I got trained on yesterday and it was fantastic. Finally the weather is turning. Glorious as the cold dry weather has been yesterday the wind blew hard from the west bringing heavy showers that the dry moss desperately needs. Many winters have been continually wet and windy so the return of the rumble hiss of the wind was like an old friend met again, the rain welcome even though it barely put the dust down. But that bit of moisture brought colour to the ground and at the risk of sounding like a politician there is evidence of green shoots of recovery in the blasted browns of the bog plants. Later on in the day more evidence of something starting to happen, the first plop of a frog diving in one of the pools and some frogspawn.
I was clearing more junk off the Moss, the remains of another pheasant pen that the past users just left for others to clear up. While doing this I met Mr Miller, a neighbouring farmer who grazes land right next to the Moss. He has been working next to the Moss for over 20 years but has never been out on it and never really wanted to. I hear this quite often and I can understand it, if you are working long hours to manage land productively why go out onto the completely unproductive land next door. Luckily some people are keen to see the Moss and as I was handing out the latest Flanders Moss NNR newsletter a number of people said how much they enjoyed visiting the place. One of the ladies in Berits and Brown said that she had gone down to the Moss for the first time on Sunday afternoon and she enjoyed it so much her second visit was only a few hours later.
By the way if you want a newsletter just contact the SNH Stirling office on 01786 450362 and leave your name and address and we can send you one.
