scottish national heritage - the nature of scotland winter 2009

The Nature of Scotland

Scottish Natural Heritage Winter 2009 www.snh.org.uk

All at sea

Wave and tidal power

Unique vision

Artist with a different view

Beinn on TV

Highland haven for wildlife

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Contents

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Features

8 Roots of PoeTree

Planting trees with words

10 A slightly different view Painting out of the ordinary

16 Sea change on the horizon

Hopes for wave and tidal energy

22 Seal of approval

Removing risks to wildlife

30 Water of life goes green Whisky takes new approach

46 Discover Winter White

New campaign for winter months

48 Wildwood plan for Carrifran

Trees take to the hills

56 When Fergus met Beinn

Beinn Eighe stars in nature fi lm

Regulars

2 Where we are

SNH contact details

3 Welcome

4 Wild calendar

Where to go and what to see this winter

14 Common heritage Linking language and environment

24 News

Natural heritage updates

34 Events diary

Guide to what’s on

36 Reserve focus

Discover Forvie NNR

42 Area news

Reports from round the country

47 Print out Our latest publications

54 Kids only!

Activities for younger readers

64 Mailing list

Join our mailing list

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Credits

The Nature of ScotlandThe Magazine of Scottish Natural HeritageIssue Number 6 — Winter 2009

Published quarterly© SNH 2009ISSN 1350 309X

Editor: John Walters Tel. 01463 725 222

Cover photo: View north over Beinn Eighe NNR towards Loch Maree from the summit ridge.Inside cover: Quartzite rock on Beinn Eighe.Welcome page: View of Arran from ArdrishaigPhotographer: Lorne Gill/SNH

Photography – all images by Lorne Gill/SNH other than:Laurie Campbell 7t, 7b, 9, 40t; Laurie Campbell/SNH 26, 58, 59b; George Logan/SNH 8, 21t, 21m, 44m; Peter Cairns/RSPB images.com 15; Beatrice Wind Farm Demonstrator Project, Talisman Energy (UK) Ltd 16; John Baxter/SNH 18; 16; Pelamis Wave Power Ltd 19; Charlie Phillips 20; SMRU Ltd 22, 23; Jim Greenfi eld www.oceaneyephoto.com 24; Mark Hamblin 25; Mark Hamblin/RSPB images.com 28; Scotch Whisky Association 31; Glyn Satterley 32b; www.scottishviewpoint.com 32t, 33b; Richard Learoyd/SNH 34; David Whitaker 38, 43r, 45m; Raymond Besant 39; Robyn Glendinning 42l; Caroline Crawford/SNH 42m; Jessica Langford 42r; Anthea Davidson 43l; Allan Devlin 43m; Neil Mitchell/SNH 44r; John Phillips 45l; Scott Tibbles 45r; David Geddes 48; Philip Ashmole 50, 51, 52, 53; John MacPherson/SNH 56,60, 63; Annie Tuite 61.

To share your views about The Nature of Scotland or suggest articles for future issues please contact the editor:

SNH MagazineGreat Glen House, Leachkin Road, Inverness IV3 8NW Email: [email protected]

The views expressed in this magazine do not necessarily refl ect those of SNH.

Printed by: Woods of Perth, Scotland

WP37K1209

When you have fi nished with this magazine, please recycle it. Pass it to another reader or dispose of it at your local waste-collection point.

Where we are…

You can contact SNH by letter, telephone or email. The following details should enable you to fi nd your nearest main offi ce, but bear in mind that there are also smaller offi ces than those listed.

A full list of our offi ces appears on the SNH website: www.snh.org.uk

Corporate

headquarters

Great Glen House, Leachkin Road, Inverness IV3 8NWTel. 01463 725 000 Email: [email protected]

Other main offi ces

Battleby, Redgorton, Perth PH1 3EW Tel. 01738 444 177

Silvan House, 3rd Floor East, 231 Corstorphine Road, Edinburgh EH12 7ATTel. 0131 316 2600

Caspian House, Mariner Court, Clydebank Business Park, Clydebank G81 2NR Tel. 0141 951 4488

Area offi ces

Argyll and StirlingThe Beta Centre, Innovation Park, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4NFTel. 01786 450 362

Dumfries and GallowayCarmont House, The Crichton, Bankend Road, Dumfries DG1 4ZFTel. 01387 247 010

Northern IslesGround Floor, Stewart Building, Alexandra Wharf, Lerwick, Shetland ZE1 0LLTel. 01595 693 345

East HighlandFodderty Way, Dingwall Business Park,Dingwall IV15 9XBTel. 01349 865 333

North HighlandThe Links, Golspie Business Park,Golspie, Sutherland KW10 6UBTel. 01408 634 063

West HighlandThe Governor’s House, The Parade, Fort William, Inverness-shire PH33 6BATel. 01397 704 716

Strathclyde and AyrshireCaspian House, Mariner Court, Clydebank Business Park, Clydebank G81 2NR Tel. 0141 951 4488

Tayside and ClackmannanshireBattleby, Redgorton, Perth PH1 3EW Tel. 01738 444 177

Western Isles32 Francis Street, Stornoway,Isle of Lewis HS1 2NDTel. 01851 705 258

Forth and BordersLaundry House, Dalkeith Country Park, Dalkeith, Midlothian EH22 2NATel. 0131 654 2466

Grampian16/17 Rubislaw Terrace,Aberdeen AB10 1XETel. 01224 642 863

2 The Nature of Scotland


Welcome

Kenneth FowlerHead of Informationand CommunicationScottish Natural Heritage

A big part of SNH’s work involves encouraging people from all walks of life to get outdoors and enjoy what nature has to offer. Getting outdoors isn’t just good for us physically; it’s also good for our mental well-being... for ‘the soul’, if you like. It helps us experience different aspects of the world we live in and, hopefully, be inspired by them.

Our mountains, rivers, forests and coastline are all things that spring to mind when we think about being outdoors in Scotland. But it’s not just in the wilder places that we can fi nd inspiration. Nature that’s closer to home – such as farmland, local parks, community woodlands, paths and canals – can also provide an invaluable outdoor experience in our often hectic, mainly indoor, daily lives. Wherever you live in Scotland, the natural world has the power to stir emotions and inspire a creative response.

Scotland’s rich and varied nature and landscapes have, for hundreds of years, inspired artists of all kinds to put pen to paper, brush to canvas or – more recently – to point the camera or click the mouse.

In this issue of The Nature of Scotland we explore how nature, both remote and close to home, can encourage creativity. The artist Keith Salmon talks about how he has combined his twin passions of painting and hill walking to create stunning abstract landscape works. The fact that Keith has lost much of his sight has not prevented him from being inspired by Scotland’s natural environment, from agricultural Ayrshire to the wilds of Sutherland.

We also feature the ‘PoeTree’ project, where poet Kenneth Steven describes his work helping children to explore and understand their local environment. He encourages them to record their responses in poetry and prose after they visit a woodland and experience trees with all their senses. It's a great example of how ‘nature on our doorstep’ can help us look at the world in different ways.

Two national nature reserves (NNRs) also feature in this issue. Forvie NNR, north of Aberdeen, is host to spectacular sand dunes and bird life, and is profi led as part of our ongoing series on NNR walks around Scotland. We also provide some background to a recent BBC documentary, part of the Natural World series, on the spectacular wildlife and landscapes of Beinn Eighe NNR in Wester Ross. The music for the fi lm was composed by world-renowned Scots musician Phil Cunningham, providing another example of art inspired by nature.

I hope you enjoy this winter edition of The Nature of Scotland and that it motivates you to get outdoors. Who knows, you might also be inspired to create your own artwork while you’re out there!



Wild calendar

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Kenny Taylor gives some seasonal tips for savouring Scottish wildlife and landscapes

Will ye go tae Flanders?

Bogs might not be the fi rst places that spring to mind when you think of exploring winter wilds. But space, colour, pattern and peace can all be part of a visit to a good, moss-powered wetland.

If you choose the venue with care, you might not even need to get your feet wet! The Flanders Moss National Nature Reserve, 13 km (8 miles) west of Stirling, is now the largest surviving raised bog in Britain. You can see its huge sweep from viewpoints along the A873 road to Port of Menteith. But to really savour its delights, use the boardwalk at the Poldar Moss section, near Thornhill.

Many kinds of Sphagnum bog mosses grow here. Their red, tawny, green and yellow tones stay strong all year, and bog pools can fairly sparkle in low sunlight. Look up, and in the dusk of a winter’s afternoon, the chill air here will often resound with the calls of pink-footed and greylag geese going to roost on the Lake of Menteith.

Web tips:

www.nnr-scotland.org.uk/reserve.asp?NNRId=39

Short days can be a bonus if you want to watch goose fl ocks birling down to winter roosts. Many places look brilliant with a sprinkle of ice or snow, including Scotland’s magnifi cent mountains. Closer to home for many, woods in and near towns often reward visitors with glimpses of wildlife that can be harder to see at other seasons.


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1Peatland colours, such as here at Flanders Moss, can be a great contrast to the grey of a winter’s sky.

2There’s an elemental power to the landscape of the northwest mainland, where eroded sandstone mountains rise steeply above curves and hollows of the low ground.

3Choughs are among the most characterful of crows, with their red bills and legs, glossy plumage and lively fl ocks.

4You may come across a roe buck and hinds in the wooded parts of several Scottish cities, including Dundee.

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Move on up

When meadow pipits have fl own to warmer ground, the deer grass is orange-gold and the uplands seem silent, Scotland’s mountains hold a special magic. There’s a simplicity in their shapes and shadows at this time of year, uncluttered by the multi-colours of other seasons.

Go to the northwest Highlands, within the ‘Geopark’ area that stretches from Loch Broom in the south to Cape Wrath in the north, and you can see some of the most distinctive mountains in Europe. Suilven, Stac Pollaidh, Cul Mòr and a bevy of others are each utterly unique in outline.

Rising above lochan-studded low ground, each hill here can also help to reveal the story of how the area’s rocks have formed and changed over the last three billion years. Go to Knockan Crag National Nature Reserve, at the side of the A835 21km (13 miles) north of Ullapool, to fi nd out more about the gneiss, sandstones, faultlines and thrusts that have played a part in the making of this magnifi cent landscape.

Web tips:

www.northwest-highlands-geopark.org.uk

www.knockan-crag.co.uk


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Get choughed

All crows can be intriguing, thanks to a blend of quick wits and complex calls. Raven croaks and rook caws are part of that vocabulary. But it’s hard to fi nd words that can catch the essence of how Scotland’s rarest crow, the chough, can sound.

Best to go to one of its few remaining strongholds, such as Colonsay or Islay, to hear its shrill cries for yourself. Islay in winter has the added bonus of being the seasonal home to huge numbers of migrant geese. Over 30,000 barnacle geese and 15,000 Greenland white-fronted geese (the latter very scarce elsewhere) can come here from October onwards.

Go to the RSPB’s Loch Gruinart Reserve, in the northwest of Islay, to get information at a visitor centre and then use the hides to overlook fi elds where geese graze in the reserve’s farm. For a chance of choughs, try the dunes near Ardnave Loch and Point, or go south from Gruinart to the dunes beside Machir Bay.

Web tips:

www.the-soc.org.uk/islay-sites.htm

www.rspb.org.uk/lochgruinart

Jammy, those Dundonians

When it comes to watching wildlife, residents of Dundee are well placed. For starters, there’s the foreshore of the Firth of Tay along the city’s waterfront – always worth checking for wildfowl, waders and seabirds.

Two woods that host interesting mammals and birds sit just northeast of town, beside the A923 Coupar Angus road. Templeton Woods is the nearest of these, and can be reached on bike or foot using the city’s people-friendly ‘Green Circular Route’. You can download maps of the route (see below).

Just up the road, beside the village of Muirhead, the Woodland Trust Scotland’s Backmuir Wood Reserve also has a good network of trails, plus viewpoints with great outlooks across the Tay to Fife. Like Templeton Woods, Backmuir is home to red squirrels, roe deer and tawny owls. So look up for signs of squirrel dreys in bare branches, check for hoof slots in mud, and stay alert for the sounds of hooting if you stay until winter dark sets in.

Web tips:

www.dundeetravelinfo.com/gcwest.pdf

www.camperdownpark.com/woods.htm

www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/our-woods

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The Nature of Scotland8

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Roots of PoeTree


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1Woodland can generate a creative spark in many children.

The ‘PoeTree’ project came about almost by accident some half a dozen years ago. It had shaken me to realise that many of the children in the Royal School of Dunkeld, our local primary, had never seen the ‘Parent Larch’ behind the cathedral, and far fewer had experienced these magnifi cent woods, here where the Rivers Tay and Braan become one.

But as I took part in more and more school events, I realised that children were not outdoors as I had been. In many ways, they weren’t living rural lives at all. They were, in fact, living suburban ones – more aware of virtual trees and fi elds than their real-life counterparts. I found that sad beyond words; those woods were less than half a mile from their homes and school. There had to be some way to bring them together again.

And where better to pilot a scheme linking conservation and creativity than in Dunkeld? After all, it’s ringed by woods, the result of the wise thinking of the ‘Planting Dukes of Atholl’.

So we went – pupils, staff and me – to listen to trees, touch trees, watch trees and imagine trees. We all had little notebooks to scribble down fi rst impressions, and back in the classroom we wrote more detailed accounts, employing what Wordsworth wisely called ‘recollection in tranquillity’.

Over the next days I worked with each child to ‘grow’ their poem. For some the task was easy; for many, perhaps the majority, it was a real struggle. I showed them poems by greats like Robert Frost; we got rhythm and rhyme into our heads, but learned that poems can work just as well without these formal structures.

In the end, everyone had a poem, something that expressed their response to that visit to the woods. We all went out to the school grounds and gathered round a new tree that had been brought to celebrate the peak of the project. Each child read a copy of his or her poem. These were then buried in the ground and a tree was planted – the idea being that the words would become part of the tree.

Since that time, the project has been run by a number of schools. Most recently, I was in Cumbria to work with it over a whole week. The project material has been refi ned, as I think it’s important to listen to the responses of teachers and pupils alike for that process. But the basic programme remains the same. We visit a local wood and experience trees with all of our senses, we catch something of the visit right away, and we work on a poem that encapsulates our feelings about the visit and about our relationship with trees. And we celebrate poems and trees with the planting of their own new oaks – ‘PoeTrees’.

I now grow all the trees that are planted at the schools I visit. Every autumn I collect hundreds of acorns from one of the ancient oaks in the grounds of Dunkeld Cathedral. At present, I have some 30 trees waiting to go out to schools.

I don’t feel in any sense that I have ownership over the PoeTree project. I’d be thrilled to learn it had been taken by teachers, parents or arts offi cers and used in a slightly new way. After all, it’s about making children think of what they have around them, about helping them to respond to the wonder of the natural world as they may never have done before.

It’s about little acorns becoming mighty oaks.

Poet Kenneth Steven describes a project in which woods and words can create a magical mix for children

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Award-winning artist Keith Salmon is able to combine his twin passions of hill walking and landscape painting in his work. What makes him truly remarkable, though, is that he lost much of his sight almost 20 years ago

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A slightly different view

It’s diffi cult for me to describe my paintings. They’re based on the landscape, and in particular the Scottish landscape, but they’re not traditional landscape paintings.

The work I do now has developed out of necessity, out of almost 20 years of experimentation and adaptation following the diabetic retinopathy that caused the loss of much of my sight in the early 1990s.

Despite these diffi culties, my work won the Jolomo Award for Scottish Landscape Painting earlier this year. And a little while earlier, I had been invited by SNH to exhibit some of my work at Great Glen House, their headquarters in Inverness.

The exhibition contained a selection of 25 paintings and drawings inspired by places as far apart as Shalloch on Minnoch in Ayrshire, and the stunning peaks of Cul Mòr, Suilven and Quinag in the far northwest. The paintings are based on my experiences while out walking and climbing in these places.

In the years following the decline in my sight, I tried all sorts of ways of working but gradually turned to painting with big, broad brush strokes. I created fairly abstract images based on the urban and rural landscapes around Irvine, where I now live.

The trouble was that I’d always loved drawing and I was really missing it. Then it occurred to me that I could still see enough to scribble – after all, you don’t have to have much sight for this. And so, I started working on what I describe to people as my ‘organised scribbles’. The drawings are built up from numerous layers of scribbled pastel line, starting with light colours and tones and gradually moving to darker ones. From these beginnings, I pull out vague images as the drawings develop.

I was pleased with these drawings, but at this stage I still didn’t really have a focus or direction for my work. Then, while out walking with a friend one day, I realised that this was where the focus of my work should be.



I have always walked and scrambled in the hills. My father was a keen hill walker and he introduced me to the hills when we moved to Wales in 1969. And from that point I have never looked back.

Over the years, I’ve explored most, if not quite all, the main hills in Wales. But it was Scotland that really drew my attention; so much so that, after many years of Scottish holidays, I eventually moved north.

My sight was very poor by this time and I was fi nding it very diffi cult to walk on rough paths and open ground. I’d bought myself a walking stick and Anita, my partner, learnt to guide me, but I still lacked confi dence.

Inspiring course

In 2001, however, I heard of a remarkable course being run at Glenmore Lodge, near Aviemore, by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland. I signed up for the ‘Mountain skills course for the visually impaired’ and it turned out to be one of the most important decisions I’ve ever made.

The course was not only very instructive, but it also gave me a chance to meet other visually impaired people who, like me, still wanted to access and enjoy the wonderful wild places in Scotland and the UK. I gained so much confi dence that, following the course, we started getting out far more regularly, joining forces with experienced walkers and tackling hills I never thought I’d be able to climb again.

When I fi rst started to create paintings based on my trips into the Scottish hills I attempted to work in a fairly traditional way. But the paintings weren’t successful. I was using magnifi ers to help me see what I was doing and, above all, the paintings I produced weren’t anything to do with how I experienced the mountains.

I see very little detail when I’m out. I see the landscape much more in terms of pattern, of light, shade and colour. I suddenly realised that my drawings, my organised scribbles, offered a far better way of representing my experience of the hill. I developed this further and started mixing paint and pastel, building up the pictures in layers.

I see the landscape more in terms of pattern, of light, shade and colour.

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1On the Luss Hills, early March.

2The Auch Gleann and Beinn Mhanach, November.

3Approaching snow shower, Scottish Highlands.

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Abstract style

This rather strange technique has taken a good few years to develop and it’s still in the process of change. In my most recent paintings, based on walks we did a couple of years ago in the Drumochter Hills, I’ve sought to increase and improve the range of painted marks. I’ve started using a big range of paints, using both the thicker, heavy-bodied acrylics as well as mixing much thinner, more fl uid acrylic. These paintings are becoming bolder and perhaps erring more towards the abstract. The best are those that work on both levels – they can be enjoyed as Scottish landscapes and on a purely aesthetic, almost abstract level as well.

Since the Glenmore course in 2001, Anita and I have walked many Scottish hills of all sizes and stature. We’ve visited some wild and remote glens and summits, experiencing them under all conditions throughout all four seasons. Even with my fuzzy vision this is a truly wonderful and stunning landscape. In my paintings I try to capture something of these incredible places, something of their sheer scale, complexity and beauty. If I ever fully achieve this, it’ll be a fi ne painting indeed. Until then, there’s much walking and much more painting to be done.

To see more of my work and to learn about future exhibitions, please visit my website at www.keithsalmon.org



Dualchas coitcheann

Common heritage

Ainmean eòin-mhara

Tha ainmean cuid de dh’eòin-mhara na h-Alba a’ sealltainn mar a tha faclan airson ainmhidhean air a dhol gu tric eadar diofar chànanan. Dh’èirich ‘sùlaire’ bhon t-Seann Lochlannais súla, súlan, agus ’s ann bhon dearbh thùs a thàinig an seann ainm Beurla air an eun sin – solan goose. Agus tha e furasta fhaicinn gur e ainm Lochlannach (Súlasker) a bh’ air Sùla Sgeir – eilean beag ainmeil anns a’ chuan gu tuath air Leòdhas – an toiseach. Bidh còmhlan de Nisich a’ falbh a Shùla Sgeir gach samhradh airson ‘gugaichean’ a thoirt dhachaigh leotha ann an cleachdadh seann-nòsach a tha ceudan bhliadhnaichean a dh’aois. Agus tha am facal Gàidhlig ‘guga’ (airson sùlaire òg nach do dh’fhàg an nead) air a dhol a-steach don Bheurla Shasannaich – ged nach ann tric a chluinnear moladh air blas feòil an eòin ann am Beurla, no cainnt sam bith taobh a-muigh Gàidhlig Nis! Dh’èirich am facal ‘guga’ bhon fhuaim a tha na h-eòin a’ dèanamh nuair a tha iad san nead – ‘gugail’ no ‘gogail’.

Tha am facal Sealtainneach air an ‘fhasgadair mhòr’ – bonxie – gu math cumanta ann am Beurla ann an Alba, agus thathar a’ smaoineachadh gun tàinig an t-ainm coitcheann air son an eòin seo – (great) skua – bho chànan Lochlannach nan Eilean Fàrach. ’S ann bho fhreumhaichean Frangach a dh’èirich na h-ainmean Beurla guillemot (‘gearradh breac’ ann an Gàidhlig) agus cormorant. Ach tha na faclan airson cormorant ann an Gàidhlig agus cuid de dhualchainntean na Beurla ann an Alba gu math coltach – ‘sgarbh’ agus scarf (uaireannan scart). ’S e as coireach gun tàinig iad uile bhon t-Seann Lochlannais skarfr. ’S e ‘fulmair’ facal eile a thathar a’ dèanamh dheth a thàinig bho na Lochlannaich bho thùs (a’ ciallachadh ‘faoileag air a bheil samh sgriosail’!) ach ’s iongantach mura deach e a-steach don Bheurla an toiseach (mar fulmar) mus do ràinig e a’ Ghàidhlig.

Chan eil anns na h-ainmean Gàidhlig shuas ach an fheadhainn as cumanta no ‘oifi geil’ oir ’s iomadh ainm a th’ ann airson gach eòin. Mar eisimpleir, cluinnear ‘eun bàn an sgadain’ agus ‘mac-fraoir’ airson an t-sùlaire; thathar a’ dèanamh dheth gu bheil an dàrna ainm a’ ciallachadh ‘fear aig a bheil fradharc geur’. Agus chithear ‘caraid nan Gàidheal’ mar ainm air a shon cuideachd. ’S iongantach mura robh sin na chomharra air cho cudromach ’s a bha an t-eun seo do na coimhearsnachdan Gàidhealach anns an iar-thuath a bha gu ìre an urra ri eòin-mhara airson am bith-beò.

The English names for several of our common seabirds have Scandinavian, French – and Gaelic – origins, as Ruairidh MacIlleathain explains

1Guga – eisimpleir de dh’ainm eòin a ghluais bhon Ghàidhlig don Bheurla gun atharrachadh. Ach tha grunn eun a fhuair an ainmean Gàidhlig bho chànan nan seann Lochlannach.

A ‘guga’ or young gannet. Seabird names in both Gaelic and English have been heavily infl uenced by other languages. In this case, Gaelic provided the original.

Seabird names

Some of Scotland’s seabirds have names that show the movement of words between our various languages. The Shetlandic ‘bonxie’ has virtually become a standard name in English for the great skua in Scotland, and a number of species names in English and Gaelic have a Scandinavian origin (‘skua’ is thought to come from a Faeroese original).

The explanation for the Gaelic and Scots dialect words for the cormorant – sgarbh (‘SKAR-av’) and scarf – being so similar is that they both originate in Old Norse (‘cormorant’ comes from French). The Gaelic for gannet, sùlaire, and an old English term for the same species – ‘solan goose’ – also both have Norse origins.

And Gaelic has given to English a word for a young gannet that has not yet fl ed the nest – guga. This word came from gugail, the Gaelic word that describes the cackling noise the bird makes as it hungrily awaits the delivery of another meal from the seas.


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The offshore wind, wave and tidal resources around Scotland are vast. Our task now is to fi nd a way to exploit these resources in harmony with the remarkable wildlife and landscapes around our coasts


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Sea change onthe horizon



Energy is vital to modern life in Scotland. It provides us with the power of machines and computers in the workplace, the convenience of transport, the safety of lighting and the comfort of home central heating.

But all forms of energy production can have impacts on the natural heritage. These may be direct, such as opencast mining or the extraction of oil and gas, or indirect through the greenhouse gases released when we burn fossil fuels. And as we’ve all seen, Scotland is already feeling the effects as increasing global temperatures bring changes in weather patterns, rising sea levels and more frequent and severe storms.

Scotland’s future energy policy has therefore shifted towards developing renewable energy sources, in a bid to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we release and to help limit the effects of climate change.

The Scottish Government have set a target of producing 50% of electricity in Scotland from renewable energy sources by 2020 (equal to over 8 gigawatts of installed power). This will require a mix of renewables, including the development of marine resources.

“Scotland is considered to have the best wind resource in Europe,” explained Brendan Turvey, policy and advice manager for renewable energy with SNH, “and we have excellent wave and tidal power capacity. The potential for harvesting wind, wave and tidal energy from around our coasts is therefore huge.

“SNH view climate change as the most serious threat over coming decades to Scotland’s natural heritage. So we have a strong interest in developing energy policy in a way that will limit the effects of climate change. Renewables have a central role to play.”

The Scottish Government estimate that there are 21.5 gigawatts of marine energy that could be harnessed from the waters around Scotland. This is twice the total electricity capacity that we currently generate.

Indeed, the Government point to the wealth of natural resources that Scotland enjoys with renewables potential, including:

– 25% of Europe’s offshore wind power; – 25% of Europe’s tidal power; and– 10% of Europe’s wave power.

Although the industry is at a fairly early stage of development, the technologies are evolving quickly. Wind farms are the most advanced form of offshore renewable technology, with major wind farms built off the coast of Denmark and around the coasts of England and Wales. In Scotland, the Robin Rigg wind farm in the Solway Firth has recently been commissioned, and two demonstrator turbines are installed at the Beatrice Field in the Moray Firth.

1The UK’s largest offshore wind turbines lie 25 km (15 miles) off the Caithness coast in the Moray Firth. The two turbines are installed next to the Beatrice oil fi eld.

2The OpenHydro marine turbine is designed to work under water. It’s shown here during maintenance at the European Marine Energy Centre test site in Orkney.

3A Pelamis wave energy converter on tow in the Firth of Forth.

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Until now, development has been limited because of the deeper waters and harsher conditions around Scotland’s coast. But advances in technology and engineering experience have led to companies expressing interest in developing over 8 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity in Scottish waters.

Wave and tidal power devices are still at the demonstration stage, but some are close to being developed commercially. A pilot shoreline wave device has been tested on Islay, several offshore wave and tidal stream devices are being tested at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, and one tidal stream device has been tested in Yell Sound in Shetland.

And the Government have given developers an added incentive to unleash the potential of our offshore resources by announcing a £10 million Saltire Prize. The money will be awarded to the team that can demonstrate a commercially viable wave or tidal energy technology in Scottish waters which achieves an agreed electrical output using only the power of the sea.

There’s already been a big response to recent invitations from the Crown Estate to install devices in the Pentland Firth and Orkney waters. And SNH staff are working with the Crown Estate and individual developers to look at what it could mean for the natural heritage.

The drive to develop these new technologies has to be balanced, however, with caution about the possible effects on wildlife and other activities at sea. For instance, there’s a range of potentially harmful effects for wildlife, including:

– disturbance when the devices are installed and in operation (potentially affecting breeding seals, whales, dolphins, fi sh and seabirds);– smothering from the devices and when cables are installed (habitats and species on the seabed);– the risk of collisions with working devices (marine mammals, fi sh and diving birds); and– noise from the devices when they’re operating, which could scare away species during feeding and migration (marine mammals and fi sh). And there are also potentially harmful effects for people, including:

– disturbance to boat traffi c;– visual impact on seascapes; and– disruption to recreational activities.

4


www.snh.org.uk 21

4Bottlenose dolphins live in the Moray Firth and are known to be sensitive to disturbance.

5Guillemots and razorbills are diving birds that could potentially be affected by offshore renewables.

6Speaker and delegates at a recent Sharing Good Practice event for the industry.

However, George Lees, a policy and advice manager with SNH, who leads on marine renewables, is positive about the future. “There’s obviously still a lot of uncertainty about potential impacts on the natural heritage,” he remarked. “But if we can keep early developments away from areas that are really important for scenery or marine wildlife, then offshore renewables could make a big contribution to meeting our climate change targets.

“It’s inevitable that developing renewable energy will have some impact on the natural heritage, so SNH are looking to provide advice to minimise these impacts. We’re working with the industry and Government to try and develop this sector for the long term. It’s critically important that in the early phases of development we take care with where devices are located. The industry needs to learn lessons from other renewable technologies, such as onshore wind farms, and get the devices in the right locations from the start.”

Part of SNH’s advice comes in the form of events, where everyone can share good practice, pass on information and experience, and discuss the areas that should have least impact on the natural heritage. Indeed, the SNH Sharing Good Practice event at the start of November attracted some 90 delegates, which shows the importance of natural heritage issues for this sector.

And SNH have shown their commitment to the industry by recently recruiting more specialist advisors. They will provide advice on the best ways to take account of wildlife where new developments are planned for marine renewable energy.

6

5



Seal of approval

Can ‘active sonar’ help safeguard seals, porpoises, dolphins and seabirds near the tidal turbines that will soon provide clean, renewable energy around the Scottish coastline?

Scottish marine biologists from St Andrews and Orkney are working on a pioneering use of sonar that can distinguish between approaching seal pups and clumps of seaweed, and will shut down tidal devices if necessary.

However, the company at the centre of the world’s biggest marine energy environmental monitoring project in Northern Ireland say that so far they’ve found no measurable impacts from tidal turbines on seals, porpoises and seabirds.

Bristol-based tidal energy developer Marine Current Turbines (MCT) have spent £3 million on detailed monitoring work around their twin-turbine ‘SeaGen’ device, installed in 2008 in Strangford Lough, near Belfast. The lough is a national nature reserve with a long-established seal colony.

Biologists and engineers are recording changes in sea mammal and bird activity over a fi ve-year period. They’re using transmitters glued to the fur on seals’ heads to establish movement patterns. Additionally, a ‘spotter’ on SeaGen’s control tower must press a stop button if an animal is spotted within 46 metres (150 ft).

Divers have examined the impact of turbines on kelp and sponge growth

Journalist and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch has a keen interest in marine renewables and is involved with a European marine research project called ‘Equimar’. Here she describes the world’s biggest project to monitor the impact of tidal turbines on seals

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www.snh.org.uk 23

1A seal in Strangford Lough with an electronic device attached so that its movements can be tracked.

2SeaGen is a tidal energy converter that is operating in Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland.

growth (part of the seal’s food chain) and there’s been aerial monitoring. In addition, the developer has to collect any dead seals, but none of those found last year appears to have been injured by turbine blades.

There’s also been work to measure the effect of noise under water – too much when the turbrines are being installed and mammals could be deafened and disoriented; too little when they’re operational and animals won’t even know the turbines are there.

According to Queen’s University biologist Graham Savidge, whose team has recorded half a million animal movements in three years, the results to date are encouraging. “Few seals are found in the fastest currents,” he commented, “as the majority prefer the lower water speeds of the lough’s margins.”

And, according to Martin Wright, managing director of MCT, the work has been vital because technologies like SeaGen must be genuinely sustainable and environmentally friendly. “The cost has been a big burden though,” he remarked, “and could prove too much for future projects. I’m hopeful the data will increase confi dence among regulators, and that the UK Marine & Coastal Access Act and the Marine (Scotland) Bill will make it easier and less expensive for marine devices to be installed.”

However, even one seal death at a turbine would be very serious for developers. A 30% drop in common seal numbers – thought to be mainly a

2

result of killer whales preying on them – has almost put the species on the endangered list.

So the University of St Andrews Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) Ltd. and Orkney-based EMEC (European Marine Energy Centre) are ‘training’ sonar technology to detect seal pups, using sightings to confi rm and improve recognition. ‘Seal sonar’ will eventually be able to shut down devices automatically if a seal comes near.

“The marine industry will have to get used to wildlife monitoring because it isn’t going away,” commented Professor Ian Boyd of SMRU. “Any impacts of turbines on sea mammals will only become apparent over the long term in test sites and at sea. Marine energy developers will therefore need to maintain a high level of alertness when the turbines are being developed and also when they’re operating.”

A Scottish-based European marine research project, Equimar (www.

equimar.org), could help decide the issue. Equimar is a project involving 61 scientists, developers and biologists from 11 countries, charged by the European Union to come up with marine industry guidelines by 2011.

According to Equimar co-ordinator Dr David Ingram, of Edinburgh University, if ‘seal sonar’ works Equimar may recommend its use at test sites. “But if no measurable impact on wildlife is found there, we could recommend that developers don’t need to use sonar again when their device is fi nally out at sea,” he concluded.



Transfer of marine powers

New powers to protect Scotland’s marine life have been given to Scottish Ministers with the passing of the UK Marine and Coastal Access Act.

The Act means the Scottish Government can designate Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Scottish offshore waters (beyond 12 nautical miles from the coast).

Scotland’s seas are unique to the UK and Europe as they hold a range of nationally important marine features, including:

– the most northerly resident population of bottlenose dolphins;– 36% of the world’s population of grey seals; – habitats such as coldwater coral reefs and seamounts;– many commercially important fi sh; and– minke whales and most of the UK’s reported sightings for basking sharks.

There are already protection measures for many of these features through Special Areas of Conservation. However, new legislation is needed to designate Marine Protected Areas for other features that are of nature conservation importance, such as the fl ameshell, northern sea fan (shown above), common skate and burrowing anemone.

The Scottish Government are also taking measures to ensure that inshore waters around Scotland (within 12 nautical miles from the coast) are given targeted protection. The Marine (Scotland) Bill is going through the Scottish Parliament at the moment and it includes new powers to designate MPAs in Scottish inshore waters.

“Our waters are home to some of the most spectacular wildlife and marine habitats across the world,” commented Richard Lochhead, cabinet secretary for rural affairs and the environment. “They also make a huge contribution to the economy through industries such as fi shing.

“The powers that the UK Act delivered to Scotland are an important part of our new system for managing our seas for current and future generations. Together with the powers in our own Scottish Marine Bill, they will mean Scotland can develop a network of MPAs and contribute to international efforts to protect marine biodiversity.”

NE

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www.snh.org.uk 25

NE

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Greater protection for golden eagles

Protection could soon be increased for the golden eagle, a species that’s identifi ed with many of Scotland's wildest and most beautiful places.

Six new special protection areas (SPAs) for the golden eagle are being proposed in northern and western Scotland, and SNH will begin a three-month consultation on them in January.

The six areas are: Glen Affric (in the central Highlands) to Strathconon (in Ross-shire); the Cairngorms massif; Foinaven (at Durness); Moidart and Ardgour (near Fort William); Glen Etive (near Bridge of Orchy) to Glen Fyne (near Arrochar); and Jura, Scarba and the Garvellachs (off the west coast).

There are currently eight SPAs for golden eagles in Scotland. These are: Caenlochan in the Grampians; Cairngorms; Caithness and Sutherland peatlands; Cnuic agus Cladach Mhuile (Mull coast and hills); Cuillins on Skye; Lewis peatlands; North Harris mountains; and the Isle of Rum.

You can fi nd supporting information about the proposals on the SNH website (www.snh.org.uk), including boundary maps, the rationale for site selection, information on the golden eagle, and a question and answer document that addresses some of the queries about the proposed designations.

“The Scottish Government have asked SNH to carry out a full and open consultation on their behalf,” explained Susan Davies, SNH’s north areas director. “We’ll shortly be sending out a copy of the consultation pack to land managers and other interested parties.

“Comments will be gathered into a report and full copies of all the submissions we receive will also be passed to the Scottish Government. The Government will then be fully briefed on the issues and will decide whether to classify any of the suggested areas as SPAs.”

Announcing the proposals, environment minister Roseanna Cunningham said that Scotland is an internationally important stronghold for golden eagles. “But their future is fi nely balanced due to their need for large, undisturbed spaces in which to live and they remain highly vulnerable to change.

“While we have a duty to protect our biodiversity for future generations, this should not automatically mean that leisure and economic activity cannot take place in our countryside.

“Scotland's wildlife attracts tourists from both home and abroad, eager to enjoy the scenery and catch a glimpse of species such as the eagle. We must fi nd a balance between access, conservation and development to ensure that all sectors can benefi t from and enjoy the countryside.”



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Stand by for IYB

2010 is International Year of Biodiversity (IYB2010) and hundreds of organisations and groups across Scotland are joining together to play their part in this global awareness campaign.

Talks, public dialogues, art work, public science experiments and exhibitions covering both science and the arts are being planned across the UK between January and December 2010 under the International Year of Biodiversity banner.

Biodiversity is the term used to describe the variety of life on Earth, and IYB2010 aims to help people discover the connections between themselves and the world around them. It will also highlight the huge benefi ts that are shared if we conserve and use life on Earth in a sustainable way.

People will have a special opportunity during IYB2010 to understand why biodiversity is important for our health and wealth, to enjoy it and to learn how to preserve it.

Opportunities will include the chance to take part in surveys of farmland birds, butterfl ies, hedgehogs and water. There will be bat walks, bird watching, pond dipping, insect trawling, bird box building and rambling. Towns and cities will be going head-to-head, competing to map their local biodiversity. And hundreds of thousands of new plants and trees will be planted.

In Scotland, a launch event will take place in January at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. And SNH will be organising a week of biodiversity celebrations in May, with events taking place at rural and urban locations throughout the country.

It’s hoped the partnership of key organisations in the UK and across the world will encourage people to understand the issues and learn about some of the success stories that indicate a way forward that can make a difference. If you’d like to get involved, or to fi nd out about events across the country during IYB2010, log on to www.biodiversityislife.net


www.snh.org.uk 27

NE

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Fancy tagging sharks?

Efforts to protect sharks in Scottish waters are to be stepped up with the appointment of a sharks project offi cer. The post involves raising awareness about shark, skate and ray species and tagging the fi sh.

The offi cer will be employed by SNH and will work closely with the Scottish Sea Angling Conservation Network (SSACN), who have been urging government to give greater protection to sharks.

Funding for the appointment has come from SNH and the Argyll and the Islands LEADER programme. The Oban-based project offi cer will assist SSACN in setting up a new scheme for fi tting tags on the fi sh, which can be used to help monitor the health of stocks.

Tagging is the only non-destructive way of gathering the necessary data. Volunteer sea anglers fi shing from the shore, kayaks or boats will catch, tag and release various shark, skate and ray species. They’ll do this either as part of their normal fi shing trips or during major tagging events coordinated by the project offi cer and SSACN.

The duties of the project offi cer will also include arranging training workshops for anglers and raising awareness of Scottish sharks, skates and rays by liaising with fi shermen, as well as visiting schools in Argyll.

Forest as big as Glasgow

One of the biggest projects aimed at bringing back native woodland in the UK is now offi cially under way.

The Great Trossachs Forest covers approximately 166.5 sq km (64 sq miles) – roughly the size of the city of Glasgow. It stretches from Loch Lomond in the west to Callander in the east and lies in the heart of the Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park.

The project will potentially create the biggest broadleaf woodland in Scotland, providing visitors and local people with a range of opportunities to experience this iconic landscape.

Designed to span a remarkable two centuries, The Great Trossachs Forest aims to become a demonstration for land owners and managers across the country. The project will improve over 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres) of moorland, wetland and grassland habitats, create 4,400 ha (10,872 acres) of new woodland and remove non-native pine from 1,250 ha (3,088 acres). The project will bring big benefi ts to biodiversity and provide new places to live for species having to adapt to climate change.

The project is headed up by the Scottish Forest Alliance, a partnership involving BP, Forestry Commission Scotland, the Woodland Trust Scotland and RSPB Scotland.



NE

WS Helping the economy

Funding from SNH helped generate nearly £62 million worth of economic activity in rural areas over the last fi nancial year. In the same period, the organisation’s staff spent 15,000 days of their time on work that benefi ted the rural economy.

The most direct way that nature can generate economic activities on a large scale is by underpinning tourism. In addition, protected areas make a signifi cant economic contribution through food, timber and fuel production. They’re also of value to tourism, recreation and branding, and play an important role in attracting people to live and work in Scotland.

“Many aspects of our work in SNH generate economic benefi ts,” commented John Thomson, SNH’s strategy and communication director. “The tools we employ include grants, research, partnership and policy working.

“Much of our focus is on the contribution of nature to tourism, food and drink, as well as renewable energy. We also know that the presence of protected areas can create opportunities for local businesses and we’re commissioning case studies to illustrate this.”

Common scoter is a rarity

It may be called the common scoter, but it is in fact one of our rarest breeding birds, with the entire UK breeding population restricted to a few Scottish lochs.

Now a three-year project has been set up to look at the reasons behind a worrying decline in numbers revealed in a recent national survey.

The project involves comparing occupied scoter lochs with recently abandoned ones across Scotland. Measurements of water quality, insect populations and predatory mammals are made at both types of loch.

One important fi nding that’s already come to light is that mink are present in the scoter breeding range. These are an introduced species and well-known as a threat to waterfowl elsewhere in Scotland.

The glossy all-black plumage of the male scoter is unique among ducks, and makes a fi ne sight on the breeding lochs, where males vie for the attention of the females. They have an elaborate series of posturing and rushing displays, along with peculiar whistling and grunting calls.

The project is being run by RSPB Scotland with support from SNH. Several of the key study lochs are on the RSPB’s Forsinard Flows National Nature Reserve in Caithness.


www.snh.org.uk 29

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Energy targets on track

Scotland can easily meet its renewable energy targets, according to SNH.A recent paper to the organisation’s board highlighted that the Scottish

Government’s current target for renewable electricity is 50% by 2020 (around 8,000 megawatts [MW]).

Installed capacity is currently around 2,834 MW, but around 3,739 MW has been approved and not yet constructed. Proposals for a further 9,000 MW of capacity are in the planning system. And projects that would add another 8,500 MW of offshore wind, and between 500 and 2000 MW of other marine renewables, are being prepared.

In recent years SNH have published more than 30 pieces of guidance for developers and planners on renewable energy. These included Strategic locational guidance for onshore windfarms, which steers development away from areas of high wildlife and landscape sensitivity and so improves chances of consent.

Over the last 10 years, the organisation has responded to more than 230 formal renewable energy planning applications and engaged in more than 1,300 applications during the development process. Ultimately, more than 75% of proposals had no objection from SNH.

More recently, a 12-strong team of SNH offi cers has been set up to provide advice and information on all forms of renewable energy development. And around £250,000 has been invested in renewable energy related research.

While the paper reports that there’s tremendous progress towards the targets, it also refers to some of the challenges that lie ahead. These include the issue of impacts resulting from multiple developments, construction of wind farms on deep peat and landscape capacity for wind farms.

There’s also renewed interest in hydro, with many proposals on watercourses that are important for salmon, pearl mussels and other vulnerable species.

“Renewable energy development is becoming a huge area of work for us,” remarked Jane Clark, head of sustainable land use at SNH. “Scotland has exceptional renewable energy resources and the industry is expanding rapidly across the country.

“Our role is to help developers and planners to exploit this huge potential at an acceptable cost to the equally outstanding, and economically valuable, landscapes and wildlife. This means providing them with guidance on location, design and the potential impacts of their proposals. That’s why we’ve invested so much time and effort in the sector.”


The Nature of Scotland30 The Nature of Scotland30

Scotch whisky is one of this country’s most famous products and clearly benefi ts from Scotland’s high-quality environment. Now the industry is leading the way in efforts to combat climate change

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1The word 'whisky' comes from the Gaelic uisge beatha meaning 'water of life'. The industry depends on a consistent supply of good quality water to make whisky.

2The familiar steep roofs and pagoda heads found on many Scottish distilleries.

Water of life goes greenScotch whisky is an iconic product. It’s sold in 200 countries worldwide, with more than 90 million cases exported in 2008 and shipments worth over £3 billion.

It was therefore an important signal to the wider business community when Scotland’s whisky companies pledged earlier this year to cut their use of fossil fuels by 80% by 2050, under the fi rst industry-wide environmental strategy.

The fossil fuel reduction amounts to an annual saving by 2050 of over 750,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide – the same as taking 235,000 cars off Scotland’s roads.

The announcement was welcomed by Richard Lochhead, cabinet secretary for rural affairs and the environment, who praised whisky producers for being the fi rst industry in Scotland to sign up to the demanding climate change targets set by the Scottish Government for 2050.

“The future of Scotland’s iconic whisky industry relies on our equally iconic environment,” he commented, “and the industry is ahead of the game with this pioneering strategy. If delivered fully, these commitments will be of real benefi t to our environment. Scotland’s record export sales fi gures of over £3 billion for last year demonstrate the important contribution this industry makes to our economy.”

And David Rae of the North British Distillery Company, who chaired the group that came up with the strategy, said it made good environmental and business sense. “Distillers have always understood the long-term view and our targets up to 2050 are challenging. This strategy is a clear signal of our commitment to take a lead on sustainability issues.”

In order to achieve the required reductions, the industry will have to alter substantially the way it operates. However, it’s also adopting a host of other measures aimed at ‘greening’ its operations. In the next couple of pages we look at some of the changes planned or already under way.

2



Energy

The act of distilling whisky uses a lot of energy, but it also produces other items that can be used as fuel. The industry is investing in new ways to recover energy from these by-products as an alternative fuel to produce heat and power. This will signifi cantly reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

For instance, one of Scotland’s best-known whisky distilleries is introducing a ground-breaking system that uses oil-producing algae to cut the amount of greenhouse gases released.

Glenturret Distillery, home of The Famous Grouse, aims to take the fumes generated from whisky production and turn them into biodiesel. The algae strip carbon dioxide from the fumes and convert the gas into oil and protein.

And the Combination of Rothes Distillers – which includes Chivas Brothers, Glen Grant and Ben Riach – are building a new combined heat and power plant that will use by-products as an energy source. Excess energy will be sold to the National Grid, with enough to power 9,000 homes.

Meanwhile, the North British Distillery in Edinburgh has installed a heat exchange system that will use heat currently released into the atmosphere to heat the nearby Tynecastle High School. A similar example is Bowmore Distillery on Islay, which supplies waste heat to the island’s leisure centre.

Water

The whisky industry needs clean water supplies and aims to achieve similarly high standards in the water that it releases back into the environment.

Copper stills are essential to whisky as they uniquely infl uence the spirit’s character. However, the copper that’s released in the waste water from distilleries can be harmful to animals and plants if the copper is above certain levels.

The Glenfi ddich distillery in Dufftown has installed a natural treatment system to protect the River Fiddich. The system is planted with 16 native species of wetland plants and willow trees, which bind copper onto their roots and prevent its release into the environment. Deer, ducks, foxes and red-legged partridges have all been spotted in the area. Similar wetlands have been developed at Benrinnes and Glenallachie distilleries.

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www.snh.org.uk 31

Casks

Scotch whisky must, by law, be made in Scotland and matured in oak casks for at least three years. Casks play a key role in the maturing process, giving fl avour and a golden colour to the whisky.

The industry has committed to try to ensure that in future all the casks it uses will be made of oak sourced from forests that can be harvested with no long-term damage to the environment.

Many whiskies obtain their unique fl avour from the use of sherry casks, sourced from the European oak forests of northern Spain. Whisky producers are often the fi rst buyers of these casks and allow sherry producers to use them for a period of time before they’re sent to Scotland.

The Edrington Group, distillers of brands such as The Macallan and Highland Park, wanted to ensure the long-term future of oak sources in Spain. So they commissioned a study of the oak forests of Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria.

Over the ten-year period studied, the European oak stocks increased by 67%. The trees provide many other benefi ts, of course, including the rich range of wildlife they support and their ability to store away carbon.

Grain

Seventy per cent of all wheat grown in Scotland is used to produce grain spirit, which is a key ingredient in blended whiskies.

The industry wants to reduce the nitrogen content of wheat, as this will increase the amount of alcohol that the grain produces whilst also being good for the environment. However, producers need to achieve this without a drop in the tonnage of wheat that comes off the land.

Plant scientists have therefore bred a type of grain that will take in 30% less nitrogen. This will mean that the farmer is able to apply 50% less fertiliser, resulting in less pollution of the environment.

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Events diary 2010

January

February

Monday 11

Thursday 28

Wednesday 10

Sunday 14

Saturday 13

Thursday 18

Thursday 25

Thursday 25

Sunday 7

Tuesday 2

Area Evening

Receptions

Roy Bridge, West

Highland

Ellon, Grampian

SGP: The Participant

– communities unLtd

Battleby, Perth

Wild Goose Trail

Loch Lomond NNR

West Highlands

Meet the Wardens

Loch Leven NNR

Tayside

Area Evening

Receptions

Oban, Argyll, Dundee

SGP: Seminar for

planning students:

Making sustainable

places – planning

and the natural

heritage

Battleby, Perth

Woodland Tidy Up

Flanders Moss NNR

Stirling

Wetland Bird Walk

Loch Leven NNR

Tayside

All welcome (please check SNH website or local Area offi ce to confi rm venues and timings).

People getting together to take action for the environment, whether to improve local greenspace or reduce greenhouse gas emissions, is vital for creating more sustainable communities. This event will highlight examples of community-led action and examine how support organisations can work with communities in ways that enable independent action.

Explore part of Loch Lomond NNR and surrounding area (in a minibus) with SNH and a national park ranger, looking for and counting the four species of geese that winter there.Meet at Kilmarnock Millennium Hall, Gartocharn, at 2pm. Booking essential.

Drop in to the Kingfi sher Hide at Burleigh Sands to chat with the wardens about the wildlife of Loch Leven.


Using a blend of presentations, themed sessions and access to a panel of experienced professionals, student planners are encouraged to explore the key issues and opportunities for safeguarding the environment. (Priority will be given to those following RTPI and Landscape Institute accredited courses.)

Dismantle and recycle (from 10.30 to 16.00) disused pheasant pens from Ballangrew Wood on the edge of Flanders Moss. Booking essential.

Guided walk in search of wetland birds on World Wetlands Day. Booking essential.

Tel: 01738 458 [email protected]

Tel: 01389 722 015www.lochlomond-trossachs.org

Tel: 01577 864 439



Tel: 01577 864 439

Wednesday 27

Sharing Good

Practice (SGP):

Social marketing

Scotland’s outdoors

– beyond the usual

suspects

Battleby, Perth

Our natural heritage is an important resource for improving the health and well-being of people in Scotland. But how do we get more people to enjoy the outdoors more regularly and to realise the signifi cant benefi ts from physical activity and contact with nature? This is an opportunity to explore social marketing and how it can be applied in this context.


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www.snh.org.uk 35

MarchWednesday 3

Thursday 25

Thursday 4

Wednesday 17

Sunday 21

Area Evening

Receptions

Lairg, Sutherland

Harris, Western Isles

SGP: Leading Edge

Battleby

Perth

SGP: Marine wildlife

– working together

towards a better

understanding

Battleby, Perth

Early Bird Walk

Loch Leven NNR

Tayside


This popular annual event brings together rangers and other environmental educators to share ideas and inspiration for practical activities that promote outdoor learning and fi rst-hand experience of the natural world.

Scottish seas and coasts support a wealth of wildlife, and marine wildlife tourism is becoming an important part of Scotland’s economy. This event will bring together those most closely involved with marine wildlife and related industries to exchange information and share experiences.

Guided walk to Levenmouth in search of early birds in song, and on the move. Booking essential.



Tel: 01577 864 439

35www.snh.org.uk



Among shifting sandsThe haunting dunes of Forvie National Nature Reserve stretch along part of the North Sea coast, towering over you with the awesome grandeur of a desert. This is one of the largest sand dune systems in the UK. New shapes and colours appear in the shifting expanse of dunes, depending on which way the wind blows. Perfect for a low-level winter walk, the reserve’s past is hidden under the blanket of golden grains that smothers the landscape

1


www.snh.org.uk 37

5

South Broad HavenStevenson

Forvie Centre

Logie BuchanBridge

Inch GeckWaterside Bridge

Greenhill

Udny LinksGolf Course

Rockend

Waterside

Meikle Tarty

Bridge ofForvie

ForvieKirk

(remains)

Collieston

Newburgh

F o r v i e M o o r

ToCrudenBay

ToEllon To

Aberdeen

F o v e r a n L i n k s

CotehillLoch

Sleek of Tarty

SandLoch Hackley

Bay

N o r t hS e a

Forvie Burn

Burn of Sandend

Oldkirk Burn

Tarty Burn

Foveran Burn

Rive

r Ythan

Y t h a n E s t u a r y

B9003

B90

00

A975

A975

Reserve boundary

Dunes

Moorland

Estuary trail

Information centre

Information board

Parking

Toilets

Bird hide

© Ashworth Maps and Interpretation Ltd 2009.Based on Ordnance Survey mapping. © Crown Copyright anddatabase right 2009. All rights reserved. Ordnance SurveyLicence number SNH 100017908.

0 1kilometres

12

3 4

5

6

7

8

9

www.snh.org.uk 37

Forvie Trail

Forvie lies 23 km (15 miles) north of Aberdeen on the A975 Aberdeen to Peterhead road. You can walk to the reserve from Newburgh, where there are toilets and where buses stop generally every hour. This walk begins at the large car park signposted for the reserve at Waterside on the north side of the River Ythan (sounds like eye-than) road bridge.

The 5 km/3 mile route is marked by blue arrows and follows a rough track along the side of the estuary and then into spectacular, towering dunes. Emerging onto the beach, the route continues to the site of the cursed village of Forvie, said to have been covered by a sandstorm in the 15th century. Returning by track over heather moorland, the walk is not too steep but involves walking on rough ground and sand.


38 The Nature of ScotlandThe Nature of Scotland

1Forvie features one of the largest areas of blown sand in Scotland. The dunes have been built from sand carried onshore by the sea and wind.

2

It’s easy to identify curlews with their long down-curved bills, which are used to probe for worms and shellfi sh.

1

Begin at Waterside car park and follow the track through the gate towards the trees. Just below the car park is an area of saltmarsh where lapwing and small wading birds often take shelter from the winter weather. Emerging from the trees, look for redshank, oystercatcher and curlew down on the mudfl ats at low tide. Carry on straight ahead, with the estuary on your right.

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Looking across to Newburgh, you can see the quayside that once made this a busier port than Aberdeen. However, the shifting sands had to be frequently dredged to allow safe passage for the ships bringing in coal and exporting grain. The University of Aberdeen have their ocean research facility located just behind the quay, where the waters of the Ythan are now being used to study the role of the sea in climate change.

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Follow the foreshore at this point for another 500 m/0.3 mile and look out for long-tailed duck on the water, as well as Forvie’s signature bird, the eider duck. Males are black and white, and the females are brown, camoufl aged for nesting in the heather at the side of the estuary. In spring, there can be up to 5,000 birds here, but the winter population drops to a few hundred. The eiders dive in the river channel to fi nd mussels, their favourite food, which they swallow whole.

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Stopping at the start of the large dunes on your left, a deep pile of mussel shells has been exposed in the slope. This is a midden – Bronze Age at its earliest – and shows how important the estuary has been to people over the reserve’s history. Through medieval times, people harvested mussels intensively to provide bait for haddock line fi shing. When mussel harvesting ended in the 1960s, the numbers of eider duck on the Ythan soared and it became the UK’s largest breeding population.

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Clamber back up to the path and turn right to follow the grass-covered route up a slope to some stone steps at the top. Enjoy the view over the estuary and then carry on into the heart of the dunes. From the late 18th century, smugglers hid their illegal goods here by digging pits, which they lined with sail cloth. You never know what the shifting sands might reveal next! Look out for snow buntings searching for marram grass seeds. These striking small birds migrate to Forvie from their arctic summer breeding grounds.

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Wander through the dunes, which were once visited by T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia fame) and imagine yourself in warmer climes! Once on the beach, turn left to follow the coast to the rocky shore at the north end. A salmon weather vane and a small burn mark the track off the beach. The weather vane was made by the salmon fi shers who used to net the beach at Forvie until the tradition ended in 2000.

3The Ythan Estuary attracts tens of thousands of birds every winter to roost and feed, like these lapwings and swans. 3



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A little farther on you fi nd a salmon fi sher himself – one of the characters in the Forvie village story trail. Lift the panel to read about him, then turn up the grassy slope to your right to fi nd more characters and Forvie Kirk. The ruined walls date to the 12th century and mark the site of a medieval village, now lost beneath the sand. A local story tells of the curse laid on Forvie by three daughters who were due to inherit the land, but were cast adrift at sea instead. In fact, the village was slowly lost to the advancing sands over many years, so it’s unlikely that much evidence remains under the dunes.

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Return to the track via some stone steps and a small wooden bridge to fi nd another two story trail characters. Turn right on the track to head towards an open moorland landscape. Unusually, the marram grass of the beach grows here with heathers and also bright lichens. This mix of plants is one of the protected habitats at Forvie as it’s rare or threatened elsewhere in Europe. Forvie was once a grouse moor, but nowadays you might see short-eared owls hunting by day, or roe deer bounding away into the distance.

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Eventually, the track passes a stand of willow trees, which is one of the few tree species that can survive the strong winds and shifting sand at Forvie. As the track starts to slope back downhill, you get a magnifi cent view over the estuary and Newburgh. The low hill between the fi eld and the estuary is an esker, left behind where a crack formed at the base of retreating ice sheets 10,000 years ago. Finally, look out for buzzards soaring on the thermals above the slopes.

4You may see a short-eared owl hunting over the moor for small mammals, especially voles.

5A winter walk on a frost covered beach.

6Marram grass in winter light with frost still on the ground.

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Forvie is one of over 50 National Nature Reserves in Scotland. Find out more at www.nnr-scotland.org.uk


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Essential information

Forvie NNR lies 25 km/15 miles north of Aberdeen. Stagecoach bus service 263, Aberdeen to Peterhead via Cruden Bay, stops at Newburgh.

OS maps

Landranger 38 (Aberdeen)Explorer 421 (Ellon & Inverurie)

Trail length

5 km/3 miles from Waterside car park.

Terrain

The start and end of the walk are on a rough farm track with potholes and sand-fi lled hollows. The route along the estuary is on a wide path, surfaced with short grass, or on pebbled foreshore. The route also takes in bare sand dunes and the beach itself. Gradients are mostly low, but there are some short slopes over the dunes and on the return track.

Dogs

The beach by the sea is a good place to let your dog run free. The estuary and moorland are sensitive parts of the reserve because of the birds that shelter there. Please make sure you keep your dog on a short lead or under close control there, and always pick up waste, disposing of it in the bins at the car park. Dog bags are available from the car park.

Further informationThe Forvie Centre at the north end of the reserve has

toilets and information about the area. Open daily 10am to 5pm April to October, and then Monday to Friday (staff permitting) between November and March. Entry is free.

Alternative trails, including an easy-access route with wheelchair-accessible picnic tables, start and end at the Forvie Centre.

The Forvie leafl et is available in alternative formats, including large print and audio format at www.snh.org.uk/pubs

Nearby natural attractions

Situated between Fraserburgh and Peterhead, the Loch of Strathbeg is Britain’s largest dune loch and a joy to visit at any time of year. In winter, thousands of wild geese, swans and ducks fl y in, including 20% of the world’s population of pink-footed geese. The visitor centre is open every day from 8am – 6pm (or dusk if earlier). The Tower Pool, Fen and Bay hides are open from dawn to dusk daily, except Christmas and New Year’s Day. See www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/

guide/l/lochofstrathbeg

A couple of miles north of Cruden Bay lie the Bullers o' Buchan, some stunning natural arches eroded into rock faces. Over time, the sea has carved caves and inlets into the cliffs, making them spectacular to walk round. At the extreme point of this circular chasm is an area known as ‘The Pot’, where the sea rushes in through a natural archway. The drops here are sudden and long, so do take care. Children and dogs should be carefully supervised. There’s a car park for the site on the A975 road 2.5 km/1 mile northeast of Cruden Bay. Park here and follow the signs. You can also stop off here using the regular bus service between Peterhead and Aberdeen.

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Argyll and StirlingCorrespondents: Angus Laing, Caroline Crawford, Nick Haycock

Nature’s business

Senior pupils and teachers from Lochgilphead High School visited Taynish NNR in September to launch an intriguing photographic arts project. They set out to raise awareness of the reserve’s fascinating oakwood and develop a business enterprise group to market unique photographic products from the day.

Led by local staff and SNH’s in-house photographer, Lorne Gill, the pupils explored various approaches to capture a range of artistic images, like the one above. Under Lorne’s expert eye, the best work of each pupil was selected for a special exhibition held at the Dochas Gallery in Lochgilphead in November.

Proceeds from the sale of the images have been used by the group to fund the manufacture of products under the imaginatively titled ‘Snapberry’ brand. Under the guidance of its own management team, the pupils’ group has produced a marketing plan and ‘Flickr’ page to promote the work. It has also sourced local retail outlets for a further range of products, including greetings cards, calendars and seed packets.

History made real

A project to uncover and preserve people’s early memories of Flanders Moss NNR has provided a fascinating glimpse into the fast-vanishing past of Stirling’s countryside. More than a dozen local families from around the bog agreed to be interviewed by a historian as part of our ‘Peat, People and Poetry’ project, aimed at highlighting the area’s past.

A host of bygone activities and recollections, many stretching back to childhoods around the Second World War, have been recorded on CD and captured in writing. Some of the memories of the 2,000-acre bog from the surrounding farms and villages go back even further, having been passed down from parents and, in some cases, grandparents.

We passed on some of the childhood memories to today’s children as part of an event at McLaren High School in Callander last September. Children from several schools performed poems, songs, rap and a shadow puppets show, all inspired by visits (pictured above) over the summer to the bog’s boardwalk with specially commissioned artists and poets.

The exciting fi nal stage of the project, a new 9 m (30 ft) high viewing tower, opened to the public in November.

Bluebell wood boost

A wildlife-rich, ancient woodland right in the heart of Stirling has had a bit of a facelift. Balquhidderock Wood is known locally as ‘the bluebell wood’ and is truly a wood for all seasons. It has glorious colours in autumn and a woodland fl oor carpeted with bluebells in spring. Oak, ash, alder and bird cherry are the main trees you fi nd there, and it has wonderful woodland fl owers, such as wood anemone and stitchwort. It’s a popular and well-used local nature reserve managed by Stirling Council, as well as being a site of special scientifi c interest.

The council recently received funding to improve access and recreation opportunities for people living in towns and cities. So the wood has now benefited from some helpful woodland management and paths have been upgraded. Support came from local communities in Broomridge, who will now be able to enjoy the wood even more.

“We’re delighted to have been involved in this management work,” commented woodland and greenspace officer Jane Begg, “as it will help revive this woodland and its paths, which are very well used by local people.” The project was jointly funded by Forestry Commission Scotland, SNH and Stirling Council.

SNH Area News



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Ae triumph

The villagers of Ae in Dumfriesshire have won the Biodiversity Award in the ‘Beautiful Scotland’ competition, run by Keep Scotland Beautiful. They scooped the prize for their work on improving an area of rough grassland and willow scrub beside the village, which had become muddy and overgrown.

The SNH award is presented every year to the entrant that shows the greatest commitment to boosting biodiversity in their area. At a ceremony held in Ae Primary School, local area offi cer Barry Dunne – pictured above with some of the schoolchildren – handed over the £500 prize money to the community along with a framed certifi cate.

A mix of villagers, schoolchildren and local organisations all worked together to transform the area for biodiversity. They created an outdoor classroom of trees and shrubs, as well as a new wildfl ower meadow; restored a pond; replanted hedges to provide seeds and berries for wildlife; built nest boxes in the trees for song birds, owls, bats and red squirrels; and put in new paths and two new bridges across the Goukstane Burn.

The project formed part of the wider Sulwath Connections scheme, which supports local projects aimed at improving landscapes and wildlife along the Solway coast.

Speaking the Land

A unique day of storytelling, art workshops, musical performances and guided walks recently took place at Cairnsmore of Fleet NNR, near Gatehouse of Fleet. Led by artist Matt Baker, poet Mary Smith and SNH geologist John Gordon, the event was called Speaking the Land.

Storyteller Tony Bonning enchanted children with wild tales drawing on local legend and folklore. And artist Jo Warner inspired youngsters to create collage and drawings. Meanwhile, visitors dripping with rain forgot their wet feet as they listened to the magical harp of Wendy Stewart.

The event was inspired in part by a series of sculptures by Matt Baker – one is shown above – and poetry by Mary Smith created last year. Speaking the Land was part of a ‘Homecoming in Your Landscape’ project put together by Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association, along with SNH and the Educational Institute of Scotland.

Speaking the Land is also the name of a new work created by Dundee-based visual artists Dalziel + Scullion. They’ve captured elements from the Galloway landscape in three short fi lms and worked with writers to create stories based on the images. These explore universal themes about people’s relationships with landscape.

Geese gathering

The BBC’s Autumnwatch fi lm crew recently fi lmed at Caerlaverock NNR and the neighbouring East Park Reserve run by the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT), near Dumfries. They brought a live wildlife spectacle straight to our homes with images of barnacle geese arriving to spend the winter on the Solway Firth.

The entire barnacle population fl y all the way from Svalbard (a group of Norwegian islands midway between Norway and the North Pole) to the milder climate and rich feeding on the saltmarshes and grassland of the Solway coast. Pink-footed and greylag geese come with them from Iceland, making the area home to over 30,000 geese from late September to mid April each year.

You can enjoy the spectacle of thousands of geese fl ying to and from their mudfl at roosts and feeding areas by taking a short walk out from car parks alongside the Nith estuary, south of Dumfries. Although dawn and dusk fl ights are particularly atmospheric, the geese can be seen feeding on and around the reserves at any time of day. A support scheme for local farmers run by SNH provides safe, undisturbed feeding for them on farmland close to the estuary.

For further information contact SNH on 01387 770 275 or WWT on 01387 770 000.

SNH Area NewsDumfries and GallowayCorrespondents: Barry Dunne, Trevor Godden, Jonathan Warren

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Helping hands

Rare woolly willows should thrive in Corrie Fee NNR, in the Angus Glens, in years to come thanks to Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) and SNH staff, along with volunteers. Together they planted over 800 young mountain willow shrubs there in August.

Mountain willows (woolly, downy and dark-leaved willows) are highly endangered in the UK, with the woolly willow especially rare. Its scarcity means it’s high on the list of various action plans aimed at saving rare species.

Corrie Fee lies at the head of Glen Clova in Cairngorms National Park and hosts the largest remaining population of mountain willow scrub in the UK. Even here, the pockets of willow growing on rock ledges and steep slopes have become small and isolated, with little sign of new young willows appearing. Willows grow as either male or female plants and need to grow within 50 metres (165 ft) of each other to pollinate.

RBGE staff were responsible for collecting seeds and cuttings and growing them into seedlings for planting out. Our hope now is that they’ll grow into a population that’s able to survive on its own into the future.

Gravel matters

Moving gravel around in a river or removing it altogether is quite a common management activity, but it can be hugely harmful to salmon. The river gravels are actually vital for salmon spawning and they also provide shelter for newly hatched fry. In fact, they’re important not only to the survival of salmon but also to other vital freshwater wildlife, such as freshwater pearl mussels and lampreys.

Two publications about gravel working have been produced to help land and fi shery managers, and they’re available on the SNH website. Gravel Working in the River Tay System – A Code of Good Practice explains how fi sh use the gravels, what kind of work is most damaging and how to carry out activities without causing harm. And the Gravel Working in Scottish Salmon Rivers leafl et summarises the advice in the booklet, providing guidance for anyone thinking of removing gravel or gravel management on salmon rivers in Scotland.

Ducks bounce back

One of the largest groups of nesting duck in inland Europe used to live on St Serf’s Island, the largest island in Loch Leven NNR. However, the colony almost disappeared in 2007. Foxes turned out to be the main culprit, having probably crossed to the island when water levels were unusually low. The foxes have now been removed and the duck colony is showing good signs of recovery.

To help the duck colony re-establish, we restored the reed and tall grass areas that nesting ducks favour. Thanks to a new landing craft work boat (shown above), contractors were able to clear areas of dense willow scrub and clear out two old ponds that had become completely overgrown. Work had to be timed for August, after nesting had fi nished, but before thousands of wildfowl return to winter at Loch Leven.

“We’ve seen an increase in the numbers of tufted ducks, mallards, gadwalls and waders on the island this year,” commented Neil Mitchell, reserve manager. “As a result, we feel confi dent that the duck colonies are recovering well. But we’ll keep monitoring them to make sure our management has been successful.”

SNH Area NewsTayside and ClackmannanshireCorrespondents: Suki Fleming, John Burrow, Neil Mitchell



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Covering new ground

Getting out and enjoying stunning countryside is something that many of us enjoy and perhaps take for granted. But for those with mobility problems, many areas can seem hopelessly out of reach. That’s why we were happy to help Skye & Lochalsh mobility action group, The Way Forward, purchase a new mobility scooter, as well as a shed in which to keep it.

“The scooter makes it possible for even more people to go ‘off the beaten track’ and enjoy our amazing wildlife and landscape,” commented Stephen Varwell, local offi cer for Skye & Lochalsh. “It’s been a pleasure to work with The Way Forward group, whose members show a huge commitment to improving access for all.”

The project has been a real team effort, with the mobility group assessing paths suitable for use with the scooter, advice coming from Highland Disabled Ramblers, support provided by Highland Council rangers, free delivery of the scooters by Skye Express and storage by Donald Mackintosh. Highland Disabled Ramblers also donated a further two scooters to the group.

Better homes

It’s not just the big things that matter when you’re managing a national nature reserve. At Ariundle Oakwood NNR, near Strontian, not only do we care for the great old oaks, we like to make sure that the small things do well too!

Ariundle is right in the heart of chequered skipper butterfl y country and is home to a small population of these rare and beautiful insects. The chequered skipper needs a specialised residence of damp, partially shaded woodland glades with purple moor grass and woodland fl owers. The adults feed on bluebells and bugle before laying single eggs on the grass tussocks. Once hatched, the larvae remain in the grass for the summer and hibernate over winter. After emerging in early April, the caterpillar pupates and the butterfl ies take to the wing in June.

We worked with a local specialist contractor to create new glades in the wood designed to give chequered skippers just the sort of place they like to live. The work was carried out entirely by hand and all the cut timber stacked to provide more insect homes. With this extra habitat, the butterfl ies should get the boost they need.

Rum rut drama

Isle of Rum NNR is famed for its spectacular scenery and wonderful wildlife. This year has been full of wildlife drama – some of it played out on national television! BBC’s Autumnwatch programme returned to Rum to fi lm the red deer rut, with Simon King (above) presenting the highlights. And, for the fi rst time, viewers could watch live action between broadcasts, as they could go onto the internet and view webcams set up on the rutting greens at Kilmory. This proved hugely popular, with large numbers of people going online.

2009 has also been a dramatic year for some of Rum’s other special species. Both golden eagles and red-throated divers had a record year in terms of breeding success. The three golden eagle pairs successfully fl edged fi ve young, the previous best being four young fl edged in 1996 and 2004.

Twelve red-throated diver pairs bred this year, successfully fl edging a total of 12 young. This follows two very poor years when only three young fl edged. Future work planned on the island will look at why breeding success is so variable. This should help us fi nd out if there are other ways for us to help conserve this scarce species.

SNH Area NewsWest HighlandCorrespondents: Stephen Varwell, Derrick Warner, Sean Morris/Sarah Bentley

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1The new visitor guide provides you with essential information on all of Scotland's national nature reserves.

2Ben Lawers in Perthshire is a national nature reserve that offers breathtaking high-level walks in winter.

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Discover Winter WhiteScotland’s national nature reserves are being promoted as some of the best places to enjoy nature this winter in a campaign being run by VisitScotland, the national tourism organisation.

The ‘Winter White’ campaign is VisitScotland’s seasonal marketing drive to raise awareness of the huge variety of things that people can see and do over the winter season. The aim is to inspire more visitors to come to Scotland during this traditionally quieter period.

Winter White showcases the very best of Scotland, whatever the weather, with wildlife and outdoor activities as key themes this year. National nature reserves are ideally placed to offer visitors memorable experiences over the winter months – from a crisp walk through the frosted Caledonian pinewood of Abernethy in Strathspey to the breathtaking spectacle of thousands of barnacle geese wintering on the mudfl ats at Caerlaverock on the Solway Firth.

The reserves will be promoted through the Winter White website (www.

visitscotland.com/whiteinvite) during the campaign. In addition, a pocket-sized weekly planner, encouraging people to visit the reserves during the winter months and throughout the rest of the year, will be distributed within the Scottish Daily Mail newspaper.

And if you’re planning a visit to one of Scotland’s amazing national nature reserves, then it couldn’t be easier thanks to a new publication. Packed full of stunning photography, our handy visitor guide has descriptions of over 50 national nature reserves. You’ll also fi nd essential information on how to get to each one, the best time to visit and the facilities to expect when you arrive.

For those visiting the Cairngorms, we’ve produced a smaller leafl et focusing on the nine reserves you can explore in and around Cairngorms National Park. Whether you’re looking for massive mountains, great forests or spectacular landscapes, this leafl et is the essential companion for a trip to the Cairngorms.

You can grab your copy of these publications simply by emailing [email protected], clicking on www.snh.org.uk or calling 01738 444 177.

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Print out2010 calendar

Our calendar for 2010 focuses on biodiversity, in celebration of the International Year of Biodiversity.

The calendar features stunning images from noted natural history photographers, along with a lively text that explores biodiversity issues and reveals a range of benefi ts that biodiversity delivers.

The publication is available in two formats – as a large wall calendar at £6 or a small desk-top calendar at £3.

Geology of northeast Scotland

The latest title in the Landscape Fashioned by Geology series is Northeast Scotland. This lavishly illustrated book describes the various events that have shaped the unique northeast landscape.

The publication looks back over hundreds of millions of years, from the creation of the granite and gabbros of the Caledonian Mountains to the formation of the Old Red Sandstone found along the coast. It also describes the more geologically ‘recent’ changes that occurred during the Ice Ages.

The book uses a rich mix of photography and illustration to present the various landforms and shed light on the processes that helped create them. The 68-page book is priced at £7.95 and can be ordered online.

You can order copies of SNH publications via the SNH website. You can also buy our publications in person from the shop in the reception area of our SNH Battleby offi ce or tel: 01738 444 177. The vast bulk of SNH publications are free, but the Naturally Scottish and Landscape Fashioned by Geology series do carry a cover price. Hard copies of our research and report series, as well as the annual calendar, are also priced items.


48 The Nature of Scotland48 The Nature of Scotland

This may look like a natural landscape – but it’s not. These hills would once have been covered with a rich tapestry of native woodland. So, for the past 15 years, a dedicated group of volunteers has been trying to turn the clock back

Wildwood planfor Carrifran


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50 The Nature of Scotland50 The Nature of Scotland

1The bare hills of Carrifran photographed in 1997.

2Lonely rowan beside the Carrifran Burn. It now has some half a million trees for company!

3The hills around Carrifran lost their woodland cover over many centuries.

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In 1993 a group of friends came up with the idea of re-creating a fragment of the wildwood that originally covered the hills of southern Scotland.

They spent years searching for the right place, planning the project and negotiating over costs, before fi nally buying the dramatic hills around Carrifran in the northeast of Dumfries and Galloway in 2000. And, remarkably, the £400,000 costs were met without the use of any public funding – the money was raised entirely from like-minded supporters throughout Britain and overseas.

Carrifran is a magnifi cent ice-carved valley in the Southern Uplands between Moffat and Peebles. It covers more than 6 sq km (2.3 sq miles), rises to over 800 metres (2,625 feet) and takes several hours to walk round. Like much of upland Britain, it has lost its natural woodland cover, along with many of the wild creatures that depended on it. That loss came about through a long history of felling, burning and grazing by sheep, cattle and goats.

The large range of altitude at Carrifran offers a chance to re-create a variety of woodland, including treeline habitats around 700 metres (2,296 feet), which are rarely found in Britain today.

The friends who started the project came together as a Wildwood Group in 1995, and also helped to form the Borders Forest Trust. The trust is an environmental charity that seeks to conserve, restore and manage native woodlands for the benefi t of people and wildlife.

“We were all sure that we should think big,” explained Philip Ashmole, one of the founding members of the Wildwood Group, “so we set out to create a 6,000-year-old natural environment in a single treeless valley.

“We hoped this would pay back some of our dues to the wild animals and plants that once lived there, as well as make an impact on the minds of those who came to know about it.”


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“The Lowlands of Scotland had once undoubtedly an equal portion of woods with others countries… But I believe few regions have been denuded like this, where many centuries must have passed in waste without the least thought of future supply.”Samuel Johnson (1775) from A Journey through the Western Isles

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Planting begins

On Millennium Day, 1 January 2000, about 100 volunteers celebrated the purchase of Carrifran by planting the fi rst trees. A complete plan for restoring the site had already been developed, and funding and advice from SNH allowed the steering group to appoint a project offi cer to take forward the work.

Since then, more than 450,000 native trees and shrubs have gone into the ground. About 10% of the trees have been planted by volunteers, who have contributed their time and enthusiasm to not only plant trees, but also bash bracken, repair paths, remove unnecessary fences and generally clear up.

The rest of the tree planting has been down to contractors who come back to work at Carrifran year after year, and are therefore a vital part of the Wildwood project. Both contractors and volunteers are prepared to work high up in the hills through the winter, probably meeting tougher conditions than just about any other tree planters in Britain.

Decisions about which trees to plant can be made with confi dence because the Wildwood Group have identifi ed the tree species that grew in the original wildwood at Carrifran. They have a complete pollen record taken from a peat bog on the site and they’re familiar with the conditions that each species prefers. Moreover, they gathered and grew thousands of seeds and cuttings from the Southern Uplands, so they knew the trees being used were adapted to the local climate.

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4Carefully choosing a planting spot to provide some protection for a young tree.

5Woodland spreading up the glen in May 2009.

Visitors to Carrifran and those who drive past now can readily see the developing woodland near the mouth of the glen, where some trees are about fi ve metres (16 feet) high. It takes more careful searching to spot the hundreds of thousands of trees and shrubs spread over the more remote parts of the site.

“We set up the Wildwood project to show that, in a world weighed down with environmental problems, we don’t have to just sit back and wring our hands,” added Philip. “We can take action and do something positive.

“This project proves that people have the power to reverse environmental harm, and we hope it will inspire others to come up with even bolder schemes to restore areas that have been degraded down the centuries.”

New project

Given that over 95% of native woodlands have been lost in the south of Scotland, BFT have also been looking for other opportunities to support the public’s enthusiasm for restoring woodlands.

And they’ve just announced that £700,000 has been raised to buy 640 hectares (1,580 acres) of land at Corehead, north of Moffat, which lies just over the hills from Carrifran. The hills and valleys of Corehead were historically part of the wild Ettrick Forest, and BFT plan to restore the heather moorland and native woodland that once thrived there.

The famous Devil’s Beef Tub also forms part of Corehead. This is one of the most iconic landmarks in the south of Scotland, taking the form of a cavernous hollow in the hills where the notorious Border Reivers once hid their stolen cattle.

Corehead extends to within three kilometres (1.8 miles) from Carrifran, offering the possibility of making a connection. The surrounding hills form the watershed between the Tweed and Annan river systems, so there’s potential to create links across the hills and rivers.

If you’d like to read more about Carrifran, then why not buy a copy of the recently published book The Carrifran Wildwood Story: ecological restoration from the grass roots, which was also supported by SNH. All the money raised through sales goes to support the project. To fi nd out more about the book, you can download a preview and print off an order form at www.carrifran.org.uk or buy online at www.bordersforesttrust.org

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54 The Nature of Scotland54

What is snow?

When water freezes inside clouds, ice crystals form. Ice crystals are crystals that have formed around tiny bits of dirt that have been carried up into the atmosphere by the wind. The ice crystals then join together to create snowfl akes, and once the fl akes are heavy enough they fall to the ground as snow.

How big is a snowfl ake?

Most snowfl akes are less than 1.5 cm (0.5 in) across. The largest snowfl ake recorded was 38 cm (15 in) in diameter. All snowfl akes have six sides and no two snowfl akes are alike.

There are lots of fun activities to do in this issue, but fi rst you’ll need

to collect some bits and bobs from outdoors. So why not all wrap up

warm, get outside and enjoy the fresh air on a nice family walk. Collect

interesting items and take photos, and when you get home, you can

draw a picture, start a nature scrapbook or make a collage.

Have fun with the activities...

You will need: lard, birdseeds, raw peanuts, raisins, cheese (grated),

yoghurt pots or pine cones and strong string.

– In a bowl, put three heaped tablespoons of lard and then put in a warm place until the lard goes soft.

– When soft, add a tablespoon of each of the following: birdseed, raw peanuts, raisins and grated cheese. Mix them into the lard and then squeeze the mixture into a lump.

– Thread a string through the bottom of an empty yoghurt pot and tie a big knot inside. Push the cake mixture in and then chill in the fridge until it turns hard. (You can also push the cake mixture into the gaps of a pine cone and hang this from a tree!)

– Hang the pot upside down from a tree in the garden.

To make a ‘twiggy’ photo frame you will need:

very strong card (cut into a house shape)your favourite portrait photographstrong gluepruning shearslots of twigs (of even widths)stringsilver-sprayed fern or glitter to decorate

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Kids only!


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You will need: freezer-proof container, cooled boiled water, natural item and a loop of string.

1. Collect natural items from outside that you think will look great in your ice sculpture such as pine cones, leaves, stones, feathers or fl owers.

2. Place them into your freezer-proof container, which can be any shape or size you want.

3. Add cooled boiled water (with adult help), and make sure your item is fully submerged.

4. Place a loop of string at the top of your container, making sure only the ends are in the water as this will be used to hang your ice sculpture. Now pop in the freezer overnight.

5. Remove from freezer and push the sculpture out of the container.

6. Hang from a tree in the garden, where it can twinkle in the sunlight. ENJOY!

Knock! Knock!

Who’s there? Eskimo!Eskimo who?Eskimo questions – he’ll tell you no lies!

How do snowmen travel

around?

By icicle.

What does Jack Frost eat

for breakfast?

Frosties.

What did the big furry hat say

to the warm woolly scarf?

You hang around while I go on ahead.

What you need: string, wide-mouth pint jar, white pipe cleaners,

blue food colouring, boiling water (with adult help), Borax laundry

detergent, pencil.

Cut a white pipe cleaner into three equal sections. Twist the sections together in the centre so that you have a six-sided star shape.

This forms a snowfl ake base for the crystals to grow on. Trim the pipe cleaner sections to the same length.

Attach a piece of string along the outer edges to form a snowfl ake pattern. Attach another piece of string to the top of one of the pipe

cleaners and tie the other end to the middle of a pencil (this is to hang it from).

Fill a wide-mouth jar with boiling water. Mix Borax into the water one tablespoon at a time. Use three tablespoons of Borax per cup of

water. Stir until dissolved (don’t worry if there is powder settling on the bottom of the jar). Add a little blue food colouring now to

give the snowfl ake a blueish tint.

Submerge your pipe cleaner snowfl ake into the Borax solution with the pencil resting across the top of the jar.

Leave overnight and by morning your snowfl ake will be covered in beautiful shiny crystals.

4 5 6 7 8 9 10



When Fergus met Beinn

You may have been lucky enough to catch a recent Natural World television documentary about the ways that wildlife in a remote part of the Highlands copes with extreme and fast-changing weather. Here's the background to the fi lm


www.snh.org.uk 57

1



A spectacular fi lm featuring the wildlife and landscapes on and around Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve in Wester Ross brightened the nation’s TV screens in December.

The programme featured remarkable photography, including a sea eagle making its maiden fl ight, black-throated divers learning to swim (and land) for the fi rst time on Loch Maree, and underwater footage of salmon heading upriver to spawn.

A Highland Haven appeared as one of the highlights in the current BBC Natural World series. It was fi lmed over the course of a year on Beinn Eighe and neighbouring Loch Maree by award-winning fi lm-maker Fergus Beeley, the series producer of David Attenborough’s Planet Earth. Check out the Natural World section of the BBC website if you missed the programme, as you may get another chance to see it on the BBC’s iPlayer.

Members of the SNH reserve team helped the camera crew and were able to point them towards the best locations for fi lming species, from the red deer rut to dragonfl ies catching prey on the wing.

And popular Scots musician Phil Cunningham wrote the musical score that accompanied the programme. This was Phil’s fi rst opportunity to compose music for a nature documentary and it fulfi lled one of his long-held ambitions as he’s a keen wildlife enthusiast.

Some of Scotland’s most iconic wildlife is to be found on Beinn Eighe, including golden eagle, pine marten and red deer, all of which feature in the fi lm. The mountain is actually Britain’s oldest national nature reserve. The reserve was set up in 1951 primarily to protect its ancient pinewood, but it embraces a vast area of 48 sq km (18.5 sq miles) stretching from loch-side to mountain top.

1Scots pines growing by the Allt a’ Chuirn gorge. Behind is snow-capped Creag Dhubh at the eastern end of the Beinn Eighe ridge.

2White-tailed sea eagle chick with down still crowning its head.

3The islands in the widest part of Loch Maree provide an undisturbed haven for many kinds of wildlife.

4Black-throated diver on Loch Maree. These elegant birds breed on the loch's islands in summer.

2

“The weather means that only the hardiest will survive.”


www.snh.org.uk 59

Fond memories

The area brought back striking memories for fi lm-maker Fergus Beeley. “This programme had a special resonance for me as I knew the northwest Highlands well as a child,” he explained. “I hope my affection for the place and its magic comes through.”

Fergus is a wildlife fi lm-maker based in Bristol who has fi lmed all over the world. His credits include The Life of Birds, White Falcon, White Wolf and the Natural World strand among others.

“The wildlife at Beinn Eighe has to be able to adapt to a place that’s heavily stressed by powerful weather systems. They sweep through and make life really diffi cult and trying for the animals,” he remarked.

“The weather means that only the hardiest will survive. For instance, the red deer have a real fi ght on their hands to survive the relentless, cold winter rain. It kills them more than snow. Perhaps that explains why there’s such a good density of eagles. Certainly, we were often forced off the hill by the wind and rain.”

And the weather can be a real challenge for families of birds like white-tailed sea eagles and black-throated divers as they grow up through the short summer. “These are clearly storm-resistant birds as adults, but until they’re fully grown they are extremely vulnerable,” Fergus added. “We got fi lm of their wobbly maiden fl ights as well as some severe crash landings.”

Beinn Eighe reserve manager Eoghain Maclean believes the programme is a superb showcase for the Wester Ross area and its wildlife. “I think it’s likely to bring positive spin-off in terms of the local economy,” he commented.

“The programme has been sold to something like 40 countries, so this is an ideal marketing opportunity for the area to attract more visitors. It’s a wonderful programme and the images they’ve managed to capture, particularly of the black-throated divers and the sea eagles, are hugely impressive.”

3

4



5


www.snh.org.uk 61

Sounds natural

The soundtrack for the Natural World documentary was composed by renowned Scots musician Phil Cunningham (pictured right). Our area offi cer at Beinn Eighe, Kenny Nelson, caught up with Phil for a chat about the project.

You’re a prolifi c performer, composer and producer of music, but was this your fi rst foray into nature documentary work?

Yes, it’s my fi rst big nature documentary, although it’s

something I’d wanted to do for such a long time. I’d

done some landscape work, but nothing that involved

animals. So this was not only a big challenge but a wee

dream come true.

Are there certain instruments you tend to prefer for composing?

I use keyboards in the main, just to get the textures

and colours. I have to spend a lot of time talking to the

director too. I’m a real tunes man… I like big melodies.

But Fergus wanted undertones and moods, so once we

were clear about that, then I could release the melodies

from my mind. However, as the project developed,

inevitably all those melodies came creeping in, and

every different animal ended up with its own tune!

The programme paints a broad picture of landscape and wildlife. But it also focuses on some of the ‘characters’ too, like sea eagles, divers, dragonfl ies and even midges! Were there any species that stood out for you?

I have to say I fell in love with the divers and their

plight. They had their own little theme, and every time I

saw them this tune would pop into my head. The most

diffi cult ones to do were the midges and dragonfl ies,

because they were so random. I wish somebody would

teach those guys how to dance! It was really about

stepping away from melody with them and trying to

create a really irritating sound – as irritating as they can

be!

Your music has taken you all over the world, and you spend a lot of time in America. But does Scotland and its landscapes still inspire you?

Absolutely. There’s nowhere like here in my mind; it’s the

most wonderful country in the world. It’s very, very varied

– you can drive 10 miles down the road and you’re in

a totally different landscape. I just think Scotland has

everything to offer for landscape, wildlife, ruggedness

and drama. It’s the complete package in terms of

inspirational material. I lived on the Isle of Skye for years

and you could be inspired in 10 different ways in a day,

just by sitting in the same spot, because the light is so

changeable.

You wanted to be a zoologist when you were younger. Do you still get the chance to follow up that interest?

I still want to be a zoologist! It’s my main interest outwith

music. The majority of my books and DVDs are all about

wildlife. Apart from CSI Miami, the only thing I watch on

TV is David Attenborough and programmes like that! I

love it and fi nd it’s a great way to switch off.

My work means I’m very busy and I have to spend a

lot of time in planes, trains and automobiles, which are

noisy environments. Just to have peace and quiet and

to be able to watch something pecking away at some

seeds or whatever, it empties your mind.

You’ve obviously really enjoyed this project. Do you foresee yourself doing any more nature documentary work?

I would love to be able to do more. It was always a big

ambition of mine to be able to combine what I do for a

living with wildlife, the second love of my life. I’ve really

struck it lucky in this instance because a big door has

opened through working with the BBC Natural History

Unit. Fergus liked what I did and he’s talking about

doing something together again in the future, so fi ngers

crossed that it’s the start of something that might

continue.



20–21 February 2008: A life-threatening start

The helicopter crawled up the edge of the mountain, hugging the barely visible ground through the mist and cloud.

At about 700 metres (2,296 ft), the visibility improved and the snow-capped peaks of Beinn Eighe came into view. The camera was running. This was day one of fi lming for a wildlife documentary in the northwest highlands of Scotland and the images today were stunning.

This was a good start. For the next week, our aim was to camp on the top of this mountain to fi lm ptarmigan and mountain hare. Our location safety advisor, Jim McNeill, came into vision in the round, deep corrie just below the triple buttresses of the mountain known as Ruadh Stac Mòr. His earlier reconnaissance had identifi ed this as a more sheltered position than the actual summit.

With strong winds soon to be coming in from the southwest, this was our ‘plan B’. And it probably saved our lives – for no-one had expected that we would soon be fi ghting to remain on the ground in an extraordinary gale that reached storm force 11.

It came on us as night fell, as if an angry dinosaur shared the corrie with us. It fi rst swiped its claws at our tents. These strikes were sudden odd gusts of wind that reached 160 km/h (100 mph), smashing the roofs of our tents down heavily onto our faces.

These hits were followed by an eerie, empty silence, lasting sometimes 20 long seconds. By midnight, the ‘dinosaur’ was furious. Jim and I, sharing the same tent, could only remain absolutely fl at as the gale crushed the now broken tent down onto our bodies, making even breathing diffi cult.

Cameraman Ian McCarthy was struggling to remain in the last standing tent, as it shifted with him across the ground. Though he was also safely anchored to our own rope-to-boulder lashings, if anything were to go now, our tents would be lifted straight off the ground and away with the dark, the snow, the mouth of the storm.

Jim, on all fours, checked the lashings and was lifted off the ground. It was diffi cult to crawl and impossible to stand; but trained and experienced in conditions such as these from his solo expeditions on the Arctic ice, Jim was calm and clear in his commands.

Escape plan

We could not ride out this storm now without some signifi cant danger of hypothermia setting into us. Clearly, Ian’s tent, the last, had only a short life now. We had to descend off the mountain if the storm wasn’t going to let up soon.

I could just make out Jim shouting down the satellite phone through the din of the whipping and fl apping. It was 0900, and our procedural call back to base was in progress. Eoghain Maclean, the Beinn Eighe reserve manager and Kinlochewe Mountain Rescue Team member, agreed that an immediate descent was advised. Our exit plan and route were agreed.

On all fours, clinging to the rocks, we gathered and lashed together the widely strewn fi lm cases. With the visibility down to just a few metres, and the blizzard making standing impossible, we started our descent.

Emergency exit

Wildlife fi lm-maker Fergus Beeley wrote a diary for the BBC news website of his experiences at Beinn Eighe. Here’s his fi rst entry, recalling the alarming start to the project

“It was diffi cult to crawl and impossible to stand...”

5Branching out – Scots pine in Gleann Bianasdail by Loch Maree.

6Ice-covered river fl owing out of Coire Mhic Fhearchair on Beinn Eighe.


www.snh.org.uk 63

6


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Join our mailing listThe Nature of Scotland

Scottish Natural Heritage Winter 2009

All at sea

Wave and tidal power

Unique vision

Artist with a different view

Beinn on TV

for wildlife

63120_SNH_Cov.indd 1 17/12/2009 21:36


Highland haven

scottish national heritage - the nature of scotland winter 2009

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