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| North Craig - pastel on paper 9/7/23 |
The ancient peat moors of this Angus glen will be no more in a few years time. The pleasant roll and dive of hill against billowing sky will be lost to conifer stick and needle, drainage scar and high fence. The natural carbon lock hidden within these peat moors wiped clean only for the carbon conscious to claim that trees are the quick, obvious way to achieve a 'net zero' carbon goal, and to 'build back greener'.
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| Sketching today 9/7/23 |
To entertain politics over the matter is futile when a choice has been made and this home to many forms of flora and fauna will undoubtedly vanish. A dark umbrella will shadow the land with its 'green' cloak to offer up another processed landscape which will come with an invented profile of improving nature to benefit all. A tradition of glen life breathes here; the deer stalker with his hill ponies, the farmer with his black-faced sheep, the game-keeper with his grouse.
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| Golden Eagle #1 9/7/23 |
Centuries of those traditions have left but a few scars on the land; the patches of muir-burn jig-saw the hills down to grassy slopes that border rush filled bog, making a cornucopia of habitats that please nature's family. Crofter folk of olden times made a living here by their blood, sweat and tears; hand hewn rigs or lazy beds mark out the boulder cleared fields where crops would be grown and further up the glen mountain crags crash into corries where deer roam and eagles fly; the way it was for years.
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| Cropped tree plantation 9/7/23 |
The plantation creep over this glen is very evident further down where the scars already caused by machine tree cropping regiments the landscape into a deathly, ashen grey where little thrives between the cut stumps. 'Build back greener' has two faces; one loudly promises to neutralise our carbon consciences and the other silently destroys the land upon termination of the 'green' agenda.
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| Golden Eagle #1 with a full crop and gammy leg 9/7/23 |
Anyway, my curiosity was spiked to have a last look at this glen, embedded within the Cairngorms National Park, before the march of greenness overtakes sense and visual amenity. Forest Land Scotland is currently undertaking surveys of flora and fauna probably in an attempt to conserve some habitats for plantation displaced species like the Curlew and Ringlet butterfly, as examples. Whether or not the newly formed FLS will follow the usual blanket tree planting process of the old Forestry Commission is not clear ..... hope not.
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| Red Kite 9/7/23 |
An initial and lovely contact was with a Golden Eagle being harassed by a pair of Ravens. On closer inspection the eagle was flying with a dropped, gammy leg that would be useless by the looks of it, yet the eagle had a full crop; seemingly it is a frequent visitor to the glen and has been seen often over the years. Later a pair of eagles were seen being mobbed by a pair of Kestrels and two pairs of these 'wind-hovers' were spotted today hunting for the plentiful population of Short-tailed Voles that scurry at every step in grassy places.
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| Common Lizard looks pregnant 9/7/23 |
That would be the third Golden Eagle that I have observed with a dropped, gammy leg in the Angus glens over the years and on all occasions it was the right leg ..... strange. Previously I photographed one female collecting heather kows and her leg hung useless too, with some sort of growth or swelling that showed up when the bird was perched; the leg ring, which had been attached by bird ringers when a chick, shone in the light and I wondered if that could be the problem source ..... that eagle subsequently vanished.
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| Common Buzzards 9/7/23 |
I believe the right leg is preferred for ringing and the metal ring is placed over the feathered tarsus and I have concerns about fungal or bacterial infection occurring with the constant abrasion or by an over-tight fit. Welfare aftercare when ringing or satellite tagging does not enter the heads of those who religiously carry out this fetish hobby. Of course, the usual denial of any problems arising from incompetent ringing or tagging procedures only emphasises the arrogance of these people.
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| Curlew 9/7/23 |
I digress, dense forest plantation leads to less foraging ground area for some raptors like our Golden Eagle and Kestrel here, and less breeding habitat for waders like the Curlew, but it does increase cover for the predatory Red Fox and Pine Marten or nesting for the Common Buzzard, Red Kite and Goshawk. So, in effect, it will be a no win situation for many of the current glen occupants including deer that will have to be culled in order for suckling trees to flourish. Dense plantation is not our natural and native style of tree coverage in Scotland and never existed beforehand so the land should not be abused by it now.
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| Oystercatchers 9/7/23 |
The future will decide what is best for nature but the consensus of past experience declares that dense forest planting has a negative result on gaining a balance that benefits pre-existing flora and fauna. Culling control of predatory foxes in dense woodland is nigh-on impossible without the use of pack hunting dogs, now outlawed by the Scottish government; birds that ground nest on the bare, fringe margins of dense woodland are consistently predated by foxes.
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| Golden Eagles #1 and #2 with a Kestrel mobbing 9/7/23 |
I probably will not witness the end result of this 'buy out' from the Scottish government and they do have a 'head in the sand' and 'bash on regardless' attitude to Scotland's landscape whenever the 'green' word or 'carbon net-zero' is mentioned. To stare in a dwam over this naked landscape, as it was meant to be, cradles the soul in a comfort that heals the mind, and to lose that would sadden that weird bond between man and native land.
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| Kestrel 9/7/23 |
On talking about those genetic bonds that I feel welling up from the past between myself and the glen lands of Angus to the local farmer today, he mused that I was 'hefted' like the local sheep that know their grazing boundaries. Curiously enough, a mothering ewe instinctively knows the natal 'homeland' and her following lambs pick up the grazing routines of where to go and how far to go, passing that onto their own future off-spring.
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| Kestrel & Carrion Crow dispute 9/7/23 |
That 'hefting' of man to land just might not affect some who make decisions about our land and its visual amenity that is so important to our Scottish culture, history, myth and legend. Unfortunately our land is governed by those who have one hand on the purse strings and the other on the ballot box.
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| Red Deer hinds with calf 9/7/23 |
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| Ringlet 9/7/23 |
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| Common Sbipe 9/7/23 |
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| Wheatear juvenile 9/7/23 |
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| Heron 9/7/23 |
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| The upper glen 9/7/23 |
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| Cropped forest 9/7/23 |
All text, photographs and sketch done on 9 July 2023 (unless dated otherwise) and subject to copyright - no reproduction.
If you are inspired to go out into the hills and glens of Scotland please leave it as you find it, respect the environment, do not litter or discard so called 'biodegradable' fruit and especially if you are a dog walker keep your beast on a lead and do not bag up its waste then chuck it by the wayside. I recently came across one black poo bag neatly hung on a tree branch for someone else to take home and also a bright blue one thrown in the moorland verge .... why?
Moorland birds like Lapwing, Curlew, Golden Plover, Dunlin, Dotterel, Snipe, Red and Black Grouse, Ptarmigan and many raptors nest on the ground, it is advisable to keep dogs on leads at all times especially when walking on the high plateaux of the Cairngorms during summer months.
Please be aware that it is illegal to disturb nesting eagles or other raptors and you may do so inadvertently in your journeys into the highlands. Observe protected species at a respectful distance usually from about 1000 metres and for short periods of time only.
No wildlife was unduly or knowingly disturbed by my presence or for the purposes of this web page other than what would be expected on a normal hill walk. Many geographic names and location recognizable photos have been omitted to prevent persecution or inquisitive disturbance to named species.
Canon camera 200D with optical zoom lens EFS 55-250mm used; please note that the zoom range ZR distance if given is calculated by OS map from subject location to camera.
