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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…

: A fox moth caterpillar

: I’m reasonably confident that this is a pine weevil

: This is what the Scottish highlands would have looked like a few hundred million years ago. Apart from the dam of course

: This old grey willow has been here for almost that long, giving advice to anyone who’ll listen

: The trunk of an Aspen (Populus Tremula). Note the diamond shaped markings/lenticels

: After years of over-grazing and inappropriate plantations the reserve is bursting back into life

: I was very lucky to spend a few minutes talking with this little vole

: This was taken while I’d stopped for lunch on my day off walk. Parus cristatus, fantastic!

: Some dwarf birch (betula nana) in the TFL nursery

: Also lurking in the TFL nursery, a Gyromitra of some sort. Given its habitat I’d go for Gyromitra infula, Pouched False Morel.

: This appears to be egg shell slime mold (Leocarpus fragilis)

: 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

Posted by Phil Golder | 17 October, 2010 | Categories: TFL | 1 Comment

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.

: Not bad for an introduction to the highlands

: Our first break and the signs of tension are already beginning to show

: Glen Cannich

: Let’s off road!

: One happy Focaliser

: Tom looking very much the part with a pinch bar…

: …while Jennifer does all the work

: The new poly-tunnel cover before tension is applied

: Looking towards Glen Affric from (our Friday work site) the South

: Plodda Lodge – Our home for the week.

: Hmm, there seems to be a small addition to the team

Posted by Phil Golder | 16 October, 2010 | Categories: TFL, Work | Leave a comment

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.

http://www.lochnessmarathon.com/results/corporate_challenge.php?offset=50&order=team_time&cat=&year=2010

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

: Not even the rain can deter us

: The Support

: Yeay, we’re over the start line

: Not looking too shabby, at the finish

: Mr Druett after being presented with his medal and TFL t-shirt

Posted by Phil Golder | 3 October, 2010 | Categories: TFL, Travels | Leave a comment

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…

: John entertains us with tales and chocolate

: I’ve seen a lot of these with wings – this is the first I’ve seen without

: A view from the Flora Macdonald hostel window

: The Gaelic college

: Sean on his borrowed Brompton

: Porcelain mushroom (Oudemansiella mucida). Probably.

: Adam in the Balmacara Oak wood

: The view from Balmacara Oak wood

Posted by Phil Golder | 2 October, 2010 | Categories: TFL | 1 Comment

Lossiemouth and Kingston

Yesterday I made a small trip out to Lossiemouth and then the wildlife reserve at Kingston. The reserve at Kingston is at the mouth of the Spey river. A large part of the reserve used to (apparently) be quarried, but has been left to regenerate over the last 40 years or so, with some exciting results. There is a lot of regeneration of many native species of tree, including Aspen. Some information can be found on the SWTs website, here

Posted by Phil Golder | 19 September, 2010 | Categories: Travels | 1 Comment

Findhorn Bay.

Here are a couple of shots of the bay taken over the last two weeks. There are often kite and wind surfers on the water, as the wind rarely seems to let up, and the sunsets up here tend to be pretty spectacular.

Posted by Phil Golder | 13 September, 2010 | Categories: Travels | Leave a comment

Photos from my day off…

During the work week we, as usual, took a day off. So, on Wednesday I took a walk up the Red Burn on Dundreggan. I then met Dundreggan project manager Steve near the Spring planting site (not far from the source of the Red Burn, where I saw plenty of fish and Dragonfly) for a walk about the site. It was fantastic, I could already see the trees I’d planted (over 2000 in amongst the 20000 plus) before entering the site, which is fenced off to keep deer out.

It was, and will be, interesting to note how the trees in the monitoring plots perform. In each group of plots there are 4 plots containing Birch, Birch and Alder, Birch with soil taken from the Birch woodland on Dundreggan, and Birch with fertiliser. My initial impression was that the Alder is doing exceptionally well in these plots. Alder is known to be a good Nitrogen fixer, so this could prove to be beneficial to the Birch.

: A fine day for a day walk about the TFL manor

: Have I said that I love spiders?

: Allt Ruahd – the Red Burn

: The Vapourer. An awesome name for an awesome caterpillar

: Steve walking amongst ‘my’ trees. They’re gorgeous.

: In amongst some of the young trees, is this mycorrhizal?

Posted by Phil Golder | 12 September, 2010 | Categories: TFL | 3 Comments

4th September, let the work week fun begin…

First week of the TFL season and my group is posted to Dundreggan, to carry out work on FCS land in Glen Moriston. My co-focaliser is the newly initiated Mr John Garrett. There have been a few last minute drop outs, but that doesn’t seem to bother the volunteers who have turned up, who plough through the work, and include one who has travelled over from Spain especially.

Roughly 1700m of fence removed in two days, a sizeable stand of spruce trees and an area of regeneration roughly 4 or 5 hectares, cleared of non-native tree species (Spruce, Douglas Fir, etc). This was accompanied by great food with some important experimentation with cakes.