Mow mow mow your meadow

This week we did our yearly meadow cutting session at Flanders Moss. Throughout this summer, the lovely meadow in Flanders Moss car park was abuzz with bees, butterflies and other insects enjoying the variety of flowers that bloom there, but in order to keep that meadow luscious year after year, we have to do the (possibly counterintuitive) thing and cut it all back. I promise there’s method to our madness as cutting a meadow and removing the grass actually promotes a healthy meadow!

Before

After

We wait until at least the end of August/start of September to do this as this allows all the flowers to finish blooming and drop their seeds so we’re sure we’ll get a good variety of flowers next year, as well as allowing insects such as butterflies and moths to complete their life cycles. We then go in with a reciprocating mower that acts as a giant pair of scissors, snipping the plants relatively close to the ground in one fell swoop and this leaves the cut material in nice big clumps for raking up rather than tiny little bits like a generic lawnmower would. We do this because raking up the material and removing it is the key to a healthy meadow year on year. This is because removing it keeps the soil low in nutrients which is actually a good thing as the wildflowers thrive in low nutrient soil whereas things like thick grasses, nettles etc thrive in high nutrients. By removing this grass we are not only giving space for wildflowers to grow when spring comes back around, but also giving them the right environment to grow in as well!

The process: cutting

Raking

Piling on the iron horse

And left in a long line off of the meadow – this becomes it’s own habitat pile!

Both the reciprocating mower and the iron horse were very useful bits of machinery for the job – the iron horse made the job of moving A LOT of cut material so much easier as we could just pile the cuttings up and move it to our big grass pile. It also gave our volunteers the chance to try out (or get reacquainted with) these machines, and to take a break from raking. I, for one, woke up with quite stiff arms after a day of raking.

Iron horse loaded up and ready to be transported

We also had to rescue the odd bit of wildlife that had cosied up in this meadow including a lot of frogs and toads, the odd vole and even a little baby newt! We carefully picked them up (or let them hop themselves away) and put them gently in to or near our grass pile so they can stay protected. There was a lot of variety in the frogs we found, with lots of different sizes and colours to be seen!

Rescue!

It’s amazing how red this one is!

Baby newt!

Overall, it was a great day out in the sunshine and a good job well done! This meadow management is a crucial step is ensuring our meadow stays colourful, with a large variety of flowers and habitat for pollinators and other critters! It may not look like much right now but we will start to see our first flowers again in March/April and this area will surely transform back in to a rich habitat!

It’s a-boat time

Big news this week as we have officially got a new boat! Our faithful wee silver boat (lovingly named the Alydor) has officially retired from the NatureScot team after 44 years of service! Yes, this boat was bought in 1982 and is very likely the longest running boat in the NatureScot fleet. A new engine and a few repairs later and it was still going strong at the end. However, it was time to upgrade to a brand new shiny boat so it was time to take the alydor out the water for the last time.

Trailer going in…

..picking the boat up…

…driving off…

…and saying goodbye. That comparison between the old and new!

We traded it in for a Pioner Multi III, a fancy name for a fancy boat. I have to admit when we picked it up I was shocked – it looked more like something that belongs on the sea rather than a Loch Lomond work boat! Don’t worry it will be covered in mud and plant matter in no time, but right now it looks so perfect and bright. It’s also a very nice drive, we managed 3 different trips in it this week, the first to test it out and see how it does and I think the team is very happy with it! It’s a very smooth and quiet drive, and what’s more important is that it can get down the river! The sand bank that comes out can make maneouvering into the river quite tricky but the boat did a great job so happy days! Now all it needs is a name and we’ll be golden.

We took a trip out in it yesterday to do a vascular plant survey around the Endrick mouth and the shore of Crom Mhin with some NatureScot operation officers, and let’s just say we were really testing the limits of it! Some of the points we had to get to were in very shallow water so there was a few times we had to hop out and drag it along. It’s impressive how it can move through very shallow water, but there are limits to even the best boats!

As close as it was going to get to shore…

Sometimes walking beside the boat is faster!

The team (from left to right) – Steve, Peter, Ian and I (Mareike behind the camera)

Relaxing for some!

Thankfully we made it to all the points for the survey, and even more thankfully we found all the key species we were looking for that makes this site favourable. The plants we were looking for were all teeny tiny so photos were difficult, but getting up close to these tiny plants and seeing their petals and fruits to ID them really gave a new appreciation of them and Loch Lomond in general – it’s not all Ospreys and islands afterall!

Elatine hydropiper

Callitriche palustris

Mudwort in flower – not part of the assemblage but so cool!

We had 2 days in a row on the boat as the day before we did our last river trip of the year looking for Himalayan Balsam. Thankfully our volunteers have done a great job this year so there was only a few tiny ones to pull out. The big ones we did find were about to seed so its crucial we get these so we can stop them from establishing next year. At this time of year we collect the seed pods in a bag and dispose of them in a special compost before pulling out the plant. We’ve had a lot of good sessions the last few weeks so as always we want to give a big thank you to our volunteers for their dedication!

What we’re looking for

Pulling is the best way to remove

Lots…

..and lots..

…and lots…

…and lots of balsam pulled!

In wildlife news, here’s a selection of what we spotted in the last week, including fungi, emerald damselflies at Flanders, lots of caterpillars and lizards!

Emerald damselfy

Lizards

Dead mans fingers (fungi not actual fingers!)

Broom moth caterpillar

It’s always worth keeping an eye to the ground when out at these sites, as sometimes the best things are also easily overlooked. Have a good weekend!

Beetle appreciation!

Flanders Moss is an iconic site for many reasons and there’s lots to love about this peaceful bog – it does require a lot of management to keep it healthy though. One of the main problems we have is dealing with the ever-approaching scrub that threatens to take over the bog. If you’ve looked out onto Flanders recently you may have noticed a fair amount of birch scrub. Our volunteers and staff and work parties do a grand job of removing a fair chunk throughout the year but it is a constant fight. Fortunately, there may be a small helping hand in the form of a beetle! We have noticed a lot of birch near the boardwalk has been degraded and it may be partly due to this little guy, the Willow Leaf Beetle Lochmaea caprea!

Although this leaf beetle is named after its affinity for willow, it has two host races, with one feeding on willow and one feeding on birch, like these ones. Eggs of this beetle are laid on the underside of leaves, and then once they reach their larval stage, they start to feed on birch leaves before pupating on the ground and emerging as adults. Both the adults and larvae feed on the leaves of birch, with adults creating randomly dispersed holes in the leaf, whereas larvae skeletonise the leaf leaving very little left.

In low densities, they contribute to natural pruning of host plants and can even stimulate new growth, but they are also useful here as in high densities they can cause quite a lot of localised damage to birch. However natural predators such as ladybugs keep the population of leaf beetles down, and birch is known to ‘bounce back’ from even quite large defoliation, so the answer as to whether these beetles are actually a help to keep our birch population down is yet to be answered – I guess we’ll have to wait and see! Still, it’s been interesting to look out and see all the birch looking not quite as healthy as before… not saying this is all down to the beetle as the decolourisation (looking like an early autumn is approaching) can be due to a variety of factors… but I like to live in hope! But still no taking the foot of the gas quite yet!

You can see the damage here – with decolourisation and nibbling quite evident!

In other Flanders based news, we had our volunteers out here on Wednesday completing a good few tasks that needed to be done, including bracken bashing, mowing and strimming, and replacing some signage. It was a very productive day, and we are forever thankful for the help of our volunteer group as these tasks would have taken double the time without them!

The boardwalk at Flanders has been nice and toasty for our lizards, including some baby lizards that we spotted too looking very cute. There was even a lizard I uncovered when replacing the above signage – only at Flanders Moss eh?

I’ll leave you with this – a small tortoiseshell sunning itself on our sign (or thinking the flowers are real, who knows!). Have a good one!

International Bog Day and summer updates

Yesterday (26th July) was International Bog Day. This is an annual opportunity to raise awareness of all peatlands – the benefits they provide, the threats they face and the ways we can all help protect them – and overall to celebrate the brilliance of bogs! This day is celebrated around the world as bogs are found in 180 countries worldwide, but the UK is especially important as despite our small size, 13% of the world’s blanket bogs are found here. They are very important in many ways, a large one being that they lock away carbon – 10x more than any land-based ecosystem! But unfortunately 80% of Scotland’s peatlands are in poor condition so there’s still a lot of work to be done.

This incredible ability to lock away carbon is due to Sphagnum moss (the building block of peat) and it’s ability to act like a giant sponge to soak up rain, create very wet ground, and stop dead plants from rotting away. They absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in their roots and soil underground. The large amount of water in the soil slows down the decomposition of plant matter and this in turn keeps the carbon from being released into the atmosphere. The partially decomposed material (old moss) forms thick layers of peat over thousands of years, densely packed with locked-away carbon. Pretty amazing stuff, but the downside of this is if bogs become degraded this CO2 will be released and they can actually become one of the biggest sources of carbon. That’s why sites like Flanders and Blawhorn are so important to protect!

Blawhorn Moss NNR

We demonstrated some of peat bogs abilities during our last sessions at the Beechbrae summer club, where the kids took a short walk up to Blawhorn for a day of play, exploring (and learning). The water-absorbing ability of sphagnum moss was very useful when cleaning our hands after some craft time. We also tested how much peat has accumulated over the years at Blawhorn by using our well-loved peat probe which went down into the bog at least 6m, and knowing that sphagnum grows on average 1mm a year, this is 6000 years of peat history (if not more)!

Blawhorn Moss car park and surrounding areas also got a well needed haircut, with Mark at Loch Leven lending a hand (and a ride-on mower) last week to help cut back the paths and car park edges.

Loch Lomond NNR

In other news, we’ve had a good few volunteering sessions the past couple Wednesdays, tackling Himalayan Balsam on the banks of the river Endrick, on foot and on the boat. It’s been very warm for the past few weeks but the volunteers have done a great job of helping us keep on top of our invasives so far!

The insect life was also very easy to spot from the bank, with our pick of various butterflies including the very fresh Small Tortoiseshell. The sound of grasshoppers stridulation (when they rub their legs against their forewings to make a chirping sound) is very much one of the key sounds of summer and I’m glad I managed to get my eye in to spot the culprit in the grass.

The team also got out on Monday with the bathyscopes to try and spot freshwater sponges and any other interesting plants we might find. We weren’t lucky with the sponges… well that is if you don’t count the sponge we found when we parked up the boat!

A fun waders job!

This dish sponge is not quite what we were looking for!

Flanders Moss NNR

Lastly, I managed to quick visit to Flanders this week to give Caroline the Curlew her moisturiser. The dry weather this month has meant she needs a bit of topping up in the hydration department but she’s still looking as good as ever, and you can still see her swaying about on Flanders Moss.

Dragonfly week, Summer club and goodbyes

This week is Dragonfly Week! Running from Saturday 4th July to Sunday 12th July this year, dragonfly week is an opportunity to celebrate our dragonflies and damselflies. British Dragonfly Society are organising various walks, talks and other events across the country in celebration. But why travel far when we have a Dragonfly Hotspot of our own at Flanders Moss? Flanders Moss was designated a Dragonfly Hotspot by the British Dragonfly Society due to its perfect dragonfly habitat and variety of species found here. This is one of only 10 sites in Scotland, so this makes it very special! More info can be found here.

Species found here at Flanders Moss include Common Hawker, 4-spot Chaser, Emerald Damselfly (in order above) but a very special species we have here is the Northern Emerald! I’m still yet to see one myself but I’m sure when I do it will be a very special experience. Here’s a previous blog with more information on this species at Flanders – here.

In other news, Annabelle and I have had a busy (but fun) week this week as it was the first 2 sessions of our Summer Club that is run in partnership with Beechbrae. This is great for us as Sammy at Beechbrae is great at organising everything and keeping the kids in line, so we can just explore with them and have some fun! The first 2 sessions were focused on bushcraft and bugs so this included safe fire starting (and smores!), bug hunting, pond dipping, and so much more!

A selection of the last 2 days!

Lastly, in a bit of bittersweet news, it is Annabelle’s last day with us next week, as she is off to another job. It doesn’t seem long enough that she has been with us but she has had such a positive influence over the team and me specifically – we’re really going to miss her here on the Stirling reserves, but we wish her all the best! Thank you Annabelle!

A quick bug rundown

Another heatwave this week has meant lots of pleasant days at work (sometimes verging on too hot but I know I shouldn’t complain considering the rain is about to return!) and with the good weather, brings out lots of interesting insect life. Butterflies, moths, bees, damselflies – they’re all a lot more easy to spot when the sun comes out, so here’s a quick rundown of what has been seen out and about on reserves this week. We started the week off with a moth trapping session…

White ermine moth was one of the stars of the show!

This was very successful for our first of the year with White Ermine, Small Angle Shades and more – including a Poplar Hawk Moth which is always a fun one to see!

Poplar hawk moth

Small angle shades

White ermine

But you don’t need to set up a moth trap to see some interesting moths – here’s some that we saw in ‘open play’ this week.

Gold swift

Northern wave

All stages of moth and butterfly life cycle can be seen now, as evident but the number of caterpillars we’ve seen! Peacock butterfly caterpillars can be seen on nettle plants at the moment at various stages ranging from very tiny to quite sizable. And keep an eye out for Oak eggar and Drinker moth caterpillars along the boardwalk at Flanders!

Peacock caterpillar

A web of peacocks!

Oak eggar

Drinker moth

Other interesting insects include…

Azure damselfly

A very intricate web over a pond

The owner of the web – Tetragnatha extensa … I think

And for you plant fans out there, the Bog Asphodel and Sundew are back out, as well as some Heath Spotted Orchids.

Bog asphodel

Heath spotted orchid

Lastly, just to prove that we do actually work hard, this week’s job list included boardwalk and bridge repairs at Blawhorn and the start of balsam bashing at Loch Lomond (amongst the looking at bugs!)

Annabelle bashing balsam

One of many piles

Balsam

Rotten slat replaced!

Have a great weekend – can’t believe how close we are to July!

Reserve Round-up

It’s been a busy couple of weeks with the Stirling NNR team, with plenty of time spent out on the reserves, learning new skills, and getting stuck into practical conservation work.

Sundew unfurling, Flanders Moss.

The hunt American Skunk Cabbage continued in Gartfairn Wood, where we spent another day wading through the soupy swamp to find hidden clusters of plants. Although we don’t have any photos we can promise you that there were some absolute whoppers in there, some of the biggest specimens we’ve seen this season. It can sometimes feel a bit like a treasure hunt, although perhaps not quite as rewarding when you find what you’re looking for! Removing invasive species like this helps give native plants a better chance to thrive and keeps the woodland in good condition.

Julie and Annabelle also travelled over to Tentsmuir to help out with a Refugee Festival Scotland event. It was a brilliant day spent exploring the reserve with the group and sharing some of the amazing wildlife and habitats found there. We were lucky enough to spot lots of seals on a sandbank, basking in the sunshine and doing there best banana impressions. We also got stuck into a bug hunt, coastal walk and some creative shell decorating. It was lovely to see people connecting with nature and having fun outdoors.

We also made several visits to both Flanders Moss and Blawhorn Moss, carrying out a mixture of practical jobs around both reserves. There was plenty of litter picking, strimming and general tidying up to keep the sites looking their best for visitors. Between tasks, we took the chance to brush up on our moss identification skill; essential learning for bog based NNR officers!

The week finished with a really productive volunteer day at Flanders Moss. Alongside a fantastic group of volunteers, we spent the day clearing birch and willow saplings from the surface of the bog. While trees are usually a good thing, on a raised bog they’re not always welcome! If left unchecked, they can gradually dry out the peat and encourage the bog to turn into woodland. By removing them, we’re helping to keep the bog wet and healthy, allowing the specialist plants and wildlife that depend on this habitat to continue thriving. It was a rewarding day’s work and great to see so much achieved as a team.

Birch bashing in process.

World Peatland Day (a.k.a ‘moss appreciation day’)

The 2nd of is June World Peatland Day, which gives us the perfect excuse to celebrate our two amazing sites: Flanders Moss and Blawhorn Moss. These vast wetlands may look quiet and unassuming at first glance, but beneath your feet lies one of the planet’s most important natural climate solutions.

What is a peatland?

A peatland is a wetland where dead plant material accumulates faster than it decomposes. Because the ground is waterlogged and low in oxygen, plants don’t fully rot away. Instead, they gradually build up into a deep layer of peat over thousands of years. Think of peat as a giant natural archive, storing thousands of years of plant material, pollen, carbon, clues about past climates. Dig deep enough (I don’t recommend you do this) and you may find perfectly preserved historic artifacts or even people from the past.

Peatland restoration demonstration day at Flanders Moss NNR, March 2014.
©Lorne Gill/SNH

Why are peatlands so important?

Peatlands are among the most carbon-rich ecosystems on Earth. Although they cover only a small proportion of the world’s land surface, they store around 30% of all land-based carbon – more than twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests combined. When peatlands are healthy, they act as vast carbon stores, locking away carbon that would otherwise contribute to climate change but that’s not all they do.

Healthy peatlands:

• Help reduce flood risk by slowing the movement of water through the landscape
• Improve water quality through filtration 
• Support rare plants and animals
• Provide important nesting and feeding grounds for many wading birds

One fact I think we should all be particularly proud of is that Scotland contains around 13% of the world’s blanket bogs, making it internationally important for peatland conservation!

How do peatlands form?

Around 10,000 years ago, as the last Ice Age ended, glaciers retreated from central Scotland. Their movement carved and shaped the landscape, leaving behind hollows and poorly drained ground.

Over thousands of years, waterlogged conditions allowed mosses and other wetland plants to grow. As these plants died, they accumulated layer upon layer of peat. Because decomposition was so slow, the peat continued to build, eventually creating the raised bog landscape we see today.

The peat forms over thousands and thousands of years, yet it grows at only around a millimetre each year. What takes nature thousands to create can be damaged in just a few short decades.

Flanders Moss: a feel good story

Flanders Moss is one of the largest and most important raised bogs in Britain and a genuine good news story for nature conservation. 

Unfortunately in the past, peatlands were often viewed as unprofitable wastelands. Most crops and commercial forestry require drier conditions, so peatlands across the UK have been drained, planted, or cut for fuel and Flanders Moss was no exception. Over the years large areas of Flanders has drained through networks of ditches, peat extracted for fuel to heat local homes, parts of the site were planted with commercial conifers and some hidden corners of the bog were even used as rubbish dumps – we’ve found items that date back before the 1950’s. As a result of all this human interference Flanders Moss is a mere 40% of its natural size.

In 1997–98, NatureScot made the bold decision to remove the plantation and restore the site to bog habitat. It was a major undertaking. Around half of the felled trees were used to create brash mats that supported the machinery needed to remove the rest of the timber. The image below shows the aftermath of that initial work in 1998. A vast expanse of bare, brown ground where trees once stood, look barren and unlike any healthy bog you might see.

Flanders Moss, outcome of felling the plantation, 1998

But restoration is a long-term process and over the following 29 years, extensive work has been carried out to help the bog recover and today, the transformation is extraordinary. The former plantation is almost unrecognisable. Sphagnum mosses and cotton grass are spread across surface of the bog. Cranberry and sundew have returned. Ditches brim with water and the ponds are buzzing with tadpoles and invertebrates. 

On this World Peatland Day, let’s celebrate the mighty moss and remind ourselves that some of Scotland’s most important ecosystems aren’t forests or mountains, but the quietly remarkable bogs beneath our feet. These landscapes store carbon, support rare wildlife, reduce flood risk, and connect us to thousands of years of natural history. Very much worth celebrating!

May Heatwave!

What a week! With temperatures in the high 20s, clear sunny skies and not a drop of rain to be seen, you’d almost think Scotland has been picked up and drop somewhere in Spain! It’s been absolutely glorious here and I am trying to appreciate and soak in every little bit of warmth before it’s inevitably over. Rain is forecast for this weekend so as much as I think we do need a bit of rain, I will miss the weather we’ve been having this week. It’s times like this where I feel very lucky to have an ‘outside job’.

A classic Flanders Moss photo

Annabelle and I were at Flanders on Tuesday doing some strimming and tidying up of the car park and signs ready for summer. This gave us an opportunity to of course take a gander at the pond to see what dragonflies and damselflies were there, and it did not disappoint! The ponds were well and truly alive with 4-spot chasers, large red damselflies, common blue damselflies, and if you looked to the surface of the ponds there were tadpoles and newts galore too – can’t beat it!

2 large red damselflies mating

Tadpoles!

The car park meadow is also looking blooming great right now, with Ragged Robin, Common Vetch, Meadow Buttercup, and Yellow Rattle all now in bloom. The green-veined white and orange-tip butterflies were loving it!

Ragged robin

Yellow rattle

Vetch and buttercups

Orange tip on the ragged robin!

On Wednesday, volunteers and staff took to Loch Lomond to scope out some invasives and to do a litter pick up the river Endrick. As much as this weather made the day enjoyable, it also meant that the loch level was a bit low so there was a section where Steve had to get out and tug the boat along until we got to the river and it was smooth sailing after that, so to speak.

Getting dragged along

Quite an exposed spit

You can see the bottom here!

The wildlife was in full force that day with Common Sandpiper and Ringed Plover on the exposed sand, and the constant presence of juvenile Herons and Little Egret along the river. Add to that some Mallard ducklings, Osprey and Sand Martins and you have yourself a pretty enjoyable boat trip. There was even a pair of large red damsels that landed on the boat!

And to end off a pretty great week, today Annabelle and I were teaming up with Sammy from Beechbrae for an event with Blackridge primary. The kids were getting into some proper exploring and trying to hunt for some interesting bugs. This lovely metallic beetle was a great find!

Jewel reed beetle

Weevil on hawthorn flowers

And it wouldn’t be a day on the bog without someone getting stuck! Thankfully I am innocent this time but I did have to play the hero to get one of the kids wellies out the thick mud so ended up very muddy myself. It did give us a great opportunity to test out the water absorbability of sphagnum moss – a good few clumps of sphagnum managed to make my hands squeaky clean again – amazing stuff!

The aftermath of the rescue – and this was after a lot of the mud already wiped off!

Tiny Treasures

Loch Lomond is home to fragments of Scotland’s Atlantic oak woodland, also known as Celtic or temperate rainforest. Unlike tropical rainforest, this rainforest is cool, damp and mossy, shaped by high rainfall, mild temperatures and clean, humid air. These conditions allow mosses, liverworts, lichens and ferns to thrive on almost every surface: tree trunks, boulders, cliffs, the woodland floor and even our boat! Scotland’s rainforest is internationally important, and Loch Lomond is one of the places where these special western oakwoods still survive. So we’ve been out and about on the Loch this week looking at all the small things, on the hunt for some rare and wonderful plants that show just how unique this habitat is. Stephen, the botany legend, knew all the good spots to find some tiny woodland treasures.

First up was tree moss, Climacium dendroides. Once you’ve seen it, the name makes perfect sense: it stands upright like a miniature palm tree, as if a tiny tropical island has appeared among the mossy woodland floor. Species like this are part of what makes Atlantic oakwoods so special. In these damp, sheltered places, mosses and liverworts don’t just survive, they flourish.

Next, we found early purple orchid, Orchis mascula. It isn’t specific to Atlantic woodland, but it is often associated with old, undisturbed woodland, and it was far too beautiful not to include. Its deep purple flowers are one of spring’s loveliest sights. It also has quite a bit of folklore attached to it. In the highlands the plant was sometimes called ‘Gràdh is Fuadh’ which means ‘love and hate’. It was believed that if someone ate the large root of the plant they would fall in love you, but if they ate the small root they would despise you. 

Then came one of the most exciting finds of the day. After scrambling up the side of a cliff in the woodland, we found Wilson’s filmy fern, Hymenophyllum wilsonii. This tiny fern looks almost more like seaweed than a fern, growing tucked among mosses and lichens in damp, shaded places. Its fronds are only one cell thick, which gives them their delicate, translucent quality. It’s exactly the sort of plant that reminds you why these rainforests matter: small, easily missed, and completely extraordinary.

Last but not least were the oak apple galls. Almost every oak leaf we looked at seemed to have these tiny apple-like growths attached. They are caused by the oak apple gall wasp, Biorhiza pallida, which lays its eggs in oak tissue. The tree responds by forming a gall around the developing larva, creating both food and shelter for the young wasp. It’s a miniature world hidden in plain sight. A whole life cycle contained inside what looks like a tiny fruit.

Days like this are a reminder that nature doesn’t always shout for attention. Sometimes the most remarkable things are small, tucked away, or growing quietly on a damp rock. Even when it feels like there’s nothing to see, if you look a little closer and wait a just moment, nature will always have something beautiful or surprising to show you.