Bog Myrtle & Peat

I headed up to Glencarron reservoir this afternoon with the intention of looking around an area of Forestry Commission land which has built a local reputation as a confirmed stronghold for black grouse. Combining black grouse habitat with commercial forestry is an extremely delicate business, and having seen something similar in North Wales in July, I wanted to take another look at what was happening just north of Glasgow.

Like Coed Llandegla, the Carron Valley forest is also run as a system of mountain bike trails. A large and well signposted carpark was packed with avid cyclists, and we examined each other with expressions of mutual disdain. Just as I would never be seen dead dressed up in lycra, so the assembled mountainbikers had no interest whatsoever in gamebird conservation.

Thankfully, a secretive path led up into the trees and almost immediately I was swallowed up into the gloom of some very well established sitka spruces. I had been in such a hurry to get away from the neon clamour of cyclists that I hadn’t seen a sign demarking that path as strictly for cyclists only, and a tangle of sweating legs and squeaky chains swept down on me like a hen sparrowhawk. Collision narrowly avoided and explitives exchanged, I stepped off the path and found a more secluded trail through the woodland.

Clearly, a tremendous amount of effort has gone into making the Carron Valley forest a suitable habitat for black grouse. Alders and birches crowded along the fringes of the path, and several large clear felled areas had been left fallow to regenerate with natural undergrowth. Although I didn’t see a stick of heather all the time I was there, blaeberry was fairly abundant, which, combined with the ubiquitous soft rush and heath rush, would be providing birds with something to eat during the spring and summer. Bullfinches, goldfinches and long tailed tits buzzed happily overhead, and I even spotted a tiny goldcrest hopping like a mouse amongst the overgrown branches of an old lodgepole pine tree.

No matter how hard I tried to escape the cyclists, I could never really get far enough away from the squealing brakes. As a hard beaked old corbie crow settled in the stiff twigs overhead, I had a chance to think about forestry and black grouse.

Commercial forestry can be made to provide textbook habitat for black grouse. Sensitive management is sure to produce great quantities of food, shelter and nesting cover , but there is no point in any of it unless predator control is being carried out. Black grouse thrive in an environment in which they feel totally secure, and I am inclined to think that if the birds begin to associate dense woodland with danger, they will be reluctant to use it, no matter how full of food it is.

It makes me look a cynic and a heretic to write it, but in some cases, it seems like the Forestry Commission are doing a half-arsed job in their promotion of black grouse. They want to be seen to be helping a marginalised bird which they had no small part in marginalising, but the fact that that assistance comes with the additional and ethically troubling issue of vermin control appears to make them shy away from it. They can throw conspicuous hatfuls of money at habitat creation, but will never see real returns until they can bite the bullet and clear these birds some breathing space from predators, who not only exist but thrive in their plantations. The RSPB have close ties to the Forestry Commission in Scotland, and that link perhaps explains the total failure to address not only the crow problem but the additional issue a certain dog-like beast, whose conspicuous twist-ended offerings were to be found on several tussocks of grass beside the forest paths.

I am told that there are several black grouse in Glencarron, but it will come as no surprise to hear that I didn’t see any.