Glen Affric

This blog follows on from Part 1 and Part 2 in this series with the same name, covering some of the species and ecological relationships I observed in Glen Affric during my visits there in 2018. It picks up the story in the middle of August, when the forest was full of a wide diversity of insects, many of them feeding on the flowering plants that flourish in the later stages of summer.

This blog features some more of the remarkable diversity of species that I came across during my regular trips to Glen Affric in 2018, picking up from Part 1, which concluded with my visit there on the summer solstice in late June. My next trip to the glen was on 5th July, and I made four others that month as well, because summer is the time of maximum biological activity, and there are more species to be seen then than in any other season of the year. [Read more…] about Unseen biodiversity of Glen Affric, Part 2

This has been an unusually mild winter in the Highlands of Scotland so far, with very little snow having fallen and temperatures consistently being well above zero (and often as high as 10 degrees C) on most days. There’s also been surprisingly little rain, and although the hours of daylight are very short, it feels as though winter hasn’t really arrived yet. Perhaps this will be a repeat of the last two or three years, when the coldest weather and most snow has been in March or even April, rather than the more usual months of January and February. [Read more…] about A celebration of frost

This year I’ve been making regular trips out to Glen Affric, usually once a week, to photograph the Caledonian Forest and its associated biological diversity. Although I’ve been visiting the glen since 1979, and have been going there regularly ever since, especially after Trees for Life began practical work there in 1989, I’ve stepped up the frequency of my visits this year. I’ve done this as I wanted to develop a better feel for the changes that occur throughout the seasons and to get to know in more depth at least some of the cycles of Nature that occur in the glen. [Read more…] about Unseen biodiversity of Glen Affric, part 1

Although I’ve made hundreds of trips to Glen Affric over the past 40 years, every time I go there, I have a different experience and see some new things. When I went out for a day in the middle of July, I stopped as I often do along the public road between Badger Falls and Dog Falls, as that is the richest and most biologically diverse area in the glen. As I walked along, my eye was drawn to the leaves of a young alder tree (Alnus glutinosa) that was growing right beside the road, as they were covered in brightly-coloured galls. This casual observation then led me to spending a couple of hours with the alder, as I discovered more and more of interest on this one tree – enough to fill this blog!

One of my favourite events of the year is that time in spring when the new leaves of the deciduous trees re-appear after the dormancy of winter. It always feels to me like there is a tremendous sense of joy and celebration in Nature when the bright green foliage of the trees bursts out from the buds, transforming the forest as it does so. I always refer to this part of the spring season as ‘The return of the leaves’, and I wrote a blog about that, with numerous photos of the new leaves of various different trees opening out from their buds, back in 2015. [Read more…] about The return of the leaves, revisited

At the moment we’re in the middle of National Insect Week, a biennial series of events organised by the Royal Entomological Society to encourage people of all ages to learn more about insects. As someone who has a special interest in insects (as well as many other organisms in Nature, from trees and birds to fungi and slime moulds) it’s a good opportunity for me to promote some of the creatures I’m passionate about – ‘the little things that run the world’, to quote the title of a famous paper by the eminent Harvard University biologist, Edward O. Wilson. [Read more…] about An aphid discovery in National Insect Week

On the 26th of February, exactly two weeks after the day that featured in part 2 of this blog, I went back out to the glen again. I didn’t realise it when I set off, but the day would turn out to be part 3 of this trilogy of Glen Affric winter blogs, and in many ways for me it was the most satisfying and stunning of those three separate visits. The day had two distinct halves to it, with the first being characterised by ice, while the afternoon turned out to be sunny and cloudless, so this blog neatly encapsulates two of the three elements in the trilogy’s title. [Read more…] about Sun, snow & ice in Glen Affric, part 3

It was just eight days after my visit to Glen Affric that featured in Part 1 of this blog when I returned to the glen, and there was a fresh covering of snow everywhere. This middle blog of my winter Glen Affric trilogy therefore very much focuses on snow, although the sun and ice will also make brief cameo appearances. The snow was quite thin in depth as I drove into the glen, but in the sheltered gorge of the Dog Falls area it was deeper, so I stopped there to make the most of the wintry conditions. [Read more…] about Sun, snow & ice in Glen Affric, part 2

This is my first blog about Scotland in almost 6 months, so people may have been wondering why there was such a long gap in my postings. The simple answer is that there was a major change in my life in the second half of last year. Trees for Life, the charity I founded to help restore the Caledonian Forest in 1986, and into which I had poured my energy, creativity, passion and heart for the next 31 years, decided they no longer had a role for me in the organisation. I therefore went through the traumatic experience of being made redundant by the charity I founded, and which I had led to numerous awards for its conservation work.  [Read more…] about Sun, snow & ice in Glen Affric, part 1