving especially popular. When all you’ve got at your disposal is a frankly rubbish camera-phone, capturing photos of busily-feeding bees isn’t an easy assignment. I just about managed to snap this ‘BLT’ (Bombus lucorum / terrestris = White-tailed or Buff-tailed Bumblebee) feeding on the flowers of Cross-leaved Heath.

‘BLTs’ generally nest below ground, often taking over a disused rodent burrow or similar. However, their terrestrial habits leave them vulnerable to excavation by Badgers, who enjoy feasting on the larvae in the nest. It appears that this is what had happened to two bumblebee nests just outside the Forvie Centre this week, with a couple of roughly-dug holes in the lawn…

…and a forlorn and confused gathering of worker bees, clearly wondering what had happened to their respective nests. Hard lines indeed, but that’s life: who’d be a bee?

A happier piece of insect news comprised the continued presence of Hummingbird Hawk-moths in the gardens of Collieston, adjoining the Reserve at its north-eastern boundary. Making good use of the ‘sports mode’ on her camera(!), Catriona managed to capture a remarkable series of photos of a moth nectaring at Knapweed flowers. Check out that incredible ‘tongue’!

Moths and butterflies are well-known to undertake some impressive migrations, along with other small invertebrates such as hoverflies. However, I was more surprised to note a ‘fall’ of tiny spiders had occurred along Forvie beach mid-week, with substantial numbers present along the barrier fence (where they seemed especially attracted to the brightly-coloured floats attached to the fence). I could only surmise that they were wind-dispersed – some spiders are known to deploy a silken ‘parachute’ by which they hitch a lift on the breeze – but I may be way off-piste with this theory. Either way, they made for an incongruous sight in the inter-tidal no-man’s-land of the beach.

Being the first to admit how little I know about spiders, I would be very pleased to hear from any readers who might be able to identify these little beasts to species… and perhaps also shed some light on how they might have turned up in such an unlikely location!

Nearby at the ternery, things are fairly clearing out now, with a notable downturn in the numbers of Black-headed Gulls and Sandwich Terns present. Despite the smaller species still having a long way to go in their breeding season, overall the colony is now possessed of a distinct end-of-season feel.

On Tuesday we were delighted to welcome Julian and Rosemary Smith from St John’s Pool nature reserve in Caithness, for a tour of Forvie and a talk about all things terns. St John’s Pool is a unique site in the far north of the Scottish mainland, featuring a freshwater lagoon with islands home to nesting terns and Black-headed Gulls, and with a direct link to Forvie too. At least some of the Sandwich Terns in the breeding colony at St John’s are known to have originated from our own colony here, having been identified by the Darvic rings (coloured plastic rings each embossed with a large and easily-legible three-letter code) on their legs.

This is a great example of how nature conservation isn’t confined by the boundaries of the Reserve. Whether on a publicly-owned site like Forvie, or a privately-run one like St John’s, the work done on-site can have an influence way beyond the boundaries of your own patch. It’s also a vivid illustration of the value of Darvic rings, which can be easily read in the field without having to recapture the birds in question.

The tern-ringing programme continues at Forvie each season, and a monumental effort this year has seen a record 1,024 Sandwich Tern chicks fitted with metal BTO rings, and 100 of these also fitted with Darvic rings. Credit for this huge power of work must go to the guys and girls of Grampian Ringing Group, led admirably and tirelessly by local loon Raymond Duncan, and to Danny and Joe who have supervised the vast majority of the ringing sessions at weekends and evenings. Who knows, maybe some of this year’s cohort of Sandwich Terns might turn up at St John’s in a few years’ time when they’re of breeding age themselves!

One of this year’s Sandwich Tern chicks was extra special. For the third time in my tenure at Forvie, a pure white albino chick has fledged from the colony. This remarkable-looking individual was Darvic-ringed during the last session of the season, with Danny lucky enough to do the honours. Resembling a Fairy Tern from the tropics rather than a Sandwich Tern, it certainly stood out from the crowd! Should it survive to undertake its autumn migration, we’ll see whether it gets re-sighted en-route to southern Africa in due course.

Finally, a piece of community-liaison work saw Catriona heading into Aberdeen to give an illustrated talk at the Greyhope Bay Centre. Based at Torry Battery, at the entrance to Aberdeen’s historic harbour, Greyhope Bay is a charity whose aim is to connect local communities with their coastal heritage – including wildlife of course! Forvie and Torry are within sight of one another, and share much in common in terms of coastal wildlife, so there was much to discuss. Catriona tells me there was a lively and feature-length Q&A session after her talk, which I always think is a good sign. Take it from me, there’s nothing more disheartening as a public speaker than being met with deafening silence at the end of your talk… no such issues at Greyhope though!

We’ll be returning to Greyhope Bay on Monday 21st July for Coastal Discovery Day, part of the Aberdeen Festival of the Sea 2025, giving us the opportunity to bring the Reserve to the people, so to speak. More than ever, nature conservation needs people and communities to buy into the cause, and we’ll take every opportunity going to spread the good word. Hope to see you there!

The last full week of June at Forvie proved to be something of a mixed bag, with some spells of hot sunshine sandwiched between bouts of biblical rain, and becalmed evenings following brashly breezy days. Consequently it was a week with a bit of something for everyone. Nice weather for barbecues / ducks / midgies / kite-flying (delete as appropriate): that’ll be midsummer in the North-east then!

In fact, the unsettled and unpredictable nature of the week’s weather only served to add to the frenetic feel to proceedings on the Reserve just now. As the Australian cricket commentator Bill Lawry used to say approximately every five minutes on air, “it’s all happening”.

Probably the biggest news of the week came from the ternery. As we reported last week, our Black-headed Gulls and Sandwich Terns are currently fledging from the colony in large numbers, and on Thursday afternoon we carried out a co-ordinated count of fledglings throughout South Forvie and the Ythan Estuary. While Black-headed Gull fledgling numbers had started to decline – ‘just’ the 1,079 counted, down from 1,164 last week – Sandwich Terns had reached new heights. A whopping total of 1,102 fledged young was recorded, comfortably the highest in the nineteen summers I have worked at Forvie (or the ‘Daryl era’, as one of my colleagues drily put it) – a big result in every sense.

The ternery season at Forvie is a long slog, beginning in February with the clearance of last year’s dead vegetation, then really kicking off in March with the construction of the electric fence and the return of the first birds to the colony. All the hard yakka, the miles walked, the heavy equipment humphed over the dunes, the soakings and sand-blastings, and the verbal and physical abuse from the birds themselves, have led us to this point. So to see so many youngsters successfully fledging, and indulging in spectacular upflights over the colony with their parents, is indescribably rewarding. I would imagine it’s similar to winning a trophy or medal if you’re a sportsperson – all that training and hard work finally coming to fruition. Though I doubt any of the Reserve team will subsequently make it onto the news or the King’s honours list!

Getting our feet (and eyes) firmly back on the ground, the wild flower season cranked up another notch this week. The footpaths throughout the Reserve, from the dunes in the south to the heathland in the north, are now fringed with a rich variety of colours and textures, while the buzz of pollinating insects fills the air. Owing to Forvie’s light, free-draining and nutrient-poor soils, most of our wild flowers are small and low-growing; most of them barely reach your bootlaces. The overall effect, to me at least, recalls a tapestry or a fine Persian carpet.

Most of the individual species that form this tapestry of life are relatively common and easily identified with a bit of practice. Some are distinctive in colour, such as the baby-blue of Germander Speedwell…

…while others have a distinctive shape or growth form. Lady’s Bedstraw, for example, is one of many different species of yellow flowers to bloom on the Reserve during the summer, but it’s unique among those for its structure. While each individual flower is almost too small to discern, collectively they are borne in such huge numbers that they form a frothy-looking spray of vibrant colour along each trailing stem.

For certain other species, your sense of smell can be a useful pointer to identification. Again, there are many different plant species which bear pink flowers on the Reserve, but Wild Thyme is unique in its delicious fragrance. It’s enough to give you a craving for Mediterranean cooking, and perhaps a glass of cold retsina to wash it down… not while I’m working though!

Having said that most of the species in evidence are relatively commonplace, there are a number of rare and unusual plants that also call Forvie home. In fact, one of the Reserve’s reasons for actually being a Reserve is its assemblage of scarce and specialised plants. One such example is the Frog Orchid, which occurs in a select handful of locations along the Dune Trail and coast path. Small and unobtrusive, this is a species that doesn’t leap out at you among the more brightly-coloured dune flora, so it’s always satisfying to happen upon one. As for the origins of its name, the individual flowers are supposed to resemble little frogs, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

While in eyes-to-the-ground flower-spotting mode, I was lucky enough to find a Dune Chafer beetle hurrying through the dunes near the barrier fence in South Forvie. These characterful little beasts are specialists in sandy environments, and as such are largely restricted to either coastal dunes or inland heaths on sandy soils. They are also, of necessity, able to tolerate the salty conditions prevalent in Forvie’s dunes, eking out a living in marginal conditions which many other species would find intolerable – a true champion indeed. And a rare one too: a quick search of our excellent local biological recording centre, Nesbrec, revealed just a handful of records along Aberdeenshire’s east coast.

Much more commonly encountered, and more of a generalist in terms of its requirements, is the Violet Ground Beetle… or indeed Beetles. If you spot a largish beetle with a distinct purple-blue sheen to the thorax and edges of its wing-cases, it’ll be one of two species: either the ‘standard’ Violet Ground Beetle Carabus violaceus, or the very similar Ridged Violet Ground Beetle C. problematicus (gotta love these scientific names – it seems that real scientists get just as confused and frustrated with insect identification as we do). Looking at our photos, ‘our’ beetle is likely to be the latter of these two very similar species, owing to the roughly dimpled texture of the wing-cases.

Among the more obvious of Forvie’s insects are its butterflies, and this week saw a major emergence of Ringlets among the grasslands of North Forvie. These are especially plentiful along the footpath between the Forvie Centre and the village of Collieston just now.

The only real confusion risk with the Ringlet at Forvie is its close relative, the Meadow Brown. However, the latter species is easily identified, given a half-decent view, by the orange tones to the underwing and the single eye-spot, as opposed to the multiple eye-spots of the Ringlet. Thank goodness they’re easier to sort out than the aforementioned ground-beetles!

The other insect excitement this week came from author’s HQ in Collieston, just next door to the Reserve, where we were visited by a Hummingbird Hawk-moth. This immigrant from southern Europe possibly hitched a ride on the warm southerly winds that have brought a heatwave to other parts of the UK. A scarce species at our latitude, they’re always enjoyable to catch up with.

Lastly, and at the opposite end of the size scale, we saw our first Minke Whales of the year off Forvie’s coast, with two passing northwards on Thursday afternoon. It was nice to see a live one for a change, as opposed to the two ‘resident’ ones at Rockend and South Broadhaven!

So that’s another week done, with a veritable smorgasbord of interest on the Reserve as we approach the end of June. Next stop July – it’s all happening!

By the time this piece goes to press, it’ll be the 22nd of June, and the longest day of the year will already have been and gone. Knowing my penchant for such things, one of my friends has expressly forbidden me from saying, writing or even thinking anything along the lines of “the nights are fair draawin’ in” as soon as the solstice has passed… oops, too late… sorry, couldna help myself! But all larking around aside, the summer solstice does represent a hugely significant milestone in Forvie’s year.

Our work here on the Reserve is inextricably linked with the turning of the seasons, as well as with the rhythms of tides, weather, daylight and darkness. Personally, I quite like being bound to the rotation of the earth, rather than to a man-made timetable, finding it helpful in retaining some perspective in what’s otherwise a strange era to be alive. We perhaps all need a dose of reality now and again, and for me at least, nature is reality. I can’t speak for the rest of humanity, but if I ever lose that connection with the natural world, then it’s game over.

Here on the Reserve, we think of the summer solstice as one of the four ‘corners’ of the year, the others being the shortest day in winter and the two equinoxes in spring and autumn. Of these, the current one is far the most significant, and not least because there’s the most going on. All summer at Forvie we’re flat-out busy with breeding birds, visitors, invasive species, groundskeeping, environmental education, public events and every other dirty job that comes along, but the solstice marks a turning point in all this. For this is the point when – we hope – all of that work begins to deliver a return on our investment.

Nowhere is this truer than down at the ternery, where our Black-headed Gulls have already begun to fledge prodigious numbers of young. Mid-week saw upwards of 600 fledglings lining the shore of the estuary, with many hundreds more still within the protection of the electric fence. With their mottled plumage of chocolate-brown and ginger, they’re barely recognisable as a gull, and it’s often only the accompanying parents that give away their true identity.

This week, the first Sandwich Tern fledgling also took to the wing. With over 500 young Sandwich Terns having been visible in the colony earlier in the week, we hope it won’t be long before the trickle of fledglings moving from the colony onto the estuary becomes a deluge. From now on, we’ll be taking every opportunity to get out onto the estuary and count them, before they disperse into the world.

Meanwhile, the last substantial piece of nest-census work has now taken place, with Forvie’s Arctic and Common Tern population in the spotlight. Two days of pacing up and down the electric-fenced enclosure and trying to locate all the nests – with Arctic Terns bouncing off the top of my head and swearing vehemently at me all the while – resulted in a final tally of 621 breeding pairs. Thank heavens that job’s over!

This done, we now have to try and sort out how many of the 621 nests were those of Arctic Terns, and how many were Common. We’ll do this over the next three weeks or so, by means of a series of ‘feeding counts’ – which involve observing the birds arriving at the colony with fish with which to provision their chicks.

While the nests of Common and Arctic Tern look more or less identical to our eyes, the adult birds are reasonably easy to separate (with practice), so by recording the proportion of one species to the other attending the colony, we can then apply those proportions to the nest count. In a typical year, the colony tends to comprise c.85% Arctic and c.15% Common Terns – but we’ll wait and see what this year’s feeding counts have in store.

During the course of the ‘Commic’ nest census, I was remarkably lucky (and not a little bemused) to find no fewer than six Gadwall nests. As we’ve said before, this is supposedly a species of ‘lowland freshwater marsh’, and not dry sand-dunes in a saltwater environment, thereby proving once again that wildlife doesn’t read the text-books (or indeed the internet). Anyway, three of the six nests contained freshly-hatched ducklings, meaning I had to exit stage rapidly to allow each of the mums to return to their respective broods. While I paused at one nest just long enough to snap the following photo, it took an extraordinary amount of restraint and discipline not to pick up the entire brood for a quick snuggle.

On my way out of the ternery afterwards, I was also a bit baffled upon discovering this Ringed Plover’s nest. Despite there being several hectares of perfectly acceptable nesting habitat available within the electric fence, this particular pair of plovers had chosen to lay their eggs between the inner mesh and outer wires of the fence itself. Time will tell whether they meet with any success, but it did give me a chuckle imagining the plover sitting on its nest, giving a metaphorical two-finger gesture to the Foxes and Badgers patrolling the fence-line just inches away.

With the summer now reaching its zenith, the first fruits have begun to appear on the Crowberry on the heath. This dwarf shrub, abundant in parts of the Reserve, will continue to produce its shiny black berries right through until late autumn.

As its name suggests, Crowberry is a favoured food of corvids, but also of many other birds and mammals besides. Woodpigeons are particularly keen consumers of the watery purple-black fruits; their fast digestive system makes short work of them, and at times the evidence is plain to see. On Wednesday, I had left the works car parked under some trees near Waterside while I walked down to the ternery to do the rounds, and upon my return I found it had been subject to a custom re-spray in lurid purple.

We’re also now entering into the best period of the year for botany on the Reserve, with specialities such as Small Adder’s-tongue Ferns now emerging in the dune-slacks of South Forvie. Eyes to the ground this next few weeks!

And likewise, the busiest period of the year for flying insects is now upon us too. The first few Dark Green Fritillaries of the year have been in evidence this past week or so, and if we get anything like a decent summer, they are likely to be abundant across the Reserve over the next couple of months.

So that’s the midsummer corner turned, and an exciting and (hopefully) productive period lies ahead on the Reserve, with much to look forward to. And is it just me, or did it get dark a wee bit earlier tonight?… OK, OK, I”ll stop now!