10 August 2012 – Midweek Group
Our Himalayan Balsam duties are not only confined to the locality of the Cromarty Firth, but have spread southwards to Drumnadrochit. A smaller affair, we don’t usually need to take the full Midweek Group down this way, but since it was to be only us VOs heading this way, and to make it worthwhile to take a larger group, VO Matt suggested we incorporate a wee trip up Glen Affric. A “healthy walk” is always welcomed here at TCV, so we were given the go ahead.
We did of course do some work before heading to the hills! Our Balsam task for the morning involved us splitting into 2 teams – 3 who waded over the river and 3 who stayed on drier land! The Balsam on this site, which has been tackled for a few years now (although this is TCV’s first year of doing it), is not as plentiful as some of the sites we are tackling for Cromarty Firth Fisheries. This is great to see, as we can see that the clearing of neverending Balsam does pay off! For this site however, it means the Balsam is trickier to spot as it is more the rogue plant or two hiding away that we are looking for. This does lead to moments of doubt regarding our ID skills!!
Linda picking the first Balsam plant found! We were so happy to find one, as we were beginning to doubt our ID skills – the Balsam couldn’t have ALL gone, could it? As it turns out, no!
The photo on the left should show the lengths we go to to get that elusive Balsam, which is hiding in 6ft bracken on an almost vertical slope, surrounded by nettles. Sadly the picture never quite shows the reality!
The photo at the bottom right in the above set does us no favours in trying to spot these elusive Balsam plants – until you are up close this plant looks suspiciously like the dreaded Himalayan Balsam. But it has four leaves from the same point, and is not as smooth to touch, infact it is a bit “hairy”. Anyone know what this plant is?
Once the balsam was tackled it was time for our trip up Glen Affric. As you’ll see from the photos we could not have had better weather for this outing. We headed on up to the Dog Falls car park for our lunch and the use of their composting toilet which was proving more popular due to the “normal” toilet being slightly overused and therefore not flushing!
VO Matt suggested we go for a walk further up the glen where we could see the area Trees for Life have been working with the Caledonian Pine regeneration projects. This was a great suggestion and proved to be a lovely path into the hills also.
The group heading up; volunteers Kirsty & Aaron
We gave Kirsty the office camera to take some pics of the afternoon and she didn’t disappoint us!
Lots of Bell Heather & Caledonian Pines, or Granny Pines as Kirsty told us they are known
As captured in Kirsty’s photographs, the landscape here is just breathtaking, as is all the plant/wildlife in the area. Flowers, frogs, caterpillars, butterflies… and there is certainly NOT a shortage of clegs and midgies!!
Another thing that doesn’t disappear, even in the Scottish summer, is the snow!!
Obligatory group photo!
VO Matt, Kirsty, Duncan, Linda & Aaron
A fab day was had with our lovely volunteers and hopefully they enjoyed it just as much as Matt and I (Gillian) did 🙂
More photos of our afternoon can be found here. And the rest of our activities can be found on our photostream page.