A trip East to Balmedie
I have a little time to spare before my next TFL work week, so myself and the Passion Wagon head off for a mini tour. I opt to head South and then East, stopping over near Grantown, then in some woods near Glenbuchat Castle before a night at Balmedie.
I spend some time walking through various plantations and noting the difference in ground flora in Larch, Spruce and mixed plantations. Maybe it’s just the time of year, and because the Larch are shedding their needles, but the Larch plantations seem to have very little ground flora variety. In the woods near Glenbuchat Castle, where there are a mix up of Larch, Scots Pine and occasional Spruce, there appears to be a greater variety of plants on the woodland floor. I’m sure there must be forests with this mix naturally in other parts of Europe, and would be fascinated to study the ecology in such places.
I end up on the East coast at Collieston, where I walk some of the Forvie nature reserve (the light was too poor to get any decent shots), before spending the night at Balmedie, both places I visited last year. There is now a sizeable campaign dedicated to stopping Donald Trump from building his golfing town on the Menie dunes SSSI. This is a development that we should all take an interest in. The erosion of our country’s wild and natural areas in the name of economic gain (to the few) is unethical, environmentally and socially destructive and unsustainable.
This program is worth watching, if you’re interested
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00w029w/Donald_Trumps_Golf_War/
or, this web site gives further information
http://www.eco-essentials.co.uk/trump.php
And this group is working against the development in a similar way to the way Greenpeace/Airplot fought against the third runway at Heathrow.
http://www.trippinguptrump.com/
Here are some photos from the trip. I’m afraid that I’ve just been won over by the lighting on some of them so they may not be as interesting as you might have hoped.
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- Thankfully this bridge held up for long enough for me and the wagon to cross
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- A loud male Crossbill
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- Collieston
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- The clocks go back and the sun reveals a glorious day at Balmedie
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- Geese are so amazing. And, yes, my camera needs a clean.
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- A distant Aberdeen
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- Sanderlings
A day out to Migdale with Trees for Life
Today I was lucky enough to tag along on the Trees for Life staff day out to Ledmore and Migdale woods, somewhere I went to earlier in the year.
This time it was a relatively warm day, and the loch, Loch Migdale, wasn’t frozen. It was good to meet up with Chris, from the Woodland Trust, again, and share some thoughts with him regarding his recent week Focalising. And it was a good opportunity for me to spend some time with the TFL staff on a more informal basis.
Chris really does have the ideal job (from my perspective). On the one hand he has a relatively free reign to manage the woodland habitat, and on the other he is tasked with encouraging people of all ages to visit and appreciate the woods, something he seems to do very well. The woods are a mix of mostly middle aged to young trees, with some fabulous regeneration in some areas and very little non-native intrusion. There are also some very fine old Aspen trees, see photos below.
More information on the woods can be found here
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- I admit, I’m a ‘regen geek’ (credit to Andrew for coining that phrase)
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- Trees for Life = healthy looking lunch box contents
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- Dan getting angry with his food
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- Help, I can’t find this in Roger Phillips! It must have the word jelly in it somewhere
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- Alan sets up to shoot these impressive Aspen trees
Snow – woohoo!
Here it is, the first snow of my winter, taken on a mini tour of the East, near Inverurie…
Spiders are amazing.
Having heard about their photographic competition, I recently checked out the countryfile magazine web site. I was extremely disappointed by the comments concerning one of the winning entries, a fantastic looking (jumping?) spider. More than one person commenting suggest that they would be reluctant to buy a calendar with a spider in it. And some of those even go as far as to say that children will have nightmares on seeing the spider photo. This mindset displays alarming ignorance.
Firstly, it suggests that the best way to overcome people’s fear of spiders is to remove all spiders from sight. This response is an example of why humans, as a species, are destroying the world that we live in. Rather than worry about how we make thousands of spiders homeless every day, assuming they survive us moving into their lives, we can only think of ways in which we can remove them from our homes/crops/outbuildings/vehicles/etc (we don’t just do this with spiders, we do it with every other species on the planet that we don’t call ‘domestic’ or a ‘crop’).
Secondly, it suggests that children are born scared of spiders. This is generally not the case. A large number of people grow up being scared of spiders because they see adults reacting to them when they are young. In some countries spiders can kill you, but in this country, reacting like someone has passed an electric current through the floor when one appears, seems a little extreme (Dad). If children are taught to appreciate spiders, then they invariably do. Exposure, not avoidance, is the way to overcome an irrational fear.
If there was a Royal Society for the Protection of Spiders their strapline would be “Spiders are amazing, let’s keep them that way”. Spiders ARE amazing, I hope these pictures, taken during my last three work weeks (Dundreggan, Balmacara and Glen Affric, see previous entries) will help you to agree.
Some Glen Affric nature pics
Here are some additional photos from the work week in the Glen Affric nature reserve, that concentrate a bit more on what nature was up to while we were there…
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- A fox moth caterpillar
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- I’m reasonably confident that this is a pine weevil
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- This is what the Scottish highlands would have looked like a few hundred million years ago. Apart from the dam of course
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- This old grey willow has been here for almost that long, giving advice to anyone who’ll listen
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- The trunk of an Aspen (Populus Tremula). Note the diamond shaped markings/lenticels
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- After years of over-grazing and inappropriate plantations the reserve is bursting back into life
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- I was very lucky to spend a few minutes talking with this little vole
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- This was taken while I’d stopped for lunch on my day off walk. Parus cristatus, fantastic!
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- Some dwarf birch (betula nana) in the TFL nursery
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- Also lurking in the TFL nursery, a Gyromitra of some sort. Given its habitat I’d go for Gyromitra infula, Pouched False Morel.
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- This appears to be egg shell slime mold (Leocarpus fragilis)
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- Oops, I didn’t mean to disturb these guys as I was pulling out a spruce, so I covered them back up again and hoped they’d not be too annoyed with me
A holiday in the Glen Affric Nature Reserve, 9th Oct to 16th
At the third time of trying, since my first Focaliser (work week leader) week, I was once again foiled in my efforts to partake in a TFL week as a volunteer. The previous two occasions had been firstly due to a Focaliser becoming otherwise engaged, and then a college block-booking taking priority. This time, with a lot less notice, one of the Focalisers was unable to make it following a trip to the hospital during the night before the week started. As luck would have it, this gave me the opportunity to spend the week Focalising with Andrew.
During the week we planted 1435 trees, mostly Birch with some Alder, Rowan and Goat Willow, in Glen Cannich. We had sunshiny days for the most part, but even so, the views up and down the Glen are spectacular, and the atmosphere was improved further by the almost constant sound of rutting stags in the distance.
We also spent some time removing non-native Spruce, Larch and Hemlock (and one Lodgepole Pine) from an area above Plodda called Farmer’s Wood. Here we were treated to noisy flying displays by a local family of Ravens, whilst flocks of Tits came and went and a Great Spotted Woodpecker made various announcements from the nearby trees.
On Thursday we were lucky enough to spend a day in the nursery, with Jill and Abbie, putting a new cover on the first poly-tunnel. I can now proudly say that I’ve been involved in the digging of the trenches for both poly-tunnels. On this occasion it stayed dry, and Caroline managed to scrape some soup off the kitchen walls for a very successful lunch.
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- Not bad for an introduction to the highlands
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- Our first break and the signs of tension are already beginning to show
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- Glen Cannich
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- Let’s off road!
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- One happy Focaliser
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- Tom looking very much the part with a pinch bar…
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- …while Jennifer does all the work
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- The new poly-tunnel cover before tension is applied
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- Looking towards Glen Affric from (our Friday work site) the South
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- Plodda Lodge – Our home for the week.
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- Hmm, there seems to be a small addition to the team
Baxters Loch Ness 10k run…
Today I ran my first (and probably last) competitve 10k. I finished 791st out of 2600, with a time of 51.52
http://www.lochnessmarathon.com/results/10k.php?offset=750&order=finish_time&cat=
I don’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed with this time. On the one hand I’ve been walking with a pain in my left knee since I did my last training run, almost a week ago on Skye, something which has been becoming more and more of a problem since the end of August; and on the other hand I was fairly sure I could do better after my first two weeks of training, back in the beginning of August.
Anyway, the day out was great, and I’d love to do it again. It was a great experience running with thousands of other people, even if a large number of them seemed to get in my way on the narrower parts of the course. And it was the first time I’ve been applauded for running since I was in school. I thought that was pretty cool, just as I did when I was younger.
I was running as part of a Trees for Life team (TeamTFL). Many thanks to Rosie for organising our participation. She and Colin, Jane and Steve made up the rest of the team, the four fastest of which are listed against our team result of 18th out of 40.
Other special thanks should go out to the people who manufacture Ibuprofen for making the run relatively painless. And to Ross, Kate, James and Sean, who came along to give support. Sean also picked up a medal for me – as I was running over the finish line I didn’t even notice that they were giving medals out, or that there was a big clock there telling me what time I’d run (I didn’t find out my time until it came up on the web site), or that different people were giving out different sized t-shirts. My XL will be going to a good home as soon as I find someone who is XL.
Well done to Adam Druett (who recently rode from Land’s End to John O Groats to raise money for TFL) for completing the Loch Ness marathon in 3hrs 35mins. A pretty good time and his first marathon. Adam was on the Skye work week we finished yesterday and accompanied me on my training run on Skye last Monday.
You may wonder why I didn’t ask for sponsorship for doing the event. I’m not comfortable with asking for sponsorship, I prefer it if people give money based on how worthy the cause is rather than the often unrelated actions of the individual, or group, requesting the sponsorship. I believe that the causes I support are worthy, they are listed on the right hand side of this blog. Any support for them, from you, is greatly appreciated.
Many thanks to Rosie and Ross for most of the following photos. More photos can be found of me here
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- Not even the rain can deter us
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- The Support
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- Yeay, we’re over the start line
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- Not looking too shabby, at the finish
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- Mr Druett after being presented with his medal and TFL t-shirt
Work week on Skye, 25th Sept – 2nd Oct.
With Focalisers falling all around, many thanks to Russell for gallantly stepping in at the last minute to work this week with me. Thankfully he managed to pass his cold on to just a few of the volunteers. On Monday I staggered my way through a training run for the forthcoming 10k. However, the after effects of my run from the hostel to Armadale and back, with Adam, who’s going to run the Loch Ness marathon, left me unable to run again for the rest of the week. Not the best preparation, but hey, by now I’m treating the race as the last time I’ll ever run.
Back to the work week, I knew Adam and Lizzie already, so it was great to see them again, and the rest of the group were a mix of city dwellers, a wood dweller and a tall dutchman. We removed sizeable areas of non-native scrub from Balmacara and Glen Arroch. The area at Balmacara will be planted up with young Oak in the spring, although we found some regeneration already there. This has spread from the existing Oak wood remnant, which is well worth a visit as it has the feel of a beautiful old Oak wood.
Click on the images to enlarge…
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- John entertains us with tales and chocolate
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- I’ve seen a lot of these with wings – this is the first I’ve seen without
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- A view from the Flora Macdonald hostel window
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- The Gaelic college
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- Sean on his borrowed Brompton
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- Porcelain mushroom (Oudemansiella mucida). Probably.
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- Adam in the Balmacara Oak wood
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- The view from Balmacara Oak wood
Life since the office 
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