To a rock from a soft place

This is my last posting to the blog bog as I am changing jobs. After working for 10 years (a chunk of my life but a blink of an eye for a bog) as the Reserve Manager for Flanders Moss it is time for a change of scenery and the change couldn't be much more different as I am going to be the Reserve Manager for the Isle of May NNR, the seabird island in the middle of the Forth estuary. Working on Flanders has been very special. For me it is the wildness and tranquility of the land that gives it a special atmosphere, coloured by the beautiful bog palette that is like not matched by anywhere else I know. But Flanders hasn't seen the last of me and in fact even on the Isle of May I will retain a watery connection with Flanders as the rainfall that is so important drains off the Moss into the Forth and then flows past me on the island and on out to sea. The post of reserve manager on Flanders Moss will be filled hopefully by mid March so you will get to see Flanders through another person's eyes. And in between times my colleagues Stephen and Nick will keep you up to date with what is going on on the Moss.
Working on the Isle of May, my head will be filled with the monitoring of the seabirds, migrant birds and seals, keeping the field station going and perhaps most importantly telling people about the island and why it is so important. This may well involve a blog so by all means check out the SNH NNR website for the Isle of May page and see what is going on on the island. Or you can always take the boat over from Anstruther and come for a visit. Say hello if you do that.
So I wish for a wet future for Flanders Moss and happy bogging for any visitors.
And seeing as the last posting ended on a poem why not this one (or two) as well, this poem by Sheena Blackhall is about the most important part of Flanders Moss, the keystone to the bog - the Sphagnum moss.
-
I am a child of the bog
I am sphagnum
Red as a cock's comb
Yellow as jester's bells,
Orange as carnival,
Green as a dragon's eye,
I drink the dew
From a thousand secret wells,
My coat of many colours is a sponge
Where rainbows tiptoe at dawn, to dip and plunge.

And the last verse of a poem called Flanders Moss by local poet Linna Monteith shows us how important places like this are:

A soft green bowl of precious pristine world
absorbing our breath and our fumes
saving us
from the grey of everyday.

Seeing red

Out on the west side of Flanders this morning and a lick of flame running up a tree caught my eye. A red squirrel. I don't see many of these as the greys have taken over where I live so any sighting makes a day special. For red squirrels Flanders Moss is quite special. Flanders seems to lie close to the boundary of where the greys have expanded to and where the reds have retreated to i.e. you can see reds to the north and west of Flanders and grey to the east and south.
There is now a red squirrel project Saving Scotland's Red Squirrels www.scottishsquirrels.org.uk that is working hard to save red squirrels before they go extinct so as soon as I was in the office I sent in my record to help them get a picture of where there were still red squirrels surviving.
Something that I heard the other day that gave me a bit of hope for the beleaguered red was that where grey squirrels meet pine martins, the pine martins are more likely to eat the greys than the reds as they are heavier, less nimble (fatter) and hence can't escape as easily as the reds. And pine martins are expanding into central Scotland and Flanders itself. One person has told me that they have seen one right on the edge of the Moss. So it is a nice thought that a recently endangered but now recovering species will help to save another endangered species by eating the introduced one.

Another morning, another bird

Another bitterly cold but stunningly beautiful morning on Flanders Moss, no snow but more hawfrost than you could shake a stick at. I was out for a quick check around the boardwalk and tower to see if all is OK before meeting up with 3 members of the Scottish Raptor group. Kestrels were on our mind and with good reason. Back in the 1970s when I was a boy kestrels were the commonest British bird of prey and as a child one of the few pleasure to be found in a long motorway trip was spotting kestrels every few miles hovering over the rough grass motorway edges. However during the 1980s the population dropped dramatically most likely due to the effects of the lethal pesticides that accumulated in their prey. The population has recovered a bit since then but hear in Scotland there is a particular concern as since the mid 1990s the population have been dropping fast. Places like the Carse of Stirling used to hold a significant number of pairs but can you remember when you last saw a kestrel hovering ? At Flanders Moss we still seen them because unlike the surrounding intensively farmed land Flanders still has rough grass areas that can hold good populations of small mama ls and insects like beetles that they mostly eat. But the kestrels still need help so the plan is to help the Scottish Raptor group put up a few nest boxes for safe nesting sites. These will also allow the group to keep an eye of how successful the breeding pairs are and this information is vital if the decline in these birds is to be halted. The poet Ted Hughes in The Hawk in the Rain (even though he called it a hawk rather than correctly a falcon) beautifully captured the sight of a kestrel and what a shame it would be if the next generation couldn't experience it.
"Effortlessly at height hangs his still eye / His wings hold all creation in weightless quiet / Steady as hallucination in the streaming air / While banging wind kills those stubborn hedges" (Ted Hughes, The Hawk in the Rain)

A top coat less.

If you drive down to Flanders you will notice that there has been a bit of activity in the woodland next to the track. you will see that more birch trees have been felled in 3 specific areas. As posted back at the end of 2010 this work serves several purposes. Firstly we wanted to form sunny glades for reptiles and insects along the south edge of the wood. We also wanted to use some of the materials to build hibernaculums for adders, that is places for them to spend the winter hibernating. And thirdly the 4 members of the Stirling NNR team needed somewhere to fell trees as part of our refresher training for our chainsaw users certificates. So it was a case of killing several birds with one stone. It has been a fun couple of days concentrating on different felling cuts, dealing with hung up trees and ending up smelling of freshly saw timber. And while working we have been able to watch the weather changing drastically, the wind going round to the south west, picking up and blowing hard, rain coming in in squalls and the snow disappearing fast. Suddenly the ditches on the moss are flowing and along the bog edge little springs of water are bursting out of the peat. I don't know how long it will last but it has been heaven to feel the breeze and the rain on our faces but only wear half the number of layers clothing that we have for the preceding 7 weeks.
The car park and path is still a bit icy so be careful as you walk around but hopefully it will soon be clear if this warm weathers last for another couple of days. Look out also for the geese in the fields along side the track. Large numbers of pinkies plus greylags and Canadas were all about while we were sawing.

Back On

I am out on the Moss for the first time in weeks early on Thursday morning. The half light gradually lightens and finally well past nine the sun makes it up above the Gargunnock Hills. Midwinter has past but the mornings get darker for a little while yet even though the evenings are very slowly drawing out. The first thing I notice is the silence, huge and calming but quickly other bog inhabitants make themselves known. The birds know that it is past midwinter and are more lively than before Christmas, a couple of chaffinchs "pink pink" from the tops of birch, a couple of great tits churr away and a party of siskins wheeze overhead. The geese are back now that the grass is appearing from under the snow. Over 1000 pink feet feed in the field next to the Moss plus 9 greylags set slightly apart and more small parties zoom low to join them. One group comes in so low I can hear their whistling wings and the low grunts they make to themselves.
Once up onto the peat dome it is clear that the snow has gone or turned to ice. The ground is frozen rock hard around the edges of the moss but once out into the wetter areas it is wet underneath the thin ice and difficult walking.
I am out to check the rain gauge, a few days late but its the last reading for 2010 and so give us the total for the year. 80.5 mm for the December, a dry month which gives a total rainfall for 2010 of 1006 mm. Since 1997 this is the third driest year we have had at Flanders with only 2001 and 2003 drier. The bog needs a wet winter to fill up the the peat sponge but when frozen, the water just runs straight off so a thaw and a month or two of solid rain should do the job.
I move on, further onto the moss and the rising sun wipes the frost from the heather as it spreads across the bog. It is quiet, wide, beautiful and it is good to be back.
Afterwards I head round to the car park to see what state the public access is in. The boardwalk and tower are clear of ice and parts of the path but some short stretches are still covered in ice. It is passable so by all means go down and enjoy the snow capped mountains but please take care on the icy patches.

View From The Loo Is A Reminder Of The Bog

Apologies for the long time since the last posting but flu and the Christmas holidays got the better of me.
The picture above is the view from the men's loo at the SNH Stirling office and since the end of November last year I have been seeing an awful lots of it. Not I hasten to add for any health reasons but, because of the poor weather I have been spending lots more time in the office. And every time I used the facilities this fantastic view of the Wallace monument has been in front of my eyes. The tower was built as a national monument on the spot where Wallace stood watching and planning for his greatest victory against the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. But what has this got to do with Flanders Moss? Well you may not know it but Flanders Moss has played a key role throughout Scottish history including the Battle for Stirling Bridge and more famously the Battle of Bannockburn. It was the presence of Flanders Moss and other large raised bogs along the length of the Carse of Stirling that presented a barrier to any armies moving north or south. Further west and you are into the Highlands and Loch Lomond which are equally impassable. So if any commander wanted to move any number of soldiers quickly then they had do so on the east side of the country and cross the River Forth at Stirling. There were roads across the Carse since the Romans used a Ford at Frew (south east of Flanders, near the Kippen roundabout) that would have been used by travellers and local people but these roads were not passable for the fast movement of large numbers of men and certainly not in the wetter winter months. So Stirling castle and the crossing of the Forth were of strategic importance and all because of the presence Flanders Moss to the west. Maybe one day someone will write a book about the role of Flanders Moss in Scottish history ?

Christmas trees and a big shrike

The recent weather has meant that we had to have a close look at the pine seedling cutting work parties that we had planned to see if they could be carried out. The snow is so deep that it was proving to get the equipment required for the weekend work party out of our workshop so reluctantly and for the first time we have cancelled the public work party. We also had planned a work party for SNH Stirling office collegues and we decided that they were tough enough to have a go. So yesterday we piled into landrover and headed down a snow filled track laiden with bowsaws and loppers to attack the invading pine seedlings. After a bit of a struggle to turn round the vehicles we marched down to the bonfire spot through deep snow. A few wellies came off but we got there relatively intact. The temperature must have been around freezing which seemed tropical after the brutal freeze a day ago. The team set to work, most people headed off to cut pines while 2 expert firestarters got going with the fire. The best pines were cut and put to one side for Christmas trees and then we set to work clearing in the end an area of nearly 1 ha of pine seedlings. All the Christmas trees had to be dragged off site through deep snow which meant that hypothermia was never an option. After lunch (which took seconds to devour)the team set to clearing and buring up a lot of willow and gorse left over from a previous work party. At the end of that it just left the slog back dragging trees to the landrovers as the sun dropped below the horizon with again one or two wellies stuck. A good days work done and a bit of money raised for Oxfam as the trees taken back to the office were sold to colleagues not brave enough to venture.
And the shrike - well the most exciting thing of all was on the way back up the track we spotted a strange looking grey, black and white bird sitting on top of a tree. Slammed brakes and a grab for the camera and it proved to be a great grey shrike. These birds breed in far north Europe and generally only pass through the UK in low numbers in spring or autumn. But a few few (on average only 7 a year) decide to spend the winter here in Scotland and this was evidently one of those. A very special bird - apologies for the very poor photo at the top of the posting.