NESBRec 2018

Feels truly like Spring once you've been at the annual NESBREC forum. It gets you all het up and raring to go to get lost in the great big outside, away from pesky humans, in the wilds, till the cows come home, all summer long, trying to get a glimpse of wildlife that's clinging on, despite our shoddy polluting ways.

We got fired up about the plight of swifts, who rely on our houses to nest, but new builds are completely swift unfriendly and we keep refurbing old houses without paying heed to the traditional nesting sites of these beautiful, amazing beasts that live their life on the wing. They are quiet and clean nesters under gutters and in behind slates, but their numbers have dropped by 60 percent. We can buy swift bricks or external nests and there is an expert group of volunteers in Huntly to get advice from.

We got all Miss Marple detective on water shrews, who are amongst us in the north east in more numbers than we thought and are under recorded. We got upskilled in how to deal with non native invasive species.. .flashbacks to the giant hogweed of the infamous 70s childhood nightmare public safety posters and the Japanese knotweed...now as well as non chemical interventions there is a Robocop type lawn mower that appears to be very nifty with getting them a-shifty, along with an army of volunteers and a wee namecheck for my workplace.

We learned about the poor ash trees in the posho parts of Aberdeen, just to add to the threats they are already facing with disease, they now have to contend with sci-fi channelesque plagues of marauding saw fly caterpillar infestations.

We heard about the Humpy's breaching like it's 1999 up and down our coastline from St Cyrus to the Moray Firth. And the great migration past the outer Hebrides as they go on route to their warmer breeding grounds in the Caribbean and elsewhere.

And then there is the otters on the Don and the local legend that is Andy Coventry whose enthusiasm and knowledge of the various families as he's photographed them these past few years knows no bounds.

There was even an accidental hillwalker turned accidental mothman who got us enthused about mountain moths and their range. Then there was the BTO guy who spoke about my favourite bipolar bird, the heron, both scrawny and graceful depending on its mood. I've probably missed some talks but it was a long but good old day, with a break at lunch for some sunshine in the cruikshank gardens and our first ladybird spot of the year.

Sam took the whole day in his stride, and even coped with the bum numbing lecture hall seats that I usually moan about....