Bog Myrtle & Peat

The fire rolled and gathered pace greedily. It turned and was bolder in a shifting wind; it ate the land as if there was no more of it to come and every stick had to be taken at once. Smoke rose to be seen in Cumbria and the Inner Hebrides, and the flames broke the… Continue reading

Wildfire, and the black stink of boiling sap. Smoke rose in a veil, but as we fought the flames and trod them down, they slipped away like soap and made off for the west, senseless and craven and searching for an “out”. Then fire found the forest, and that’s when our drama seemed small by… Continue reading

Long-weathered readers of Working for Grouse will know that I am eternally tickled by the parochial and arcane. Despite my best efforts, I continue to amass a grand collection of objects which relate to local history and wildlife, and my office becomes ever-more laden with wondrous “findings” and curios every year. And so you will… Continue reading

Home, Parish of Kirkgunzeon – 20/4/20 Grass seed is so light that it swirls in the wind. It’s designed to blow around and disperse, but that lightness leaves it ill-suited to sowing from a broadcaster. A Northerly breeze has come down from Moniaive and the Shinnel for a week, and if I tried to sow… Continue reading

Low Airie, Glenkens – 17/4/20 Restoring the long-defunct boundaries at Low Airie is a big piece of work. And being totally frank, it’s a far bigger piece of work than I ever could’ve reckoned when I began. In recent days, the problem has not so much been the legwork of fencing, but rather the rediscovery… Continue reading

I’ve meant to learn Gaelic for several years, but always lacked the impetus. In my defence, Gaelic has been dead in Galloway for three centuries; it’s hard to find people who study the language and make use of it here. I spent many happy months in the Western Isles listening to Gaelic being spoken as… Continue reading

As a gift to myself, I’ve made a leap into the 21st Century. Usually recalcitrant and unwilling to embrace change, I’ve had to confess that the project I’ve undertaken at Low Airie is almost beyond my capacity. My plan to cast a dozen galloways loose in two hundred acres of thoroughly rough, broken country aligns… Continue reading

More by accident than design, the late season silage which came off in November left my best field in a sorry state. It is only now beginning to show signs of life, and that late start hasn’t been helped by several weeks of absurdly dry weather. In planting a new hedge and replacing some old… Continue reading

Low Airie, Glenkens – 12/4/20 On the matter of foxes, I spoke too soon. In failing to find a single shred of evidence to show that foxes were using Low Airie, I began to wonder if they were there at all. So it was a comforting rebuff to look up from my work and find… Continue reading

I started writing this blog over a decade ago in the hope of documenting a black grouse conservation project. The ensuing years have taken me far away from my original objectives – deep into previously untapped regions of agriculture. A dusty, powder-blue kind of spring at Low Airie has restored black grouse to the forefront… Continue reading