Bog Myrtle & Peat

Heading across country to Northumberland last week, I had a chance to look in on Otterburn range. Otterburn made its name in conservation circles thanks to a study into upland predation undertaken by the GWCT over the past decade. Although it has been quiet ever since the project ended a few years ago, the name still rings around shooting circles thanks to the fairly incontrovertible evidence that predation control produces larger and more varied bird populations.

The collosal range (58,000 acres) is owned by the MOD and stretches right up to the Scottish border. Predominantly rough upland “white” hill with a good covering of heather, the ground is littered with the ruins of shattered tanks and vehicles. Aside from being a scrap merchant’s dream, the range retains some interesting potential for the conservation of upland birds, and driving through some of the heather moorland revealed red grouse hunkered down in the verges.

The sheer quantity of hazardous ordnance lying out in the heather makes burning something of a challenge, and I must admit that I wouldn’t be keen to run a fire through vegetation that could contain a huge spectrum of combustible weaponry. It could well be that the future of the range’s moorland management program will lie in cutting, which increasingly seems to offer a huge range of possibilities where burning is not recommended. Whether it is burning or cutting, the key for both is to ensure that enough heather is managed each year when grazing animals are present. Burn a little patch on a hill where sheep are hefted throughout the year and you can be sure that as soon as the grass goes off, the sheep will all head for the freshly regenerating area.

By spring, there could be nothing left at all, and the damage can be terrible even with sheep that are not away-wintered, munching through the lovely fresh growth even during the summer months. It is vital to burn or cut significant areas so that grazing pressure is evened out and no one burn receives the full attention from hungry mouths. Some of the burns at Otterburn seemed quite grassy, possibly for this reason, and it looks like the heather has been nibbled out and replaced by something like one of the deschampsia grasses. This is a longstanding problem for many stocked moors, and although it sometimes looks gloomy, it often does come good in subsequent years when new burns elsewhere leave the beleagured heather in peace at last.

The nature (and gigantic scale) of the range at Otterburn dictates that the moorland management effort has to be correspondingly epic. I hope to get back in a few months and see how they’re getting on.