The sandy beach at Ardverikie

This is the beautifil sandy beach at Ardverikie on Loch Laggan. Ardverikie was where the television series Monarch of the Glen was filmed. Scottish native Woods are currently putting together an upland management plan for this wider area, and this was me on my way to Fort William yesterday to pave the way for a first draft going out, then on to Inverness and back to Aberfeldy, 260 mile round trip.

Looking towards Stob Coire Easian from Ardverike

Blair Castle in Highland Perthshire

Blair Castle is surrounded by policy woodlands interspersed with native tree species.

Native Woodland Discussion Group in the Trossachs

The NWDG 2010 Excursion was held in the Trossachs. Here's Forestry Commission's Russel Lamont describing management at Loch Katrine on the first day of the visit.
Loch Katrine is surrounded by many different types of woodland. We were looking at the wood pasture that is found on the less visited southern side of the loch. These two oak trees date from the early 19th century, and appear to have been pollarded in the past.

The visits always generate a lot of debate and discussion. Here's part of the group combining a tea break with some more conversation.

On the final day, we took a boat trip on the Lake of Monteith to visit Inchmahome Island. Mary Queen of Scots stayed for a brief period as a child at the priory on the island. The priory is now a ruin, but some of the trees on the island are associated with her stay. The sweet chestnut in the picture is a veteran tree: the big limb that has been removed from the main tree was around 200 years old. Scotland is home to a rapidly expanding population of Canada geese. Part of their success might be down to their indifference to human disturbance: the goose to the left of the picture is sitting on eggs right beside one of the main paths on the island.

Camserney Community garden

This is the Camserney Community garden outside Aberfeldy, established and ran by staff and pupils at Breadalbane Academy. The site has grown up very quickly and matured over tw seasons, and is already needing to expand, which it will do by the autumn. Scottish Native Woods accessed some funding through the People's Postcode Trust to buy a rotovator, a gazebo, some trees and hedging, and we are also establsihing a propogation unit here to grow aspen trees from native Highland perthshire sources. A very interesting little experiment, and a very interesting site, with something different going on on nearly eery single square metre. Well done to Peter Butter and his crew.

Local schools' involvement

View from above

View from the road

urban trees

Pictures from a sunny afternoon walking back from a rendez vous in Glasgow.
The first one shows budleia getting a grip on an abandoned industrial site. Budleia is great at finding wee cracks in the tarmac and the brick work and creating its own urban jungle.
Second picture is at the other end of tree life: a rather more deliberately designed and managed line of trees, just beside the Clyde in Glasgow's Internation Finacial Services District.

Pine trees above Dunalastair Water

Where in the shire?

Which way did Bilbo go?  Did you see him?

Not a knotty ash but a knotty alder

This ash tree must have been dipping in the river for decades

River Blackadder living up to its name

Beech invasion

These young beech trees are invading a SSSI site at the bottom of Glenlyon. There is an avenue of mature beech trees either side of the road, and they are now regenerating profusely. Beech casts a very dense shade and can out-compete other native trees and woodland flora. It is however a beautiful amneity tree, both in autumn and and in the spring time. Many people associate lower Glenlyon with beech. The big tree here in the middle is an oak, the natural native species on this site.

Beech within a coupe fell

This little group of beech is getting away in a clearing. In many ways, this is good forestry practice, regeneration in a coupe felling system, and beech is well suited to this.

Under the hazel bushes

You can see the beech regeneration here spreading in under this hazel coppice. hazel is just a shrub that requires a reasonable degree of lighting. Beech is a big tree that casts a dense shade. Left unchecked, it will come to dominate this area completely, including to the detriment of our native species.

Jimmy Lambie's pigs

These are domestic iron-age type pigs, not wild boar, but they HAVE escaped from their field, and they ARE running wild in the woods in Glenlyon today.

"Who are you looking at?"

Good Friday

Good Friday was a sunny day out in Argyll. Above's the swelling bud of oak

Hazel is getting close to leafburst


This is Dog's Mercury, with fresh saw toothed leaves pushing through the dead fronds of a fern, and the bubbly, paler flower appearing in the centre

Daffodils peeping through

Wider view........

What sort of tree is this?

It is a willow, looking very red. The wind/ snow had pulled it down over a path at the Birks of Aberfeldy

A tidy-up

Bridge over a raging stream

"While o'er their heads the hazels hing...."

Hazel catkins at the Falls of Moness.......