I have had word that we have secured funding to enable us to carry out work on the footpath down to Starney Beach in order to get this re-opened. We had to close it a few years ago due to serial landslips above the path. Last autumn we carried out some drainage work in the hopes of preventing further slipping. This seems to have been successful so far, and the areas where the slips occurred have vegetated over pretty well, which helps the stabilise the whole area. However..., we won't be taking any chances, we intend to re-route the path slightly so that it doesn't pass below the area where the most slips have happened. We apologise for the fact that this path has and will be closed for so long, but we take our duty of care for the safety of our visitors very seriously, and we want to make sure that everything has stablilised before we open it to the public again. The plan is to carry out the work in the winter of 2018/19. The work on just this short length of path will cost about £30k which is being paid for by our Footpath Fund. If you enjoy walking at St Abb's Head and other countryside footpaths on NTS land, why not consider supporting this fund. Liza.


http://www.nts.org.uk/Campaign/The-Footpath-Fund

A nice wee piece from the Berwickshire News about the Community Action event on the reserve last weekend. Liza

http://www.berwickshirenews.co.uk/news/history-experts-dig-what-s-under-the-ground-in-coastal-town-1-4559247

Despite the spells of rain and high winds there were plenty of butterflies out around the Mire Loch this morning. Peacocks were probably the most common species present, along with Red Admiral, a single Small Copper and Wall Brown also made an appearance, while 3 Speckled Woods were seen near the Mire Loch dam. Many of the Red Admirals were seen feeding on the bramble berries which are out in abundance around the loch. Fruits like this are an important food source at this time of year when many flowers are finished, and no longer providing nectar.  Lizy

Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta feeding on bramble berry

We had another good, if slightly wet and windswept, day up at the old lighthouse signal station today as we continued our archaeological dig with National Trust for Scotland archaeologist Daniel Rhodes. We finished excavating the last bits of the trench from yesterday, and mapped everything we found, before filling in the trench. We also had a good chat with some of the hardy visitors who had braved the weather. Below you can see the trench as it looked at the end of the excavation and after we filled it in and replaced the turfs. You would hardly know we were there! Lizy

Assistant Ranger Zander and I had a fabulous day yesterday, checking for bats around the reserve with ecologist Lindsay Mackinlay from Parnassus Ecology. We found several bat boxes containing bats, including pipistrelles and this roost of 11 Daubenton's bats. Lindsay also checked the roofs of our buildings and found bats in both of them, which is great news. It is illegal to disturb bat roosts (Lindsay has a license which permits him to carry out these sort of checks) so if ...you do suspect you have bats in a box or in your roof it best to leave well alone. However if you do have bats in a building and you need to carry out some work, you can contact Scottish Natural Heritage who can give you information on how to do this with minimal disturbance to the bats. For more information see the Bat Conservation Trust: http://www.bats.org.uk/pages/bats_and_the_law.html and http://www.bats.org.uk/pages/building_remedial_work.html
Lizy

Daubenton's bats in bat box