Bog Myrtle & Peat

By a miraculous stroke of good fortune, I had the chance to join in with the Heather Trust’s recent heather restoration workshop near Edzell in Angus on Friday. Despite my fascination with all grouse species, my technical knowledge on the subject of heather is practically non existent. Placed in an environment alongside some of the nation’s leading grouse and moorland management specialists, I have never been in a better position to learn.

Much of the information shared at the meeting was fascinating, but I must admit to having been blown away by Geoff Eyre, whose hands-on approach to heather management is almost beyond belief. With a background in agronomy, Geoff now specialises in producing fantastic crops of heather on the hills of his home in the Peak District, and his work has been totally groundbreaking. Many of his techniques are necessarily grounded in agricultural principles which has meant that some find his industrial approaches unappealing, but when you see the fantastic results he is able to achieve after just a few years, it is hard to deny that the man is a real innovator. He can now offer ways of converting everything from molinia white hillsides to bracken banks into purple moorland within a few years, and the benefits that these transformations provide to moorland wildlife are massive. As well as red and black grouse, golden plover, lapwings, ouzels and mountain hares all thrive on his land, and when you see how well they are all doing, it is hard to criticize his methods.

In the afternoon, we were shown around a major grouse shooting estate above Edzell to see examples of moorland management techniques, and as the group of thirty specialists from a variety of different bodies wandered over to inspect a medicated grit station, they flushed two red grouse and a blackcock from the deep heather to their left. It was a fantastic sight, and I left Angus with more than enough to think about…