Black pudding heaven but not much luck for England

Lots of driving since I wrote the last diary with a holiday in Lancashire to visit family and catching up with autumn events back at home.

Planners are out of control in the Cairngorms National Park! Eight-hundred houses on the outskirts of Aviemore - no problem, but try to get plans passed for a single house, for a family working and living in the local community and it can take you nine months to jump through all the hoops. On Abernethy we carry out deer control to keep red and roe deer numbers low so that tree seedlings get a chance to grow. The reserve has a deer larder for preparing the deer carcases for the game dealer but, with new legislation coming into play this year, the deer larder needed upgrading so that it remained legal (carcases have to be chilled within a few hours of the deer coming off the hill for instance). It took four months for the lady in charge of planning within the park to decide whether upgrading the existing soak-away would damage tree roots! A work colleague will have to pay out several extra thousand pounds to have his electricity cable laid to his house renovation so that he avoids crossing a small burn because of the "salmon interest". The burn in question is no more than two foot wide, the person involved is a mad-keen fisherman and is responsible for counting the spawning salmon and sea trout each November in the River Nethy and wouldn't do anything to harm them. In fact the temporary disturbance to the stream bed could even benefit spawning fish by providing a wee patch of gravel as a spawning site! Whatever, the next spate would alter the bed of the burn so much that you would never be able to tell a track had crossed it. Rule are rules!

Would the park planners be able to save an ancient Scots pine tree close to a new house site in Tulloch? If chalet guests have been to the black grouse lek at Tulloch they are probably familiar with it - or should I say were familiar with it. In their wisdom, the planners stipulated that the house entrance, onto a minor, single track road, would have to have clear vision for seventy (yes 70) metres in both directions. The old pine tree would have to go, a landmark and a tree with one-hundred and twenty years of history would be felled so that folk living in the new house for a few weeks each year, could have clear sight-lines when driving onto the road! Madness, but then, rules are rules! Whew, glad I got that one off my chest!

A few weeks ago I showed a picture of a group of puff-balls growing by a road verge, all fresh and gleaming white (left). At this stage it is possible to eat some of the edible puff-balls because when they are young, they are solid lumps of mushroom, and are very similar to field mushrooms when cooked. Let a few weeks pass though, and they are hell bent on reproduction. The outer 'skin' turns brown and the inner part of the puff-ball turns to 'dust' - millions of tiny spores, ready to disperse to be the new puff-balls of next year. However, they are very different to the normal umbrella shaped mushrooms which just allow their spores to fall from the gills underneath their umbrella caps. Puff-balls, as their name implies, need a little help. As the puff-ball matures a small 'spout' starts to develop centrally, on the top of the 'ball'. The picture right, shows the same group of puff-balls as pictured above but exactly a month later. At this stage they are fully mature and the spores are keen to get out and disperse. A windy day might dislodge a few spores but what the fungus needs is a heavy rain shower, the impact of the rain droplets on the 'ball' providing the right sort of impact to allow the spores to 'puff' out. The same thing would happen if a bird or animal or human walked on the 'balls', so next time you see one, give it a gentle prod and watch the spores shoot out of the tiny hole. Some very good, high speed photography pictures have been taken of the spores puffing out, no doubt set up in a studio. I didn't quite have the right facilities but I did set up my camera and tripod on the puff-balls and, from a little height above them I dropped a tiny stone and the picture above tries to show what happened!

What an effort! Who would have thought all those weeks ago when South Africa thumped England in the first rugby world cup match that England would get to the final. Amazingly, as they progressed match by match it began to look like they might be the first team to retain the world cup. It didn't quite work out but a great effort and thanks for keeping a UK interest in the competition right through to the end. Poor Lewis, not sure how McLaren managed to get tyres wrong one week and refueling the next, but it was entertaining until the end. I must just nip off and check how Blackburn are getting on in their match with Spurs. A 2-1 win!

It's been a week of collisions - of the bird kind that is. Coming back from the village shop yesterday I noticed something lying inside the bus-stop. As I was on the football pitch side of the bus-stop I had to re-trace my steps, back through the wee gate to get back onto the road and to the inside of the bus-stop. Inside was a freshly dead female sparrowhawk. She had crossed the road and, thinking she could just fly through the bus-stop had come to a crashing halt as she hit the back window. A sad end but her body will go off to the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Monks Wood so that she can be checked for levels of pesticide. CEH continue to check a sample of birds of prey each year just to keep abreast of what the background level of toxic chemicals is, and checking birds that are at the top of the food chain is a simple way of doing it. For general information about Monks Wood go to: http://www.cambridgebiologists.org/inst/monkswood.htm

The other collisions involved woodland grouse and forest fences, something that I have had a long association with and something a lot of land managers denied was happening. To paint the true picture just let me re-wind a little and take you back to the 1970s. At that time red deer populations were at an all time high and rising, native Scots pinewoods were still being felled and a lot of work had gone into visiting the scattered remnants of the old Caledonian pinewood and conservation organisations were pushing to do something to protect them. Deer, young trees, the easiest solution was to fence off the remnants and, in areas were native pinewoods were still being felled, well, fence them off as well until the planted trees or natural seedlings had grown tall enough to be out of deer browsing height. Through the 1970s and 80s the capercaillie and black grouse populations in Scotland (and black grouse throughout the UK) were falling and research was starting into the reasons for the decline with Drs Robert Moss and Nick Picozzi from CEH Banchory, leading the way. Within that period 20-30,000 metres of deer height fencing was installed (not by RSPB) in Abernethy Forest alone for tree protection purposes. The bombshell fell in 1990. The capercaillie population was at an all time low and a series of wet summers was causing high chick mortality so little natural recruitment into the population was taking place. Capercaillie chicks and adults that had been fitted with radios for tracking purposes, were found dead having flown into deer fences! The researchers suggested that so many birds were flying into fences that in a wet summer, there would be no recruitment into the population. See: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1365-2656.2001.00473.x . By 1990, RSPB had bought two major chunks of Abernethy bringing most of the forest into conservation ownership. The last purchase had brought with it a fenced plantation area. The fence was walked each month for ten months and twenty-four capercaillie or black grouse collisions were recorded. The fence was removed immediately. At the same time I started walking fences, at weekends, on two nearby estates but without asking the estate owners permission and marking collision locations with numbered tags (above). By the mid-1990s some of the worst known fences were marked using orange barrier netting, this was a temporary measure with a 'need to do something' objective. However, the sun soon made the plastic brittle and the wind soon tore it from the fence so a longer lasting solution was needed. Wooden markers might work? In 1997 the Forestry Commission gave RSPB a grant to trial six different methods of wooden markers that I had considered practical, on a boundary fence that couldn't be taken down. The most expensive was a completely wooden deer fence, the cheapest adding one inch by three foot wooden 'droppers' to the top half of the fence. The number of woodland grouse collisions was reduced dramatically but, amazingly, some capercaillie and black grouse still collided with the fence! Eventually, by 1999/2000 a pre-formed, chestnut paling fence, added to the top half of the fence became the accepted method (above), and land owners were given grants to install this addition to their fences. In the last couple of years orange barrier netting has re-appeared, a lot more UV brittle resistant, and high enough to cover two-thirds of the deer fence. Again, despite it's obvious visibility, bird are still colliding with it, sometimes thinking that they can fly underneath the netting as this picture from a colleague shows. This is not a staged photograph and yes, the bird has hit the fence with such force that the wires have been badly bent and the bird was de-decapitated. The best system is no fence at all and encouragement to remove fences as soon as practicably possible from around young woodlands. The EU funded Capercaillie Life Project also supported this work helping to fund removal of miles of redundant fencing and paying for marking those that couldn't. http://www.capercaillie-life.info/htm/capercaillie_bap_group.php.

The marked fence I walked this week had evidence of two capercaillie collisions on it, a male and a female. And my weekend fence walking? Having presented my evidence to one estate manager (anger/embarrassment) the fence was removed. I passed on what I was finding to the Forestry Commission (who usually funded the fencing costs) and this I feel, hastened the marking programme. The worst fences I encountered though marked, are still in place and still killing woodland grouse.

Whilst in Lancashire we just had to go to the heart of black pudding production and we spent half a day at Bury Market.

It really still is L. S. Lowry country with people dashing about hither and thither, smoking fags, drinking and eating, but mostly just people everywhere.






Just a couple of pictures to try and show what I mean. And yes, we did have a black pudding between us. Delicious.

We also spent a few half days out wandering the Ribble Valley, collecting sloes for sloe gin at Christmas, and crab apples for making apple jelly. Downham is a real gem of a village and is in the shadow of Lancashires 'nearly' mountain - Pendle Hill. Try the virtual tour at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/lancashire/virtual_tours/downham/downhamtour01.htm. Mark Robinson writes: "Lord Clitheroe owns the village, and is able to exert his control over developments that may ruin the chocolate-box appearance. The houses and cottages are stone-built, and there are no road markings on the streets, no overhead cables, and no TV arials or satellite dishes to spoil the view. The village has been used as a location for many films, the most famous being 'Whistle Down the Wind' starring Alan Bates and Hayley Mills, also, according to adamant locals, the surrounding area was the inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings saga. The BBC chose it to film the series 'Born and Bred' It is also associated with Old Mother Demdike, Alice Nutter and other infamous Lancashire witches".

With the leaves falling from the trees and the days getting shorter (bike lights needed last week) it has been good to catch up with birds local to Firwood. A few greylag geese have started roosting at Loch Garten and generally there are now a few hundred in the fields round about. A walk round the village, Mondhuie Wood and along a bit of the Speyside Way last weekend produced 38 species of birds, including the first brambling of the autumn, a high count of 12+ reed buntings, 140 lapwings still with us, a few whooper swans and small groups of redwings and fieldfares. Woodcock on the roads as it gets dark and 10 blackbirds feeding amongst the pine needles on the same roads on Thursday, show we have just have an arrival of continental birds. A kingfisher on the River Dulnain at Carrbridge was unusual.

Come the end of the month and the biggest surveys in the UK bird world gets underway the British Trust for Ornithology's atlas of winter birds followed in the spring by the breeding atlas. I took a sabbatical during the last breeding atlas survey in 1990 and spent a month surveying the Morvern peninsula and the Isle of Coll. The current two atlases will run from 2007 to 2011 and in this first year of survey work I have signed up for five 'tetrads' local to Nethybridge. No doubt there will be requests for surveys further afield as the years go by and some of the less populated areas need special effort to get the data. If you would like to get involved go to: http://www.bto.org/birdatlas/taking_part/index.htm, you will enjoy it and perhaps get to places you would never normally visit.

That's it, enjoy the read

best wishes

Stewart & Janet

A few of the last factory chimneys in Accrington, Lancashire

All photos © Stewart Taylor

Dead buzzards and a Dickie fern

The leaves on the birch tree outside the window are rapidly turning yellow and falling from the trees, and a little after 6pm, it is getting quite dark - autumn is upon us, and I just about managed the bike ride to work and back this week without lights. The male black grouse have started their autumn leks and a single male caper was also seen lekking, an odd occurrence at this time of year. Overhead we are starting to see a few more redwings but only a handful of fieldfares. Unusually, there are quite a few song thrushes in the forest still, no doubt finishing off the last of the blaeberries, cowberries and crowberries in amongst the heather on the forest floor. Song thrushes don't spend the winter with us unlike the mistle thrushes, a few of which do brave out the winter months. Also overhead we have seen lots of pink-footed geese, no doubt heading for the Vane Farm reserve or the carrot fields of Lancashire. Greylag geese are also now starting to appear, though only a few are to be found roosting on Loch Garten where we also have about 30 roosting goosander. Water rails were heard squealing at Loch Mallachie on Tuesday and a walk round the Mondhuie woods located thirty-five species of birds. A group of about 50 greenfinches feeding on juniper berries along the Speyside Way was unusual. Both male and female capercaillie have been seen 'gritting' along tracks in the forest this week, October being a good month to see capers on track and road verges.

This is also the time of year for the red deer rut, as we have seen in graphic detail on our TV screen over the last couple of years. Autumn-watch with Bill Oddie and team showed excellent footage of fighting and roaring stags live from the Isle of Rum last year, and whilst we can't quite match that in our local forests, roaring stags have been heard from the house over the last few days and a single stag with his harem of six hinds was seen from the bike as I pedalled in to work last Thursday. He didn't quite stand watching me for long enough to take a photo but he was every bit as 'good looking' as the one in the picture. Calves conceived during the rut will be born during May next year.

I has not been a good month for buzzards. I picked one up from the garage in Aviemore which had been hit by a car whilst feeding on a roadside rabbit kill. It died during the same night from its injuries. However, it was carrying a BTO leg ring so I forwarded the number to the British Trust for Ornithology who will eventually get back to me to let me know who ringed the bird along with the location where ringing took place. It is from the ringing programme that we learn so much about how long birds live, how far they travel etc, that the effort to visit nest to ring young birds before they fledge or to catch migrating birds in mist nets is well worthwhile. See http://www.bto.org/ringing/ringinfo/index.htm for more information on bird ringing, and whom to contact if you find a ringed bird. The second buzzard to be handed to me was much more worrying as it had been shot - illegally. The estate where the bird was found has been brought to my attention three times this year so far; a suspicious bait laid to try and poison unsuspecting birds of prey, pole traps on a grouse moor and obvious efforts to get rid of raptors by shooting. Can you believe that this is 2007 and not 1907?. In the fifty year period to 1907 many of our once common birds of prey were made extinct or brought close to extinction by human persecution during the advent of the "sporting estate" and all because the birds the raptors caught to live on were the same that estate owners wanted to shoot for sport. So what's changed! This is the second shot buzzard that I have had to deal with this year. All birds of prey that could have died unnaturally, are sent to the National Veterinary Laboratories to have their cause of death determined. An x-ray shows instantly if a bird has been shot. Quite worryingly, illegal persecution whether by shooting or poisoning, seem to be on the increase. Reported cases are probably just the tip of a very large iceberg. If you ever do find a dead bird of prey do treat it with caution because if the bird has been poisoned, the poison used to kill the bird can, quite often, do the same to humans.

Readers of this diary will probably be glad to see this picture. It's a tooth fungi which is coming to the end of its 2007 life, and, so as not to be wasted, is being consumed by another fungus, in this case - mould! So no more tooth fungi for this year! Maps have been produced showing the distribution of all that was found and who knows, a report might follow and be published.

Late summer is also the best time to go out identifying ferns. But they are all the same I hear you cry! Well yes some are quite similar, that is until you turn the whole frond over, when all will be revealed and help comes to hand with identifying which species you have. On the underside of the leaves of most ferns you will see the plants reproductive mechanism - the sori or capsules enclosing the spores that will drift off in the wind and land somewhere close by so the spore can germinate and start the process all over again. Big, bold ferns like Male Ferns (right) are good to check out, the underside of their leaves covered with rows and rows of sori. Compare them with the leaf-shape and sori distribution of the Common Polypody (left). With time the sori darken and the spores are released, quite an amazing process. The sori usually develop in parallel rows with each growing above a leaf vein from where it gets its nourishment. Each sori is a bit like a small umbrella, a cover, on a stalk, protecting the spores until they are ripe. As each sori ages and dries the spore receptacle called the annulus, shrinks and bends over. Tension is created during the drying process when a wee gas bubble develops helping to jerk the annulus back up, slinging the spores into the air. Fascinating! In the picture right, you can see the sori on the edge of the leaves of Lemon-scented Fern (Oreopteris limbosperma).

For most of the ferns shown, the shape of the fern and distribution of the sori are all you need to identify the fern. However, locally, a more unusual fern has been found in a few locations. In the past it was thought to only occur in sea caves on the Aberdeenshire coast but a few years ago a local botanist found it growing in a river gorge inland, and more recently it was found growing on an ancient bridge crossing the River Avon. Dickie's Bladder-fern left (Cystopteris dickieana), probably grows on the bridge because of the ancient mortar used to hold the bridge together. A couple of weeks ago Andy, a work colleague, found his second 'bridge' site but this time on the River Findhorn. Unlike the ferns mentioned earlier, this one can only be positively identified by using a microscope to check the shape of the spores, this is because the fern to all intents and purposes, looks just like the common Brittle Bladder-fern (Cystopteris fragilis) which I have seen in quite a few places when looking for other ferns. However, I thought Dickie was worth a visit and went armed with camera to see it for myself. The fern was there but looking a little the worse for wear being so late in the season, the leaf and sori though were still worth photographing (right). On the way home I drove past another old bridge - so decided to check it out - you know what's coming, there was the fern, though this had to be confirmed by Andy and his microscope. The 'Highland Naturalist' does it again! This fern is rare enough to be protected by law, ie it's illegal to pick, dig up or damage, however, to check the plants identity a small piece can be removed, and this is what I did. Another bridge checked yesterday and another small pice of fern awaits Andy's help!

The slightly frosty nights of late have given us warm sunny days but cool, misty mornings and a visit to Loch Mallachie, just as the mist was lifting revealed a wonderland of spiders webs, big ones, small ones, tent shaped ones and ones with no shape or logic at all. The web in the tree left, caught my eye standing alone by the shore. Within half an hour the webs had almost disappeared as the dew evaporated. It is only under these conditions that you see just how many spiders there are, one of the most numerous animals in many habitats. How surreal is the one on the right! No Photoshop trickery, that's just how it was.

Laura Taylor from the Cairngorm National Park is overseeing a water vole project where breeding evidence is looked for but also evidence of its main predator, the American mink. We know that within Abernethy Forest, the water voles main refuge is very high up in the hills in the very young streams that flow down towards the River Nethy, the Faesheallach and the Crom Allt. High up in the watershed the mink only has a limited impact on the vole in that mink visits are probably quite infrequent and when they do visit the limited food supply means they don't stay around for too long. However, in the time they are there the mink can cause a severe reduction in the water vole population of one head water before heading off down stream. It is unlikely that they will visit more than one head water before departing, leaving the other populations unscathed. To try and find out how big the mink population is, a series of 'footprint traps' (left) have been installed in many of the water bodies within the Park. To date, only one of the Abernethy 'traps' has recorded mink presence so hopefully, the population is fairly small.

Just look at this lot! The veg patch is only small, but it does provide a fair amount of produce. The best of the leeks looks like it could win prizes and the carrots have never been so big. The broad beans didn't seem to like the cold but the rest of the veg has benefited from the summer rain.

Yummie - again!

That's it - enjoy the read

Stewart & Janet

A shadow of my former self!

All photos © Stewart Taylor

An article written for The Nethy

I've been busy this week putting together an article for the village paper The Nethy, and for this weeks diary I thought you might like to read it. I will try and put together another diary before the end of the week cos we have stags roaring, fungi going mouldy and strange things growing out of caper droppings! So, just the normal sort of diary then.

Enjoy the read
Stewart & Janet

RSPB & The Abernethy Forest Reserve – a short history

When John Kirk asked me to do a piece for The Nethy about the history of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, I was a little unsure about where to start - perhaps with those hardy souls in Didsbury way back in the 1880s protesting about the killing of great crested grebes for their superb head frill feathers to be used in the millinery trade? Then, as now, a rare bird was threatened with extinction in Britain. The Society was formed in 1889 to try and alert people to the problem and argue for legislation to safeguard the grebe, and its habitat, guided by sound conservation principles. Thanks to these early efforts there are now over 1000 great crested grebes in Britain and Ireland. In 1891, the embryonic Society amalgamated with the Fur and Feather group and the Society for the Protection of Birds was officially launched.

Or about the Society’s development? In 1901 the first “watcher” was appointed, to protect breeding pintails at Loch Leven in Fife and in 1904 the Society was incorporated by Royal Charter and became the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. In 1930 the Society bought its first nature reserve at Romney March, followed by Dungeness and East Wood our oldest extant reserves. George Waterston was appointed as the RSPB’s first Scottish representative in 1954, just in time for a pair of migrating ospreys to set up home at Loch Garten. Now there’s a story!

The arrival of a pair of ospreys at Loch Garten became national news. After breeding successfully in 1954 the birds didn’t return to the Loch Garten site until 1958, despite birds being seen in the general area in most of the intervening years. When “watchers” in the Strathspey area realised that the ospreys were back at the Loch Garten nest, George Waterston had to hurriedly arrange for a team of wardens to mount a twenty-four watch on the nest, working from caravans and a few tents pitched in the woodland on the south shore of Loch Garten. Disaster struck however, when the nest was robbed despite the eggs having been three-quarters of the way through their incubation period. The birds were quite resilient however, and returned to nest again in 1959 but to a new site to the east of Loch Garten. George was very bold and, working closely with Seafield Estates the landowners, decided to allow the public access to the site to watch the breeding birds and Operation Osprey, as it became known, was born. 12,000 people visited the temporary viewing hide in 1959 underlining the huge public interest that had been generated following the publicity of the nest being robbed in 1958. A very brave move by all concerned, considering that these were the only breeding ospreys in Britain in 1959, a year in which they reared three young.

The partnership with Seafield Estates continued to work each summer right through to the Estate deciding to sell the land surrounding the osprey site along with Lochs Garten and Mallachie to the Society in November 1975. The Loch Garten Reserve was born and I was appointed as the first full-time Warden in time for the 1976 osprey season. The summer season “Osprey Camp” continued to operate under agreement with Miss Bella Macdonald at Inchdryne, tents being erected each summer to house the nine weekly volunteers with a few static caravans for the five wardening staff. The Boat Hotel and Nethybridge Hotel kindly provided bath and shower facilities for the osprey team until the early 1980s by when a small communal building with loos, kitchen and off duty area was built at Inchdryne.

Having a full-time staff member on site allowed time to look and record more about the wider natural history interests of the reserve. Surveys were started to look at the breeding birds of the woodland, moorland, lochs and farmland, and the reserve signed up to record the annual numbers of butterflies on a fixed summer transect. A moth trap was operated and the different dragonflies were listed like the large red damselfly (right). All in all, the reserve seemed to be quite important for a number of species with caperercaillie, crested tits and Scottish crossbills heading the bird list, Kentish Glory and Cousin German the moth list and Northern Coenagrion and Northern Emerald the dragonfly list. With the help of John Owen from Epsom we started to look at the beetle population and when Peter Orton moved to Nethybridge in the early 1980s we spent a couple of weeks each September looking at fungi like fly agarics (left). I can’t thank these two men enough for the work they carried out over almost twenty years with over 900 beetles and 600 fungi recorded! In between times there was always a welcome chat and cup of tea (or something stronger) with Johnie Cullachie, Miss Mac, Jimuck Rymore and Mrs Smith.

During the 1980s and 90s the reserve also expanded, with the purchases of Garten Wood, Tore Hill, Mondhuie and a part of the Cairngorm plateau adding to an expanding work-load. In Garten Wood some novel management was undertaken with heavy thinning of the commercial plantations to encourage a healthy blaeberry understorey, rich in caterpillars and other insects much loved by caper and the small bird populations. Forest bogs that had been drained and planted up with fast growing conifers were worked on with trees removed and drains blocked. For three years a MSC team helped with this work, getting professional forestry training and practical skills to help with finding long-term employment after their stint on the reserve. Thinning of the planted woodland on Tore Hill and Mondhuie was also undertaken, employing local contractors to do the work. In 1980 the old boatshed on the shore of Loch Garten was bought from the Strathspey Angling Association, dismantled, and re-erected as the main reserve workshop/garage at Grianan. In 1983, the Osprey Centre welcomed its millionth visitor and in 1986 the Society’s land agents were alerted to the possibility of the Forest Lodge Estate, owned by the Naylor family, being sold.

The information was correct and in 1988 the Society became the new owners of the Forest Lodge Estate, including the largest surviving remnant of the Great Wood of Caledon. An appeal to the RSPB’s membership raised £800,000 of the £1.8 million asking price in just over a month! The purchase effectively joined the Loch Garten and Cairngorm Plateau ownerships together, and the Abernethy Forest Reserve was born putting the Society into a different league regarding land management issues. Forest expansion became a major objective. The reserve currently supports 3500 hectares of mainly Scots pine woodland but there is the potential for an additional 3000 hectares. To meet the objective, deer control became a major part of the annual work programme, the annual cull being based on the reserve-wide counts carried out during the previous year. Capercaillie and black grouse monitoring was also undertaken, mainly by lek and brood counting, particularly as the national populations of both species had declined dramatically since the 1970s. With the decline of the capercaillie, the worlds largest grouse, populations throughout Strathspey came under increasing pressure from visitors and birdwatchers wanting to see them. In 2000, Caper-watch was started at the Osprey Centre (left) in an effort to draw visitors away from searching the forests, in spring, early in the morning, allowing good views of lekking males and attendant females, but without disturbing the birds (http://www.greentourism.org.uk/caperwatch.html ). The two-thousand early morning visitors to caper-watch each spring also give a wee boost to the local economy.

With the decline of the capercaillie, Abernethy joined with about 20 other Highland estates in a European funded project aimed at increasing the Scottish population (http://www.capercaillie-life.info/htm/the_project_general_background.php ) On most estates this work comprised removal or marking of forestry fences which the birds fly in to, targeted predator control and woodland management aimed at increasing the forest floor blaeberry vegetation. To date, the population nationally, has shown a healthy increase (http://www.gct.org.uk/text03.asp?PageId=336). Involvement in a second European funded project was also undertaken. Titled the ‘EU Wet Woods Restoration Project’ (http://www.wetwoods.org/). Its aim was to try and repair damage done to the forest bogs by drainage and planting, mainly in the 1960s and 70s. The main part of the Abernethy project was carried out in Mondhuie where over one hundred hectares of lodgepole pine and sitka spruce was removed and the drains dammed or blocked. Additional work was carried out in Garten Wood – adding to the work started in the 1980s – and in North Abernethy. The trees in Mondhuie were of such poor “form” they would probably never have been harvested if it hadn’t have been for this project.

In 1999 plans were drawn up for a permanent Osprey Visitor Centre and the building was completed in 2000 and named the ‘George Waterston Osprey Centre’. 2000 also saw the osprey team base move to the chalets at Mains of Garten, canvas and caravans replaced by buildings with all mod cons and the former “camp” area was restored to Inchdryne. Surveys in 2001 – 2002 showed that 800 hectares of naturally regenerating woodland had become established (right) and work is currently underway to assist tree establishment in areas where little has happened in the last twenty years. Forest Lodge has become the main “hub” for accommodation and office space for the 20 full and part-time staff employed on the reserve each year. Despite the ospreys EJ and Henry’s difficulties of 2007, 32,000 visitors came to see them, with over two-million visitors to date. Supported by the Scottish Forest Alliance, (http://www.scottishforestalliance.org.uk/default.aspa) a Field Teacher is employed to visit local schools to help with environmental projects and to lead school outings to the reserve. In 2001, a pair of ospreys built a nest and bred successfully at Bassenthwaite Lake in the English Lake District the first in England since 1840. Scottish birds trans-located to Rutland Water also bred in 2001.

Abernethy Forest Reserve is currently one of the richest natural history sites in the UK with 3,600 species of plants and animals recorded, 700 of which are rare or scarce in Britain. We have a lot to thank the original ospreys for settling at Loch Garten and for George Waterston’s initiative in setting up such a brilliant conservation success story!

Stewart Taylor. Warden Loch Garten 1976 – 1990, Abernethy Senior Site Manager 1990 – 2002, Abernethy Technical assistant (part-time) to date.

A tranquil Loch Mallachie

All photos © Stewart Taylor