Well the wood ants are out, the spring usher moths are flapping away and the grouse are dancing. Very exciting times. It’s been a busy few weeks at Corrimony, we’ve had a lot more thinning to do in the pine forest to get it up to scratch and make it as good for wildlife as it can be. Who knew there were about ten different tools and methods for ring barking trees to create standing deadwood? Only Simon could know these things. We’ve also been removing some more non-native trees but there is a lot more to do! Lucky for us, we’ve had Trees for Life volunteers with us the last couple of weeks, and they really are a fantastically fun, committed and interesting people. We’ve been planting lots of trees and also setting up a little experiment to see whether a lot more digging before the trees go in or a bit of rock phosphate afterwards will help our juniper, scots pine, aspen, willow and birch settle into their new home a little better. Finally, I’ve been going out on the ATV, doing some flailing and carrying trees around in a trailer. It sounds very fun and/or serene, but it is still totally terrifying. I still wear my jazzy helmet though.
I’ve been helping out with wildlife events as much as possible, including the local RSPB wildlife explorers group and at the best cafe in the Highlands, the Bog Cotton cafe in Cannich, who will be working with us to create a wildlife area on their campsite. I will also be heading to a local nursery soon to go back to talking to kiddywinks about feeding birds – I can’t keep away from them!
Invertebrate wise, I’m looking forward to spring as the wood ants wake up and more varied species of moths come to my moth trap. I’ll hopefully be doing a dragonflies course thanks to some money from the very generous BRISC (and a certain Samantha Ranscombe!) that will be put to good use on the reserve, going out on Hannah’s scoter boat again (YAY!) and looking into some of the deadwood invertebrates on Corrimony.
Ach I almost forgot the grouse! I’ve been hearing about black grouse ever since I started, and have spotted them frequently on the reserve, often flying away from me rather quickly, but now I have seen them a couple of times actually lekking while taking groups out on a ‘black grouse safari’. The males gather at dawn and dusk on traditional upland sites throughout most of the year to show off to each other and practice their lekking skills by jumping up in the air, making strange hissing noises, fighting and running around like clockwork turkeys/fancy chickens(?) It is genuinely the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen, but in an amazing, darwinian, sexual selection type of way. By around late March, one male has established dominance and his close relations will either hang around the fringes showing off to each other or establish ‘satellite leks’ where they may get a chance to mate with the dispersed females. The unrelated females will be around for the next couple of months, occasionally showing themselves on the lek to mate with the ‘top dog grouse’ (they are nothing like dogs). Once they have chicks pecking around over the next few weeks, I will be investigating what invertebrates the chicks like to feed on. Black grouse are red listed in the UK, due to factors including deer fencing hits and habitat loss affecting adults as well as wetter summers reducing chick survival – hopefully the work the RSPB is doing will help save them as a breeding bird in the UK.
Gwen – Upland Invertebrates Apprentice