Bog Myrtle & Peat

Having recently written about cattle and bracken control, a brief follow-up is warranted after a walk across the hill last week. In one area where the cows often linger, bracken has been badly shocked into open retreat – the effect is extremely impressive. I’ve sometimes complained about the inexplicable behaviour of my livestock. They stay… Continue reading

I had some fine calves this year, and all but a few of them were heifers. That’s encouraging, because next year I hope to have access to some extra grazing land. I’ll have space to keep more breeding stock for longer, which in turn should slacken off the bottleneck which comes each year in October… Continue reading

There were tall clouds and flags of shadow in the sunshine, and I wondered how it was possible that anything could fester in the sudden amber light. September’s a fine time to be alive if only you can ignore the flies at work, and the maggots boiling blackly in the fleeces. Now there’s a conflicted… Continue reading

One hundred miles north of the extraordinary misericords at Carlisle Cathedral, Dunblane mounts a quiet riposte to English extravagance. Decorative wood carvings are much harder to find in Scotland, and misericords are extremely scarce here. It’s likely that we never matched the English when it came to lavish wood carvings, but an extremely uncompromising approach… Continue reading

We used to dig peat for the fire. That work was a major event for my entire family, and it always reminds me of home. Digging peat is partly why I make such strong associations with Galloway as a moorland place, and why I feel such pride in these wide old hills. But I start… Continue reading

Three years into my grazing project, improvements have begun to cascade and accelerate on the hill. The grass has broken up, and the cows have made paths which crisscross back and forth around the moor. Large areas of formerly dense vegetation have been smashed, and that’s nothing but helpful for clumsy humans like me. It… Continue reading

Curlews come again in August, and for six heavy nights there were lapwings on the léana. I mark this kind of movement every year, feeling in these cooler mornings a hardening change. Beneath the birds, there’s gossamer in my snares, and flowers like scabious and grass of parnassus shine in the weather-beaten grass. Just as… Continue reading

There’s a tomb for the O’Craians near the famous altar at Sligo Abbey. It’s ornately carved, and while there are several human figures knitted into the design, they’re almost indecipherable now. I could see that each figure was different, but six hundred years after these carvings were made, their meanings have become haltingly obscure. Hoping… Continue reading

There’s often tension when conservation meets communication. The world wants good news stories, particularly in the face of species decline and climate change. Even in my own small circles of work, I note an active hunger for upbeat stuff, despite the fact that ecology is famously complex and conditional. It’s difficult to share good news… Continue reading

The soil in the stubble was dry like sand and the severed stems shot through with last year’s fallen oak leaves. Then I was in shade above the river Eamont, and the water there so pure that even the weeds shone cleanly in the pool-tails. After weeks without rain, this madly verdant corner of the… Continue reading