Bog Myrtle & Peat

Eating a packed lunch by the side of the new birch plantation, I was treated to one of the finest aerial displays I have ever seen. Skylarks burble incessantly in the background, but through the general chaos of bird song, a noisy squeaking approached low over the moorland. Rather like the sound of a rusty bicycle being pedalled quickly downhill, the sound seemed mechanical and unexpectedly jarring. All of a sudden, two snipe appeared just thirty yards ahead and soared within feet of my head. They flew three hundred yards behind me, then returned for another fly-by.

On the second pass, the squeaking bird rose to a height of around forty feet, then spread out its wings and fell to just a few inches above the rushes. The sound it made by doing so was unforgettable; a melancholy throbbing which seemed to pulse in the fresh air. I had only ever heard it once before, on a moonlit bog on the Isle of Lewis, and it is a haunting noise beyond any other. It seems amazing that the sound is made entirely from vibrating feathers, and although it is known as “drumming” elsewhere in Britain, Galloway dialect describes the noise as a “bleat” or a “blate”.

It is so encouraging to think that these birds are happily breeding and planning to set up family homes across the Chayne, and hearing them is yet another added bonus to working on the farm.