Hard-working pigs

A herd of pigs have been helping to manage a 140 hectare regeneration scheme near Loch Ness. They are breaking the ground and controlling bracken in two large exclosures.

The pigs have turned over turves right across the site, so exposing mineral soil. This has provided an excellent seed bed for the regeneration of tree seedlings.

Young birch saplings are appearing in many areas, and seem to suffer little or no damage from the pigs' activities.

Inevitably, the new birch shoots are attractive to the local deer population. Interestingly, tree regeneration appears less browsed in areas most frequented by pigs. So maybe the pigs act as a deterrent to browsing animals, as well as providing a scarification service?

Woodland Walk

Grass of Parnassus

One of the more striking flowers at this time of year is Grass of Parnassus Parnassia palustris. It is found in base-rich flushes.

Little oak seedling

Waterfall in the Birks of Aberfeldy

Tiger in the garden!

I found this beautiful moth in my garden. It's a Garden Tiger moth. When I was a wee nipper I raised one from a tiny caterpillar. It became one of the well known "woolly bears"that can sometimes be seen going across footpaths on hot days. Then it pupated and emerged as one of these wonderful adults.

It takes its name from the bright orange and black hindwings (not visible in photo), known as underwings in moths because in most species they are kept under the forewings.

Big Butterfly Count

If you see any butterflies or moths during August you can send your results up to the Big Butterfly count at http://www.bigbutterflycount.org/

All sightings are valuable as butterflies and moths have declined rapidly in the last few years.

Rowan berries out again

Harebell

Harebell (sometimes called Scottish Bluebell, though not sure why, as it is widely distributed in UK) Campanula rotundifolia. It is frequent in unimproved grassland and grassy verges, rather than woodland, where we may expect to see the unrelated Bluebell or Wild Hyacinth Hyacinthoides non-scripta.

Cloudberry in the rain

Another great photo from Kristina Hayward. Non woodland habitats and species within native woodlands are every bit as important and spectacular as the trees themselves.

Well done Kristina.....

Where the bee sucks

At this time of the year, Rosebay Willowherb is a great favourite with insects, especially bees.

Yew

Yew is strongly associated with churchyards. The ancient Fortingall Yew is thought to be over 3- 5000 years old, and may be the oldest tree in Europe.

Windswept But Interesting

Despite what our Blog may show the sun does not always shine when we are out and about in the woods!

This was a particularly wet & breezy day surveying. Despite the conditions came across a nice area of natural regeneration on this exposed crag, mainly young Scots pine with a few larch, at around 550 metres asl.


Somewhere in the distance are the Cairngorm Mountains.

Natural Regeneration

A few shots of naturally regenerated seedlings getting going in a woodland clearing. These shots are taken of young trees taking advantage of the light created by felling a beech tree. You can see the tree at http://scottishnativewoods.blogspot.com/2009/02/clearing-beech-tree-from-old-track.html
This oak has had a good year, putting on 8 inches of growth in its third year of life.

These two oaks are growing on the sawdust created by clearing the beech tree. The sawdust is keeping other competitive vegetation at bay, so the oaks should get a good head start

Finally a hazel, which has also put on about 8 inches in its 3rd year.

Ash keys

Another photo from Kristina Hayward.

Wild Cherry

This photo and the one below are from Kristina Hayward. Kristina is an excellent amateur photographer whose photos just get better and better.

You can see some of her work here : http://www.flickr.com/photos/ibland/

It is well worthwhile looking back through the photos, or going to the themed collections on the right hand side. Kristina comes from Sweden and lives near Garth within the Glen Lyon catchment......hence the mixture of photos on her site.

Well done Kristina.....

More cherries...........

Winner of our 'Guess the Tree' competition at Big Tent Festival

Here is Rachael from Edinburgh who was soooooo excited to be the winner of the oak box with the cute little drawers in it.  Rachael said she would 'treasure it forever'.

Well done Rachael and we will see you next year at Big Tent (if not before).

The Birks of Aberfeldy

Camserney Community Garden Today

Newly planted native trees

These are some of the many species that we recently planted out as an educational woodland on Aberfeldy Golf Course, 15 each of 46 different species of native trees and shrubs, plus some of the more common non-natives and conifers. The idea is that people can find all our tree species in one spot, and learn how to identfy them.

After a very hot and dry early part of ths summer where the newly planted trees just sat there and did very little, the recent rain has encouraged a flush of fresh growth, and many of them are putting on height quite quickly at present. You can see the newly unfurled leaves in this picture.

This is a silver birch. You can tell that it is a healthy tree by the size and shine on the leaves.

This tree stake was not hammered in far enough and will have to be cut down a bit. The stake needs to be below the level of the tube to avoid damaging the tree in windy conditions, when the bark can get rubbed and scarred, creating weakness in the tree, or possibly even de-capitating it.

Small details........big consequences......

Looking along the Tay

Sessile oak

Ash

....not a great specimen.

Not ash....but walnut.....

........tricky spotting the difference at this age.......

Wild Cherry, Prunus avium

Bird cherry, Prunus padus

Whitebeam

Rowan

Crab Apple, malus sylvestris

Silver birch

Downy birch

Aspen

Common Alder

Two alders, growing quickly.......

Goat willow

The fresh growth here is a purple colour....it would actually be quite difficult to identify these leaves at this stage if you did not know already what the tree planted was.

Hawthorn

Blackthorn

Himalayam balsam

Not Himalayam balsam.......

.......not himalayam balsam but Dog's Mercury, an ancient woodland indicator species.

Big Tent Festival 2010

Here is a shorter than usual Chris manning our stall at the Big Tent Festival in Fife this weekend.

Lots of greeny topics, good food and music and, of course, we met loads of people who loved trees.

A busy weekend at Big Tent - lots of families enjoying the stalls and entertainment.

The sun is back again........

A shaded spot by the Tay

Big water on Tayside

This was Aberfeldy Golf Course yesterday after 24 hours of heavy rain. Just a few weeks ago, we had a serious drought. Amazing...!!