Looking Ahead

WHO WANTS TO GO WHERE … AND WHAT DO YOU MOST WANT TO SEE?!!

Planning of the 2011 tour programme is already underway, scheduled to include the regular fare of popular domestic themes and destinations together with several overseas tours. Although we have our own ideas as to what our tour programme should contain, it would be really good to be fed your personal thoughts. It may be that there are places you would love to visit but which don’t feature among our tours, or perhaps there are specific birds, mammals, wildflowers etc. that particularly interest you. It could be that we have previously offered a tour that you were unable to join, but would now like to take part in if it were to be repeated. Your feedback is the most important determining factor to influence tour programme content.

GGW’s Strathnairn Nature Reserve
Apart from planting a few hundred more hazels and oaks plus a whole lot of brambles on our reserve in Strathnairn above Loch Ness, during late October, there were few advances in management last season. An exception is the ongoing erection of a two-metre high fence along the east boundary, intended to limit public access and thereby minimize disturbance to wildlife. The area we are attempting to shield is a main zone of Pine Marten activity, partly because we feed the animals. Many of our tour groups have visited the location to be shown the signs. They may also remember a Pine Marten nest-box on the ground at the end of a track, due to be raised and fitted to a suitable position in a tree. Being double-walled and fully insulated (martens are choosy about choice of den and like their comforts) the box is incredibly heavy, hence the delay in hoisting it up into a tree. During a visit at the end of November my wife Karen inserted her hand into the nest box entrance and reprimanded me for using fiberglass insulation as bedding – unhealthy for martens she insisted! After I confidently retorted that there could not possibly be loose insulation in the box she rechecked but couldn’t feel anything. We quickly realized that the soft wooly material she felt was actually the fur of a live Pine Marten!

Early season tasks we hope to get to grips with include the burning of heather and killing of a few trees by girdling (stripping a ring of bark near the base). Patch-burning of heather promotes regeneration of wildflowers; killing a few trees each year promotes habitat for woodpeckers and other wildlife, creating openings in which the ground flora benefits. The following images provide some idea as to the locational aspect of the reserve, also presenting an insight into the results of ongoing management.