Although it has only been in the ground for a fortnight, the game crop is showing some encouraging signs of progress. Clusters of turnip plants have appeared, and some of them are almost as big as fifty pence pieces. I had imagined that they would be starting to dry up after almost three weeks without Continue reading

Hours after getting hold of the Chayne’s first tractor, the rotovator I was planning to use for the game crop ate itself in a moment of noisy destruction. Left with a twisted ruin of angry-looking metal, I was faced with the deciding whether or not to call in the cavalry or abandon the idea of Continue reading

Heading to the North East of Scotland last week, I had the opportunity to spend a few hours in the magnificent hills of Strathdon (where there are so many black grouse that the Pennines would blush to see them), before heading over the heights of Lecht and down onto Speyside to visit Dick Bartlett, who Continue reading

The “working for grouse” project took a huge leap of progress this afternoon when I took receipt of a 37 year old David Brown 996 tractor. The nature of my work on the hill is on such a small/remote/awkward/experimental scale that trying to find contractors who are willing to co-operate is not an easy task. Continue reading

Just worth posting as a post script. that I took my first photograph of a heather beetle while looking at some cutting work on Langholm Moor yesterday. The little blighter was skipping cheerily along a clump of star moss, and I managed to gather him up just long enough for a photo. Quite a mild, Continue reading

Having visited the Langholm Moor Demonstration Project a few times over the past eighteen months, it’s been interesting to see the various techniques used to restore the horrendous damage caused by heather beetle which took place largely during 2010. More than a thousand acres of heather were wiped out altogether during these outbreaks, and without Continue reading

As part of the Heather Trust’s ongoing project to monitor heather beetle treatments on two moors in the Peak District, I headed back down to an area of England which is fast becoming quite familiar. Having looked over the plots near Buxton, I headed over to Peak Naze with the United Utilities tenant Richard May. Continue reading

The past few weeks have been spent planting up an area of rough, abandoned ground which hasn’t been grazed for the past ten or fifteen years. In some areas, willow scrub has come up in thick clumps above the heather, and the area already seems to be attracting woodcock, roe deer and black grouse. This Continue reading

Judging by the news, most of the north of Scotland is currently on fire. Hyperbole and exaggeration aside, there have been some big fires in the north and the perennial issue of muirburn has reared its head conspicuously on cue yet again. It is interesting how issues relating to wildfire and muirburn are relayed by Continue reading

Having spent four years dancing around the issues presented by a long forty yard wide band of sitka spruce trees across the middle of the Chayne, the past few weeks have been spent taking matters into my own hands. The wood is too small to make it viable for a proper harvester to come up Continue reading