Reserve work…

Just to give you an idea of what I’m up to… Yesterday myself, Alice, the two short-term vols (Andy and Andy), and Gregg, who’s on secondment from the RSPB Scotland office created deadwood in the morning. This involves killing trees (generally pine) in a plantation in a variety of ways, to give space to broad leaf trees or granny pines and let light through to the forest floor.

As I have a chainsaw I ring bark trees, damage them (so they are more susceptible to being blown over), or high stump them. The non chainsaw folk are, meanwhile, pulling trees over with a winch, or ‘totem polling’ them. The aim is to leave the majority of the deadwood standing, as this generates invaluable woodland habitat for birds and invertebrates. It sounds harsh, but the plantation is densely packed, and we can create a lot of deadwood by working on just a small percentage of the trees.

In the afternoon we strengthened a fence around an experimental regeneration enclosure. I then had to rush back to the lodge to enter the Osprey satellite tracking data for the week. The news on that front is that the two young that we’re tracking have both made a successful trip to Western Africa, and appear to be fishing and hanging around on the rivers in that part of the continent.

Today, myself, Gregg and the two Andy’s accompanied Bob (one of the wardens) to Craigmore wood, another part of the reserve, where we checked the fence and removed rogue Norway spruce from the site. We also checked fences near Mondhuie and Lyngarrie.