Month: February 2021

It’s been a month of extreme weather here at Aigas. We’ve had snow and temperatures down to a biting -14⁰C, followed by a relative heatwave with the snow melting even up on the hills! Fortunately, a lot of the hardy Highland wildlife seems unaffected, and we’ve had some wonderful sightings. Since our last blog we have been treated to views of a barn owl flying past our house! The low temperatures and snowfall that we’ve been experiencing puts increased pressure on barn owls for several reasons, one: poor insulation means they require more food in colder weather to make up for energy losses, and two: their main mammalian prey is more difficult to locate with snow and ice covering the ground. Barn owls may alter their diet during these harsher times, taking more small birds while small mammals remain difficult to hunt. We were relieved to see the last of the snow melting
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Back in May last year, rangers Michelle and Richard, and education officer Milo, set themselves the challenge of recording 100 species in 24 hours in the area around their house. They ended up finding an incredible 140 species over the course of the day! For the rest of the year, they kept a track of the species that they saw in the area, tallying up hundreds of species. This year, Riverview veteran Milo has been joined by rangers Emily and (myself) Calum. With another lockdown underway, we decided it was time to start afresh with the Riverview wildlife records. The whiteboard was wiped clean, and the 2021 species lists were started! It hasn’t been a particularly easy start to the Riverview recording year! Sub-zero temperatures and frequent
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