Full steam ahead for ‘What’s Up?’

Life continues to be hectic at BTO Scotland, and we are now in the middle of the busiest time for the ‘What’s Up?’ project, training hillwalkers and climbers and encouraging participation in the Mountain Bird Survey. My last blog post ended with me just about to head off for a weekend of training hillwalkers on upland bird identification and surveying so that seems like the ideal place to start my next update…

So far, training days have taken place at a range of venues across Scotland. We have worked in partnership with a number of organisations who have provided a venue for the courses and joined us on the training. These have included working with the Outward Bound Trust at their Loch Eil Centre and walking up Aonach Mor, joining up with the XXL Hillwalking Club at the Glenshee Ski Centre, spending the day on Glas Maol and also a day at the ranger base at CairnGorm Mountain, walking up onto Cairn Gorm. We have managed to see a range of upland species including Meadow Pipits, Skylarks, Wheatear, Ptarmigan, Ravens and Snow Buntings to name a few…

A glorious day for upland bird training on Aonach Mor

The training days have had both an indoor and outdoor element, helping hillwalkers to learn the basics of identification whilst out on the hills. This has included getting to know some of the calls of upland birds (such as the Ptarmigan which croaks ‘here comes the bride’ or the Red Grouse which tells you to ‘go back, go back, go back’ when you almost stand on it before it flies off from under your feet). We also look at birds that are easy to identify by their behaviour, like the way Meadow Pipits hold their wings out and parachute back to the ground and birds that have easy to identify features such as the ‘white rear’ of the Wheatear, which can be seen as they fly off in front of you.

Posing for a photo – a male Ptarmigan

In addition to the specific hillwalker training days, I also helped out at an upland bird identification course run at Mar Lodge a couple of weeks ago. It is such a wonderful range of habitats on the NTS estate, (one of my favourite places in Scotland) and we saw lots of birds including Redstarts, Spotted Flycatcher, Tree Pipits, Common Sandpiper and many more! The highlight of the day had to be seeing a Golden Eagle being mobbed by a Peregrine Falcon – AMAZING!!

Another big event that happened a few weeks ago was Gardening Scotland. Helping out at this event gave me more of an insight into another project that BTO run, the Garden BirdWatch Scheme. It was good to meet so many interested people and hear about the range of different gardens that people have and the birds that they see.

Our handy work – The BTO stand at Gardening Scotland

Another exciting development for the ‘What’s Up?’ project over the past few weeks has been the creation of the new Mountain Survey Booklet, which I had a large part in designing so was pleased to see it printed and ready for distribution. So far, the feedback has been good on the format, just need to get as many people as possible out there filling them in! If you spend time in the hills above 750m, then why not get involved? It is easy to combine with a normal day in the hills and helps to contribute to conservation science. Check out the website (click here) for more information and please help to spread the word to hillwalking friends or colleagues…

The new and improved mountain survey booklet!

One way of getting the message out about the Mountain Survey has been to write articles for relevant publications. My most recent article was published in the Professional Mountaineer magazine, a joint members magazine between the Association of Mountaineering Instructors, the Mountain Training Association, British Mountain Guides and the British Association of International Mountain Leaders. To say I was a little excited to see the article (and my photo) in the magazine would be an understatement!!

Spreading the ‘What’s Up?’ word…

And finally! (at last I hear you say….) I have just returned from a week at the FSC Kindrogan Field Centre, completing a course on ‘Mountain and Moorland Plant Communities’. I was lucky enough to be awarded a grant from the BSBI to part fund the course and spent a week learning all about the different plants found in various habitats and at different altitudes. This ranged from the insect eating Sundews found on the blanket bog of Rannoch Moor, to Frog Orchids on the Cairnwell. It also included seeing rare arctic-alpine plants, like the Mountain Forget-me-not, which are found on ledges on the sides of mountains like Ben Vrackie and Ben Lawers. The arctic-alpine plants were definitely my favourite! Then there were also the numerous mosses, lichens, sedges, grasses and rushes – of which I have learned a few but I think it would take a lifetime to know them all!!!