Dundreggan

In a recent blog I wrote about the fallen giants – some of the large Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris) and oaks (Quercus petraea) that were blown down by the powerful storm that hit Dundreggan on the night of 5th December 2013. Since then, we’ve continued to find other trees throughout the woodland on the estate that were either uprooted and blown over, or had substantial limbs broken off them. This blog entry is about one of those – an aspen tree (Populus tremula) – that lost part of a major branch in the storm. [Read more…] about Life and death in an aspen tree

On the night of Thursday 5th December, an unusually powerful storm hit the north of Scotland, with winds gusting at over 100 miles per hour. It caused widespread disruption, with all train services cancelled the next morning, numerous roads closed by fallen trees and a loss of power to thousands of homes. At Dundreggan, our staff were left without power and telephones for almost 48 hours, and had no water supply for a while either, but otherwise were not harmed by the storm. [Read more…] about Fallen giants

At the beginning of September, I posted a blog about the ‘Wonder tree’ – a rowan tree (Sorbus aucuparia) on Dundreggan that I’d visited with some aphid surveyors in July, and which was supporting a whole host of invertebrate life. About 10 days later I spent a week at Dundreggan, when I was co-focalising a special ‘Up Close to Nature’ volunteer Conservation Week, so I took the opportunity during the day off in the programme to re-visit the tree, to see if the aphids were still there, and what else might be on the tree.

[Read more…] about Return to the Wonder Tree

In late July, we had two specialists, Bob Dransfield and Bob Brightwell, come to Dundreggan for a week to do a follow-up survey for aphids to that which Ed Baker had done there in 2012. As usual when we have biodiversity surveyors at Dundreggan, I spent a couple of days there with them, and in this case that turned out to be the first and last days that the Bobs, as they call themselves, were there. In comparison to the phenomenal abundance of aphids we experienced in 2012, there have been comparatively few apparent this year, but the Bobs did find a number of species that hadn’t been recorded last year, particularly on herbaceous plants. [Read more…] about The wonder tree

On Saturday 22nd June, the day after the summer solstice, I went out to Dundreggan, to celebrate the longest day of the year with a day’s photography in the forest there. At mid-summer we get about 20 hours of daylight in the north of Scotland, and it never gets fully dark. Even at midnight and 1 am, there’s always some light over the horizon in the north of the sky. I wasn’t planning to stay out that late though, but I was looking forward to enjoying the lush growth and abundant life of the season, as we officially moved from spring into summer. [Read more…] about Summer solstice at Dundreggan

A couple of weeks after my last visit to the Red Burn on Dundreggan I was back there again for another day of photography. The weather had been unseasonably cloudless and warm during  the previous week, but there had been hard frosts at night, so the ground was frozen. There was no snow anywhere to be seen on the lower slopes of the estate, which was unusual after such a run of freezing nights, but when I reached the Red Burn I was delighted to see some beautiful ice formations lining its banks in many places. [Read more…] about Ice on the Red Burn