Heading up the steep face, a cock merlin rose quietly from a granite boulder above my head. As he moved, flakes of ashy feather fell softly down on the crystalline stone. Piecing together the evidence, I found what little remained of a reed bunting amongst the blend of minerals, moss and young heather. On this Continue reading

It was very entertaining to hear an advert for peat on commercial radio as I was heading up the track to the Chayne this afternoon. In an amusingly exaggerated Scots brogue, a voice ensured the listener that peat is a cheap, efficient alternative to coal heating, closing with the ringing endorsement: “Ye canna beat a Continue reading

Interesting to take a walk up on the Clints of Dromore above the Gatehouse viaduct yesterday afternoon in the low clouds. The viaduct was a favourite family spot for bike rides and exploration twenty five years ago, and this relic of lost transport history is just as impressive today as it was to a three Continue reading

Just worth noting the impressive crop of cranberry which seems to have come through this year. There are patches of cranberry all over the Chayne, although the extent and quality of these colonies varies from a few threadbare whisps to entire riggings which seem to bind the moss into a netted cushion. The berries themselves Continue reading

In March, a comparatively small area of moorland near the Chayne was ploughed by the foresters, who then planted it up with sitka spruce trees. This process is probably the single most irreversibly damaging thing that you can do to a sensitive (and peat based) moor, but it is interesting to see what sort of Continue reading

During an aborted attempt to climb Cairnsmore of Fleet this afternoon, it became horribly apparent just how badly damaged Galloway’s larch plantations have been by the much talked of Phytophthora ramorum. Although driving rain forced us to abandon the walk in from Clatteringshaws, there were some gaps through the cloud to look north and west Continue reading

I am used to thinking of the Chayne as “hill country”, so it is often humbling to head a few miles west to take in some real wilderness. By comparison to the Rhinns of Kells or the Awful Hand, the Chayne is a short stump rising out of the moss. These massive ranges block out Continue reading

Interesting to note what an effect the changing seasons are having on the short section of hedge I put in this spring. Over the summer, the blackthorn, hawthorn and guelder rose plants have come on very nicely, and many of the rugosa roses and dog roses flowered during July and August. There are now a Continue reading

While it’s hard to describe an outbreak of heather beetle on your own ground as a good thing, the beetles that have destroyed an area of heather on the Chayne this year have served an important purpose by allowing me to study them at close hand. Readers of this blog will have watched the attack Continue reading

It was an interesting trip last week to the two sites in the Peak District where the Heather Trust’s beetle damage studies are currently being run. I’ve seen quite alot of the Peak District over the past year, and getting to know this extraordinary area has been a real pleasure. The heather beetle studies are Continue reading