The Badgers of Aigas
by Josephine Tod – Now that the Aigas visitor season has come to an end, life on the Aigas estate changes with the cooling weather. As our seasonal staff return home for the winter, our academic placements begin to learn…
The Rutting Season Commences
by Eliane Bornoff – The arrival of autumn has bought with it some exciting changes around the Aigas site. Temperatures are dropping, leaves are beginning to change colour and red deer stags can be heard roaring across site as the…
The Geese Have Arrived
by Matt Broadbent and Eliane Bornoff – We have seen thousands of Pink-footed geese flying over Aigas recenly. These birds have migrated from their breeding grounds in Iceland, Greenland and Spitsbergen (Norway) to winter in the UK’s wetlands and farmlands. Around 510,000 individuals are expected annually in the UK,…
Out with the Old, In with the New
As early September rolled around, it was once again time to say goodbye to our previous years placement students and say hello to our new placement students. Josephine The first month of the academic placement at Aigas has been a…
Pinky and the Pine Martens
by Lucy Smith – After a busy first couple of weeks on my placement at Aigas, going on days out along the West Coast spotting White-tailed eagles and looking after the wildcats, I was excited for my first hide visit.…
March at Riverview
by Calum Urquhart – Winter always lingers on late into the year in the Highlands; gladly some preliminary vernal signs have started to make themselves clear over the last week or so. At Riverview we’ve seen the first Lesser Celandines…
February at Riverview
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…
Riverview Ranger Recording Restart
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…
Busy as a Beaver
It has been a beautiful first December and January for me here at Aigas, with more snow than I have ever experienced. Just after Christmas we had our first proper snowfall of the year, which revealed all the comings and…
An Aigas Season in Moths
This season has been an odd one for us humans at Aigas, but for our wildlife it has been business as usual. We have been running weekly moth traps for the Garden Moth Scheme since March, and we have seen…
All the Leaves are Brown
The word decomposition may have rather unattractive connotations – perhaps those of dying and death – but this is a vital process that is never more evident than in Autumn, when a walk in a deciduous woodland is framed perfectly…
A Leap of Faith
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of accompanying professional photographer Laurie Campbell on Aigas’ Nature Photography Masterclass. Not owning a camera any bigger than my pocket I felt somewhat inadequate amongst their foot-long lenses, but sometimes it’s the…
A Morning Otter Watching
I have my binoculars firmly focussed on a cut of silver in the still water which is moving down the firth. The head of a one year old dog otter (Lutra lutra) appears, then turns on its back and proceeds…
Meet our new Academic Placement students from the University of Exeter
On the 31st August we said a fond farewell to two of last year’s placement students; Charlotte and Christopher. Both arrived to Aigas a year ago and quickly became an integral part of the Aigas team. They worked hard over…
A Scottish Wildlife Safari
Many a night I have been out and about and seen animals that I was not expecting to see. Going out looking for pine martens and badgers is always a treat as many of you know from your visits to…
A Wintry Swim in the Sea
It’s not often that guests want to swim in the sea during their stay at Aigas, however we are more than happy to encourage those who brave the water! In the Highlands, the waters don’t tend to get much warmer…
Wildlife on the Job
It was dark today. The kind of dark that makes you want to snuggle back into bed clutching a hot water bottle closely to your chest and drift back to sleep. It felt like a cold winter’s night, but it…
The Feeding of the Five Thousand
It was a rather grey afternoon on the Aigas estate, but myself and the other two academic placement students had been tasked with an exciting challenge – to design and build our own bird feeding station. With winter in full…
Mighty Oaks from Little Acorns Grow
It was an extremely cold and frosty, but beautifully sunny day as myself and the Naturedays at Aigas education team headed out for an afternoon of seed collecting. Each year, Naturedays runs an outreach programme where the team heads out to Highland schools, nurseries and local…
Hoorah for Hedgehogs!
The hedgehog is a well-recognised spiny mammal, native to the UK. Most people are familiar with or have had a close interaction with these loveable little mammals. Be it a glimpse of a pointed face through fallen autumn leaves, hearing…
Searching for Roosting Treecreepers
When all had gone quiet on the Aigas estate, I decided to have a wander round our five giant sequoia trees (Sequoiadendron giganteum) that we have on site, originally planted by the Gordon-Oswalds who built the Victorian part of the…
The Life of an Atlantic Salmon
As we approach November the spawning season for Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) begins. Spawning occurs throughout November and December; in larger rivers this may begin and finish a month early or later. Salmon are anadromous spending 2 to 3 years…
Goodbye Ospreys – See you in the Spring!
Autumn in the Highlands. Crisp frosty mornings, mist rolling in low waves over the valley, the cacophony of pink footed geese filling the skies – this season is undeniably beautiful. However, it heralds the departure of one of my favourite…
The Fabulous Flow Country
After completing my first week as an Academic Placement student at Aigas, I wanted to make the most of my first day off and explore more of the area I am lucky enough to be spending the next year living…
Wildflowers and Gardens at Aigas Field Centre
This was our first visit, excitement and eagerness increasing as the time for our drive north approached. We had no hesitation in making an early start, to allow a leisurely drive with stops but still getting to Aigas for settling…
A Ramble on Raasay
What can Aigas rangers get up to with one day off? Explore and adventure! While we see a lot of the Highlands during our Aigas weeks, there are always more pockets to discover and with one day off together, myself…
Fascinating Fungi
On the 7th September we will once again welcome the wonderful Liz Holden, one of the UKs leading mycologists, to Aigas. She is leading a programme called Fascinating Fungi, and everyone is getting very involved! So far we have scoured…
Unexpected Beauty
Too often when looking at the natural world, people overlook insects in favour of birds, mammals, plants and other organisms that are typically thought to be bigger, brighter, or (wrongly in my opinion!) more interesting. Even within the insects, butterflies,…
Orchid Fever
Orchids have captured people’s imagination for generations. Many have unusual flowers that look like tiny men, ladies in dresses or monkeys (giving rise to the English names Man, Lady and Monkey Orchids). Others mimic bees, wasps or flies to trick…
Having a Whale of a Time!
Since coming up to the Highlands I have had great fortune with bottlenose dolphin, harbour porpoise, grey seal, common seal and otter sightings. I have decided to put this to good use and completed training enabling me to survey and…
