Countryside Rangers Blog

Welcome to the High Life Highland Countryside Rangers blog! Join us here for lots of info from the team about local wildlife across the Highlands. We will be sharing our knowledge with you on a variety of subjects, such as fungi, birds, mammals and insects. Each of the Rangers will also provide an insight into some of the projects they are involved in and the work they do on the ground to help protect the biodiversity of the Highlands.

Birds in your Garden in February

The biting cold, frozen earth and driving rain makes the second month of the year a bleak one. February is a tough time for all of us and particularly for our garden birds, some of which will already be starting to think about nest building for the spring. There is very little food available in February and it can be hard to access with extreme weather conditions. You can give your local feathered friends a boost by putting out some food for them, this will also give them the extra energy they need to keep warm; this is a big issue for small birds, who have a larger surface area relative to their size and can lose heat very quickly. Watching birds flock to the bird feeder is also a really enriching sight, and can really help us feel connected to nature at what can feel a bleak time of year.

What to feed the birds

It’s best to provide a wide variety of different food types in your garden. Bird seed mix is a good place to start and will attract seed eating birds like, starlings, sparrows and chaffinches. Unsalted peanuts and fat balls are particularl

y energy rich and will be a favourite in the winter. If you’re lucky peanuts may also attract Great Spotted Woodpecker to your garden, a fair

ly common occurrence in the Highlands. I was lucky enough to have a woodpecker visit my feeders one season but alas they have not visited again. They are a great sight on the birdfeeder, as they are not usually seen so close.

To cater to insect eating species, like our friendly Robin, you could put out mealworms. If you put some on the ground this will also attract Blackbirds and maybe even some hedgehog attention, (although not in February). Birds will love any apples and berries you put out, or go one better and plant some fruit trees in your garden. My neighbours garden backs up to our kitchen window and they have a lovely crab apple tree, this has attracted redwings and waxwings, winter visitors from the continent. They make the crossing over the North Sea for the fruits and berries left on Scottish trees, as the feeding isn’t so good in their home country. This treat, can only be seen during the winter months in the UK – all from our kitchen window!

Keeping bird feeders healthy

It’s important that if you do intend to feed your local birds that you keep your bird feeding station healthy. Wash your feeders regularly, every week, if possible, with an animal safe disinfectant. If this seems like too much effort you could buy some extra bird feeders and have a rotational system, putting clean ones out and bringing down dirty ones to clean before the next change over. Try not to let bird poo accumulate around your bird feeders, this is a big cause of transmission of diseases between birds, so keeping the feeders clean should protect your garden visitor.

Once you are all set up with your safe, clean, and fully stocked bird feeding station you can sit back with a cup of tea and get to know your garden birds.

For more information about your local bird species visit:

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/

The Boreal Forest: A personal perspective – January 2023

For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated with the idea of miles and miles of continuous pine forest full of wolves and bears and big cats in a scenery of snow and ice and that blue freezing colour interspersed with the orange/dark green hue of the impressive Scots Pine trees and the gorgeous Birch trees cloaked in the winter plum tinges of their anticipatory winter buds.

Old ladies with scary intentions, with big pointy teeth and sweeties for all ‘good’ children…friendly beavers the other side of a wardrobe, warm and cosy in their lodge against the freezing inhospitable winter outside. The Ice Queen or White Witch and her scary sleigh hauled by astonishing white reindeer in temperatures that froze your breath.

Ma challenging a bear in ‘Little House in Big Woods’ (The precursor book to ‘Little House on the Prairie’). Pa needing a rope to mark his route as he went from barn to barn to check the livestock. Tales of snow and ice and coping.

White Fang disappearing into the snow-covered landscape. Clear skies. The Milky Way for ever and ever. Shooting stars and making a wish. Sparkling world. Bright full moon. Stories from the stars.

To put it into context I was brought up on the rather safe/tame chalk downs south of London, with absolutely no concept of ‘wilderness’ whatsoever apart from what I read in books which I read voraciously. Dominated by Ash, Hazel, Oak, Wayfaring Tree, Beech, Field Maple, and Hawthorn. Yew and Holly being the only evergreen species I recall – actually it turns out that the yew could possibly be the original Christmas Tree and the Holly continues to be associated with Christmas since ‘pagan’ times. I digress. But no pines, firs and spruces. Being brought up in the south downs with deciduous trees, wildflower meadows and fields/hedgerows in a warmer part of the UK, the idea of a frozen huge scary forest dominant in tall imposing pines fascinated me as a kid.

So: jumping forward – my partner and I visited friends who were living in Strathspey Hogmanay 1993/4 and saw these huge areas of Scots pine trees, Juniper, Birch and Aspen peeking through. Finally, an evergreen pine forest. It seemed to last forever.

We stayed at Dreggie, North of Grantown with the most stunning views over the Cairngorms showcasing the extent of the Caledonian forest in the Strath. An amazing view of forest and mountain. Then to cap it all, and all from our friends garden we saw an array of amazing wildlife – the most notable being a crested tit feeding on a tree in their garden, red squirrel on their bird feeder and a mountain hare in the open ground. Astonishing! Then to boot – at night – the sky! Owls calling – while the sky put on a show like we’d never seen before – the milky way in all her glory with shooting stars too! That’s it – decision made – we’re moving up here!

We initially moved to Torgoyle, Glenmoriston on the Skye road, full of trees especially plantations, where the ancient Caledonian forest had been underplanted with spruce. But the original ground flora remained and in particular included the most astonishing moss assemblage’s I’d ever seen: reds, greens, yellows and bright bright greeny yellow. That I soon learnt was called ‘fairy moss’ and for a very good reason! If you weren’t careful, you could very easily get very stuck – these floating bog pools can be very very deep. I was hooked and I especially fell in love with the bog woodlands with open pools of water of various sizes and with weird specialist vegetation species such as sundew, bog rosemary, cranberry, the sphagnums! In particular I loved these floating mats of mosses and the feeling of treading two worlds. The real and solid contrasting with the seemingly fragile world of water and floating plants. Our ancestors felt the same – think on all the ‘bog people’ who have been found – particularly in Ireland.

From there we explored such amazing forests such as Glen Affric. Still a favourite of mine, especially in a canoe. Miles and miles of unending forest interspersed with lochs, lochans, bogs and open areas with rocks covered in lichens and mosses and ferns and other wonderful, amazing plants. Glen Affric – OMG but it felt primeval.

Fast forward a decade or so and I’m offered the most wonderful opportunity to take part in a week’s study tour all expenses paid and arrangements made for you, including flights, by the European Erasmus+ Archnetwork project with funding from the European Commission.

In Latvia. With a group of my peers in conservation also from Scotland. We were hosted by the Latvian State Forest Service, so had very knowledgeable guides with employment in ecology, forestry, and conservation. A fabulous opportunity to examine how our European continental cousins in Latvia approach conservation and cope with large predators such as wolves and lynx and larger birds such as the cranes and storks.

To say this trip blew my mind is an understatement. It completely changed my mind about hunting (a close connection to wildlife is necessary to successfully hunt – today we’d call it ‘engagement’) and opened my psyche to forests with wild creatures roaming about. The same animals we’d made extinct in our own country many many centuries previously. It kinda shamed me to be honest. We think of ourselves in the UK as being somehow superior to our continental cousins – we could not be more wrong! They are so much more progressive than we can ever be. There were signs of wolves, beavers, elk. A bear was on the news as it was swimming its way to Latvia from Russia! There were wildflower meadows in-between the forests with huge numbers of cowslips and globeflowers! So many globeflowers they were in vases in our bedrooms! We had the full boreal forest experience one unforgettable evening, when immersed in the heat of the sauna or screeching at the cold of the water in the dipping pond.

But one of the best bits for me was going up the watch tower and seeing the vastness of the boreal forest with all its sub habitats full of spruce, birch, aspen, ash, willow, mires, and bogs. It was so exciting to see such an expanse of forest in all directions as far as the eye could see. Apparently this bog system within the forest was so inaccessible particularly to tanks that it hid many folk from the Germans and the Russians during the second world war. Historically, Latvia was the hunting grounds of the Russian Czars.

More recently I was again lucky enough to secure a place on another Erasmus+ ArchNetwork trip. This time to Finland in 2018. Again, it was quite life changing. As one of our party decried at our accommodation destination – trees and water – what more could you want?! The focus of this trip was a bit different being the very close relationship/connection between the forestry industry and the education system. But fascinating, nevertheless. Coexistence and empathy with the natural world even though most of the population lives in an urban environment. So saying, a Finnish urban environment is quite different to our idea of one – they have trees everywhere. And most apartments have large windows that allow the outside to become the inside. There is also the infrastructure for walking, cycling, Nordic walking and cross-country skiing. So civilised.

I’m going to close this blog with the observation I had in both Latvia and Finland – they don’t have a separate word for woods – as in going to the woods – taking the dog to the woods. This is because they only have forest. Lots and lots of forest.

Finland: metsä which is the same as the word they use for forest: metsä. In Latvia: meži and mežs

My take on this is that their forests aren’t as broken up and fragmented as ours. But also, there is a higher % forest cover: Scotland 18%. Latvia 54% (roughly the size of Scotland with roughly the same population: mainly concentrated around the Capital Riga). Finland: 5 times the size with 75% forest cover with roughly similar population to Scotland.

Saranne Bish – Countryside Ranger for Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey

Previous Blog Posts:

The Boreal Forest Blog – January 2023

Reindeer Blog – December 2022

Adder blog – November 2022

Breathing in the trees at Beinn Eigh National Reserve – October 2022

Owl Pellet Investigation – August 2022

Rare Bumblebee Home Visit – July 2022

Dipper – March 2022

Tardigrades – February 2022

Highland mammals project – January 2022

Ardersier Seashore Day – Working with Refugee Families – December 2021