Happy New Year from all the staff, volunteers and wildlife at Loch of the Lowes!

Now that the flood waters have receded and the loch level is back to normal ( if high) levels we can all relax a bit more!  We have all been enjoying the mild spell too, with lots of activity on the woodland feeding station, especially from the Red Squirrels, and even some very early courtship song from some of our birds today- they think it is spring already.
Doubtless winter still has a sting to come so we hope the birds aren’t tricked into mating and nesting too early or they will be caught out.

We had nearly 200 geese on the loch today and a nice flock of Widgeon duck have been around regularly too, amongst lots of other wildfowl.

Eagle eyed webcam watchers may have noticed your Ranger Emma and her trusty volunteers canoeing past the otter/ beaver camera today . We were undertaking one of our regular beaver monitoring patrols and took the opportunity to clean the spiders web off the camera lens which makes night viewing so hard- though how long until the spider re-spins we can’t guarantee! You might now be able to see the cheeky beaver has used the Otter holt as a convenient stash spot for some food ( i.e. some cut branches ) which can now be seen sticking out of the hole. It will doubtless return for these at some stage, so keep your eyes peeled for it at night especially. Quite what the otter thinks next time he drops in to use the holt we don’t know- he’ll probably reclaim it in short order!