Notes from RSPB Insh Marshes

Day 1.

This morning I arrived in Kingussie to begin the Scottish leg of my curlew sound recording journey. I was met by the RSPB’s Curlew Life Project Officer for Insh Marshes, Thijs Claes, at the train station. A friendly and slightly bear-like Belgian, Thijs is one of those people who make you feel at ease straight away. I’m already glad I’ll be spending the next few days with him.

A few hours later we were on the edge of the marshes - in one ear the constant hum of the A9 road, in the other one of the richest habitats for wading birds I’ve ever experienced. Back home, the sound of curlews was always accompanied by the UK’s other two big wading birds - oystercatchers and lapwings. In Cumbria and Conwy Valley, the oystercatchers had been missing - apart from a single adult in Geltsdale that flew past me without making a sound, with the purposeful aura of someone who’d forgotten their keys. Here at Insh Marshes though, all three species are present.

Overlooking the marshes, Thijs told me about the Scottish Government’s plans to turn the whole of the A9 between Perth and Inverness into a dual carriageway, and how the RSPB’s concerns have led to commitments to fund additional studies and habitat improvement on the marshes. It was a reminder of the competing needs of humans and wildlife, and how we sometimes have to weigh up complex costs and benefits. Expanding a road that already exists is one thing, but at some point soon the direction of travel needs to change.

Thijs shows me the marshes

As Thijs and I were talking, a flock of about eight curlews swooped down from behind us and onto the marshes. He told me that these were most likely failed breeders, which had been feeding on nearby farmland. There was heavy rain here recently and many nests were flooded. Some of them apparently contained chicks that had just hatched; others eggs on the verge of hatching. Thijs described how he’d walked among the grisly wreckage, picking out bits of baby bird and eggshell. While some of those pairs may have tried again, time seems to have already run out for others.

Day 2.

Today Thijs and I were up before dawn. I’m out of practice, but for some reason I woke up even earlier. I lay listening to starlings outside the window, waiting for my alarm to go off. Starlings are another bird that was ubiquitous when I was growing up in Orkney. At first glance they appear black, but in summer they shine like an oil slick with purplish-green iridescence. Today they are rarely seen or heard in many parts of the country. They used to perch on the roof of the house I grew up in and sing songs of staggering complexity. Sometimes a bewildered and sooty starling would come down the chimney. The layout of the house was open plan, and sometimes they’d fly back and forth (from the fireplace at one end and a stove at the other), creating an inside-out landscape of sofas, chairs and tables. Eventually we’d usher it towards an open window (more difficult than it might sound), and the anthropomorphic order of things would return. Starlings were so common back then in the north of Scotland (this was the late 90’s and early 2000’s) that they could make a real mess in barns and were considered a pest by farmers. They are wonderful mimics, picking up and copying sounds of other species, and even sirens or other mechanical noises. In Kingussie, Thijs had told me that he’d heard starlings mimicking curlews (I remember this from home as well). Sure enough, as I lay there this morning I heard a pretty convincing curlew impression from the street outside. If you’ve ever tried to impersonate a curlew, you’ll know it’s no easy task. I’m still blown away by the extent to which an animal with a brain many times smaller than ours can master it. I wondered where they pick up the sounds in the first place, and how long they would remain in the starling’s vocabulary if curlews were to disappear altogether. A year? Three? A decade?

Once we arrived at the marshes, Thijs headed out in one direction to carry out a bird survey, and I set off in the other. It was a blustery day so I took the opportunity to record some sounds of grasses, reedbeds and sedges. Thijs has already introduced me to the world of sedges (a family of ‘graminoid’ or ‘grass-like’ flowering plants), as well as other unique plants of the marshes like Arctic Starflower. It always amazes me how much beauty there is in the smallest things, once you get your eye in. Whenever I’m drawn into this miniature world of patterns and form I think of Gregory Bateson (one of my heroes who I’ve written about previously). Bateson was obsessed with the interconnectedness of things, from the symmetry of leaf veins to global issues like climate change.

Arctic Starflower

After 30 minutes or so wandering the edge of the marshes, I found a couple of very vocal curlew pairs that were giving off strong signs of having chicks. I was standing on the banks of the River Spey, and had found some shelter from the wind. The tree next to me squeaked like a rusty fence. An oystercatcher silently stalked the water’s edge on the opposite side. When I’m recording I try to stay as still as possible, but it’s hard when there are midges rummaging through your hair and mosquitos landing on your face. This morning was warm and the mosquitos were out in force. I could feel a bite beginning to swell on my cheek.

A bit later Thijs showed me footage from the various camera traps that he’s set up throughout the marshes. With multiple cameras up on a big screen, his flat feels like a curlew nerve centre. From these traps, he hopes to learn more about the challenges curlews face, including which predators - including badgers, stoats, otters and crows - pose the greatest threat.

Day 3.

Another early start. This time Thijs accompanied me onto the marshes at dawn for some recording. We sat together, taking turns with the headphones. Thijs - who is regularly up before sunrise and was on his last energy reserves for the week - eventually fell asleep, hat pulled over his eyes. I took the headphones for myself and left him snoozing. By the high standards of Insh Marshes, there wasn’t a great deal happening. I settled for recording a gentle, breezy soundscape with curlews alongside redshank, Reed Buntings and Meadow Pipits.

Day 4.

This morning Thijs left me to set my own pace, so I decided to head out a bit later at about nine am. This turned out to be an accidental masterstroke. Firstly, the weather was warm by the time I reached the marshes, and this seemed to have energised the curlews. For a short spell, the reserve swelled with their bubbling calls, near and far. Not for the first time here, I felt incredibly lucky. Mary Colwell refers to curlew calls as the salt and pepper of a landscape, a sonic condiment that transforms the empty or bland into the intriguing and wild. It’s a great analogy, and in this moment ‘curlew bae’ was sprinkling the salt aplenty (if you’re behind on the bizarre fame of the salt-obsessed Turkish butcher, read this).

After a while the gentle cacophony fizzled out and I turned my attention to just curlew watching. I noticed what I thought was a bird on a nest and made a note of its location. I was pretty sure that Thijs hadn’t told me about a nest in this spot so I thought I might have found a new one - a second attempt following the flood. Already on a high about the nest, I made my way back towards the road to Kingussie. All of a sudden, there was a burst of frenzied curlew alarm calls from a corner of the marshes. I scrambled to put my headphones back on and point the microphone in the right direction. About 15 - 20 adults were going berserk, mobbing something that seemed to be moving low across the ground. The grass was too high to make out what it was, but I knew this was probably a stoat or an otter. Given the intensity of the curlews’ response, I felt certain that one or more chicks had been taken. Their alarm calls were different - more frantic and ragged. Curlews flew in to join the defensive from all corners of the marsh. While pairs have their own territories, it was interesting to see curlews acting as one with a predator on the loose. It was a good 15 minutes or so before the racket began to die down. With any luck only one or two chicks were lost. This drama will almost certainly make it onto the album, so listen out!

I returned, exhilarated, to Kingussie to tell Thijs about my eventful morning. He confirmed that I had in fact spotted a new nest, and promised to keep me posted about how the chicks fare - if they hatch. From my description of the mobbing behaviour, he thinks it was almost certainly an otter attack that I’d witnessed. Otters apparently stick around and root about searching for chicks, whereas stoats are apparently more ‘hit-and-run’ types. He showed me a video he’d filmed of curlews mobbing an otter. This time the culprit was in full view. Otters can seem gentle, but watching one in action brings home that they are also incredibly skilfull predators. The video showed not only the way that the curlews followed and mobbed the otter (just as I’d seen), but also how the otter lunged for the curlews that came too close.

At dusk I returned one final time to the edge of the marshes to see if I could record the failed breeders that I’d heard on my first day. I had no luck, but instead bumped into a local resident, Colin. In a thickening drizzle I asked him if he’d notice if curlews were to disappear. “oh, I’m not sure I would”, he replied honestly. He suggested that if curlews went away and then came back, people would probably notice, whereas a slide into extinction might simply pass people by. He compared this to the quietening of the A9 during lockdown: “when the cars came back we realised just how loud they are!”

Tomorrow I take a train to Stranraer, and from there a ferry to Northern Ireland for the next stage of the adventure. I’d like to thank Thijs Claes for his support and company during my stay in Kingussie - the curlews at Insh Marshes are lucky to have him. He was telling me at some point about his route into conservation, which began in earnest with a trip to Costa Rica where he worked as a volunteer for various organisations. If Costa Rica to Insh Marshes seems like something of a demotion, that’s only because we don’t fully appreciate the natural wonders we have here. We tend to think of curlews as somehow less special than leopards, toucans or turtles, but they’re not.