Pupils are learning to bee kind

You call this work? This is what our Community Education Officer gets up to.

Here he is with children from Lochgelly South Primary, who are planting wildflower seeds in order to attract the poor demised bumble bee. As part of Scottish Natural Heritage’s Bio-diversity week children at this school and eight others in Fife, planted Knapweed (a thistle) Foxglove, Poppy and Cornflower. These flowers were once commonly associated with our native woodlands.

Woodland monitoring at Creag Loisgte

Yesterday afternoon I took a closer look at this Atlantic oak woodland, which has moulded itself around the main A83 road just on the Inveraray side of the Loch Fyne Oyster Bar. Scottish Native Woods have been helping Ardkinglas Estate to manage this woodland for 10 years now. If you're travelling down the road, there's a built path up into a area of young woodland just behind the Tree Shop, and a route for the more adventurous (and active) walker into the mature woodland that you can reach from the first laybye past the Oyster Bar.

an unwelcome visitor in the laybye

Parking in the laybye, I noticed a couple of unwelcome guests: himalayan balsam in the foreground, with Japanese knotweed in the background. Both of these plants seem to be well adapted to moving along our roadside verges, and are spreading along the A83 with some enthusiasm.

Help finding your way in the woods

We've used these Forestry Commission tags to mark a rough route back to the Oyster Bar: they're on 4 foot high posts and you should always be able to see the next one. Otherwise you can just take a wee walk up into the wood

Help with the deer fence

Native woodland regeneration schemes like this one frequently rely on deer fences to stop deer from eating the young trees. This can make walking difficult! Here we've provided a way in for walkers, and if you look to the left there's a wee panel to allow the dog through too. Beyond you can see the oak trees that make up this part of the woodland

woodland ferns

These unfurling ferns are a fabulous feature of spring time in Argyll's native woodlands

young ash trees emerging

When herbivores such as deer, sheep and cattle are at the right level (too few can be as bad as too many!), then young trees, such as the ash in the photo can grow to become the wood of the future.

Hide 'n seek

This hide was put up so that we could limit the number of deer inside the exclosure. We can see that it's done it's job because it's disappearing in a mixture of birch, ash, oak, alder, hazel willow & bog myrtle.

emerging woodland at Creag Loisgte

The hide's still useful, and it also gives us a view up the hill. The site is not "wall to wall" birch, but includes valuable areas of open space, as well as a real mix of native woodland trees and shrubs, gradually becoming more open as it moves up the hill.