Bog Myrtle & Peat

As part of work I’m doing for Working for Waders, I headed out yesterday morning to interview some farmers in South Lanarkshire. They’re part of a really exciting project based on wader conservation across a large piece of land along the Clyde Valley, and the project is exciting because they have done most of the work themselves. With support from organisations like SAC (Scottish Agricultural College) and RSPB, they have effectively led the way on what is fast becoming one of the most progressive and forward-thinking wader projects in Britain. In progressive conservation circles, farmer-led projects like these are the Holy Grail and deserve to be celebrated from the rooftops.

Perhaps this reads a little like the press release I have to put together later this afternoon on behalf of that group, but this latest trip to Lanarkshire deserves a mention on my personal blog because it completely overwhelmed me.

This entire area is recognised as a stronghold for wading birds, but one farm in particular seems to serve as a clearing house for waders across a vast area of the Southern Uplands. Returning from their winter habitats in early March, this place feels like an airport terminal for thousands of lapwings, oystercatchers and curlews. It is surely impossible that all these birds should stay to breed in this glen – but for a few weeks in the early season, they descend upon the area in monumentally impressive flocks. Experience suggests that these flocks will soon break down into breeding pairs and the birds will disperse to their separate territories, but they make for a staggering spectacle while this moment lasts. As the curlew flies, it is twenty five miles from this glen to my own place, and I wondered if the curlews which come to breed with me knew it of old. Of all the beady eyes watching me as I stepped out of the pickup, I couldn’t resist the idea that perhaps a few of them recognised me.

While some early lapwings were busily showing off nest scrapes and defending territories, the sky would periodically darken as eighty or a hundred more curlews dropped in from the other side of the glen. The river banks were thick with oystercatchers, and it was only when I lifted binoculars and began to peer in closer detail, I realised that there were golden plover and redshank striding through the mix. There were even greenshank on the gravel beds where the water rode, and this seemed to reinforce the idea of birds on passage. Greenshank breed in the far north of Scotland and beyond, so these birds were surely passing through. It was a particular joy to see ringed plover amongst the rowdy gangs; I know almost nothing about these chirpy little bodies, and it took some adjustment to watch half a dozen of them ambling around, keeping company with a flock of skylarks.

The accumulative effect of waders is wildly powerful. Modern farmers cherish their local pair of lapwings and smile at the distant call of a single curlew, but the days of wader prosperity are long gone for most of us. It often feels like I am dabbling around the edge of a shrunken pool, trying to imagine what it was like in “the old days”. Here was a dizzying draft of birds at birds at full volume, and it was hard not to feel a prickle of tears in the cold afternoon. When not staring through binoculars and laughing aloud, I found myself nodding; saying “yes” to myself, over and over again.

Part of my trip involved flying a drone over the farm to give a wider feel of landscape. A friend came with me and did the honours, putting the whirring helicopter blades high up into the evening light. It’s not hard to see why this is an important piece of countryside for wading birds in a broad glen at the confluence of two ancient rivers. On a cold evening in early March, the farm felt dank, hollow and utterly timeless; a vision of the lapwing-infested Southern Uplands which would have been familiar to Robert Louis Stevenson or Sir Walter Scott. It’s not for everybody, but it’s my idea of paradise.

However, once the drone rose up above the horizon, it was staggering to see the real world which surrounds this precious place. It’s blasted with commercial conifer plantations as far as the eye can see. Wind turbines and hard, unfeeling tracks run in a criss-cross between electrical transformers and the dregs of old mine workings. Even in its beauty, this is a badly damaged landscape with a deeply uncertain future. Like so many parts of the Southern Uplands, decisions we make in the next few years will decide how long this remains a “hot spot” for wading birds.