How our wonderful wildlife inspires you to be creative
Summer viewing
Where to see your favourite species
Must-see Insh Marshes
Observe seasonal changes over varied landscapes
Welcome!
I am so proud of all that RSPB Scotland achieves to protect amazing species, restore crucial habitats and address some of our greatest conservation challenges – and all of this is made possible thanks to you.
In this issue, we wanted to celebrate our members and extend our gratitude for your dedicated support of Scotland’s nature. We asked what you want to see and picked stories to reflect your passions. Many of you were kind enough to share how nature has influenced your art, and we’re delighted to include some of these beautiful pieces.
With less than a year until the next elections in Holyrood, your voice is crucial as we call for action from the Scottish Government. Ahead of the election, we’re working to ensure that the Natural Environment Bill is a needed catalyst for nature’s recovery. This Bill could mark a significant shift for the recovery of wildlife and wild places in Scotland, allowing legal nature recovery targets to be set for the very first time.
By coming together, we can advocate for stronger protections for nature, deliver conservation work and inspire others to share with us in this passion.
As always, thank you for your continued support.
Anne McCall Director, RSPB
Scotland
Action for nature
Species Wading in for Curlews
The Species Volunteer Network, supported by funds raised by players of People’s Postcode Lottery, is helping more people engage with species recovery projects through volunteering. Species including Curlew, Lapwing and Pine Hoverfly benefit from the support of volunteers. Through the network we’re building a legacy for important projects to better protect Scotland’s wildlife.
Curlew LIFE has built up an incredible team of volunteers contributing to monitoring and community engagement. Colin MacLennan, Volunteer, shared his experience:
“I get to know so much more about one of my favourite parts of Scotland, as well as hopefully helping to protect our wildlife. I have many new friends among the fantastic team of RSPB staff and volunteers, and many others in local communities and farms who recognise the pressures on our wildlife and are working hard towards addressing these.”
While the Curlew LIFE project is coming to an end, the Species Volunteer Network is providing opportunities for volunteers like Colin to use their specialist skills and experience to monitor waders, such as Curlew, on over 100 local farms as part of the Cairngorms Wader Survey. This ambitious project is part of the Strathspey Wader and Wetland Initiative.
Follow Anne on @stranyannie
“The Curlew LIFE project has been a key part of my activities for three years. The core of my role is monitoring the presence and numbers of potential predators. The eggs and chicks of Curlew and other waders are a natural part of the diet of many species. These are constantly monitored through a network of trail cameras around the nature reserve. I walk round collecting the camera cards and uploading the data, which creates a picture of the pressures on the birds. For me, it’s not only a chance for regular walks in beautiful surroundings but also fascinating to see what nature gets up to when it thinks no-one is watching.
Above: Colin monitoring waders on the hillside
Our
people
Forty reserves in a year
We met up with Scottish member Claire Howell, who managed to visit 40 RSPB nature reserves last year to celebrate her 40th birthday. Watch the video to see if she managed to tick one very special, but elusive, bird off her list.
Scan the code or visit bit.ly/40NatureReserves to watch the video. Read the full interview with Claire in
Our places Sights for summer
Swifts, Swallows and martins are some of our members’ favourite summer arrivals. Discover where you might see them this season…
Swallows Often seen in the countryside or swooping around open water – one top site for Swallow-spotting is RSPB Loch Leven nature reserve. Look out for a deeply forked tail and reddish chin.
Swifts Brown all over with narrow wings, Swifts can be seen flying high across many habitats including towns, but you can still spot them somewhere more immersed in nature, such as RSPB Loch Garten nature reserve.
House Martins Wetlands are a hotspot for House Martins. Get a glance of them at RSPB Mersehead or Loch Lomond nature reserves. The white patch on their rump is a great way to help identify them.
Sand Martins The smallest member of the family, Sand Martins are brown above and white below. Keep your eyes peeled and you might spot them on a visit to RSPB Lochwinnoch nature reserve or RSPB Baron’s Haugh.
For more information on these locations, scan the code with your smartphone camera or visit rspb.org.uk/visit-scotland
Above: RSPB Loch Lomond nature reserve
Left: Claire Howell visited 40 reserves in her 40th year
Our projects
Dundee connections
Arrivals and Departures is celebrating stories of migration from people and wildlife to Dundee. As part of Wild Dundee, the aim is to create a city where communities and nature find a shared space to thrive.
Over the last year, the project has hosted experiences to foster connections for residents, including New Scots who come to the city for work, study or refuge. Through participating in nature-based creative activities, supported by local artists and groups such as ScrapAntics, the community are supported to reflect on their journeys to and around the city. Workshops and events create a space to spotlight some of the species in Dundee and explore the places they call home.
Our places New loos at the Loch
A recent highlight, For the Love of Gulls, encouraged participants to explore the relationship between the city and its urban gulls with curiosity and positivity. Through puppet-making, ‘scrap’ gull figures and dance, culminating in a joyful flash-mob and celebration, participants felt more connected to the city, each other and to the gulls that call Dundee home.
Thanks to support from ScotRail we’re able to reach more people through access to train journeys, woodland walks, bird nest box creation and much more.
To watch our video on the event, scan the QR code or visit bit.ly/ForTheLoveOfGulls
New facilities at Loch Garten nature reserve are now open to the public! Both the Changing Places toilet (pictured) at the car park and the accessible toilet at the Nature Centre have had an upgrade, making the Cairngorms open to more people than ever before. Our team have not only provided an essential service but also a welcoming and beautiful space which blends into the stunning Caledonian Pinewoods of Abernethy, using forest colours and imagery.
We’ve also upgraded the Big Pines (pictured) and Two Lochs trails to make then more accessible and the Nature Centre is fully wheelchair accessible, so there’s plenty for everyone to do (after you’ve finished admiring the loos!).
Thank you to the Cairngorms National Park Authority for part-funding the Changing Places toilet.
Above (left): For the Love of Gulls event Above (right): Art workshop
On the move at Insh Marshes
The end of summer at Insh Marshes nature reserve sees the departure of many wading birds, which have called, courted and raised chicks out on the wetland. Swifts gather in large numbers before setting off on their mammoth migration to Africa. Whooper Swans arrive and the leaves of the Aspen trees turn a glorious yellow.
From the car park, your first stop should be the Lookout Hide, with its open-air platform and glassfronted area built into the side of the hill. The bird feeders here are bustling with small birds, including the occasional Great Spotted Woodpecker. From the top of the structure, you can watch the reeds ripple in the wind and look skywards for a glimpse of a White-tailed Eagle. Although you’re unlikely to see them, Beavers are down there too, changing the flow of water and helping to restore the landscape. Over the summer, Ospreys are regularly spotted, hunting along the river or at Loch Insh at the other end of the nature reserve.
Leaving the hide, the path leads you through patches of woodland and moor, along a winding river and into
Julie Ellis has been Warden at RSPB Scotland Insh Marshes nature reserve for over two years. She was previously an ecologist, and worked outside nature conservation before getting her dream job as Warden.
Seasonal highlights
As summer transitions to autumn, the colours of the Aspen, Rowan and Birch trees are spectacular at this nature reserve. Fungi are bursting up from the forest floor and the autumn movements of migrating species make every day different. rspb.org.uk/InshMarshes RSPB
a beautiful meadow. Heath Orchids fill the air with their sweet perfume and insects weave in-between Devil’s-bit Scabious, Yellow Rattle, Meadowsweet and buttercups. From the meadow, the wide and flat Speyside Way leads all the way back to the car park.
Do you have a top tip for anyone visiting Insh Marshes nature reserve?
Take your time and listen as well as watch. When you first arrive at a spot it can seem quiet but patience, as well as staying still, is often rewarded by wildlife behaving naturally, as they’re unaware of your presence. Sound is often your first sign of approaching wildlife.
Nature inspires you
A selection of artistic endeavours by our talented members
You, our members, are amazing! Without you, we couldn’t save species, restore habitats, campaign for change or connect people with wildlife at our nature reserves and beyond. It also turns out you’re a very creative bunch. Alongside The RSPB Magazine members’ takeover edition, we’re celebrating members in Scotland. Thanks to everyone who submitted photos, poems, stories and art inspired by Scottish wildlife.
The rewards of rewilding
In our special corner of Argyll, a northwest nook of the Cowal peninsula, we are in prime position to observe the wonders of Scottish wildlife in our garden. As we gradually rewild the large garden – the fence simply marks a land boundary –Foxes, Pine Martens, Stoats and Weasels are part and parcel of everyday life, Voles and Mice abound, and the odd Toad blinks behind a stone.
Every bird you would expect comes to our feeders and feeds on our patio, which has become a large bird table, with a handsome bird bath in the middle, splashed with hot water each frosty morning. Our varied shrub hedge provides ideal nesting places for the House Sparrows and Dunnocks, Blackbirds and Robins, as do the small shrubberies in the front garden. A tiny Oak sapling planted 10 years ago is now substantial which, together with an old Ash, provide immediate cover should the local Sparrowhawk pair come calling.
The odd Red Squirrel competes with the Great Spotted Woodpecker, and the Chaffinches have become adept at clinging on to the nut feeders. The three tits, Blue, Great and Coal, are frequent visitors,
and Starling hooligans hustle the others, asserting dubious authority.
Nearby woodlands, both deciduous and planted spruce, bring in Jays and Woodpigeons, and Treecreepers dart up the Larch trees just beyond the fence. Gulls, Curlew, Rooks and Jackdaws, Hooded Crows and groups of geese, come and go on the fields opposite, and the nearby Rabbit warren provides food for the Foxes. Buzzards soar overhead, even the occasional Osprey (straying from Loch Fyne below) or Golden Eagle (from the mountains to the east), and Fieldfares and Redwing arrive in October, some staying over till February.
In the spring and summer Pied Wagtails nest nearby and Grey Wagtails appear by the stream, the Willow Warblers arrive back to nest in the bramble and willowherb hedge beside the field, and Blackcaps compete with the Garden Warblers, singing in the Ash and Silver Birch trees. The odd Stonechat and Flycatcher perch on the telephone wires, and Swallows return to nest under the eaves.
With this wealth of nature renewing each year, life is full of delight and hope, unspoilt by the changing world around us. Jackie Scott-Mandeville
Gannets
I learnt as a child to control my gagging reflex on Bass Rock. Tolerating the eye watering, stomach-churning stench of fishy ammonia is useful when visiting seabird cities.
pastel sea pinks frosted with guano
This volcanic plug in the Firth of Forth is home to the world’s largest colony of the Northern Gannet, Morus bassanus Moros means foolish in Greek and bassanus is for the rock. Gannets are anything but foolish; they’re awe-inspiring birds, the scale of their colonies is overwhelmingly spectacular. In breeding season over one-hundred thousand Gannets and their excrement turn Bass Rock white.
They ignore me as they go about their business. Landings, take-offs, dives, courtships, territorial squabbles, six-and-ahalf-foot wingspans, geometric lines, dagger bills, sunshine heads, huge black aquatic feet tracked with pale yellow stripes terminating in perfect pearly claws.
black hole pupils ringed with sapphire blue
It’s summer 2022, hundreds of dead seabirds are washing up along the Fife coast. They’ve succumbed to the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza which is decimating Scotland’s seabirds, killing up to a quarter of the gannet population.
drifting… a raft of white feather flotsam
Walking along Anstruther’s piers at high tide watching sick, listless Gannets. Powerless, they’re unable to fly, struggling to hold their heads above the waves. Eventually they’ll drown and the tide will deposit even more corpses along the strandline.
empty eye sockets gaze into infinite darkness
Two years later. Catching sight of a daggerGannet plunging into the sea from a cloudless blue sky filled with the hope of dark-eyed resilient birds, youngsters and pairs prospecting nest sites. Morus bassanus is returning home.
the scent of solan geese smashes the senses EE Benson
Above: Loch Lomond by Lucy-Anne Bonete
Eider-Duck
Eternal ocean, restlessly surging Rattling round rocks on the shore; Swaying the Eider, her young beside her, Sculpting caverns with resonant roar.
Mark how she deals with her dusky offspring Nurtured by truculent tides from their birth; Around the grey beaches she tacks as she teaches The concave trapeze and the terror of surf.
Look! see that comber is curving to topple And crush on the reef a diminutive chick, But just as the breaker’s white teeth overtake her She dives and it follows – a time-proven trick.
I watch them with rapt and admiring attention My body half-hidden in bent-crested turf. Across the bay’s lacquer through surf fire and flack her Three chicks will swim on till tides ebb from the earth.
Patrick Stevenson (1909–83)
Written by Patrick Stevenson in 1945 while having a lone supper picnic (18.00–23.00 hrs) at one of the rocky bays between Durness village and Fair-Aird; at the very end of the war he was stationed at Durness in the RAF. Submitted by Leslie Stevenson.
