Caledonian Pine Forest

Glen Derry, the Cairngorms

The winter camping trip to the pine forests of the Cairngorms and elsewhere in the Scottish mountains has been an annual event for 15+ years. We somehow missed going last year, and after several postponements we were determined that we would go this time whatever the weather. Numbers were a bit depleted, with only 3 of us able to make the trip. The forecast was for grey overcast conditions with a bit of drizzle, as good as we could hope for perhaps.

An early start from Cumbria and we were in Braemar for lunch. We recorded birds as we went, and at Stirling we spotted a red kite (103 in the year list for me). Then to the Linn of Dee to park the car and load up for the 4 mile walk along Glen Lui to Glen Derry. The quartermaster had ensured that provisions were in generous supply, so we set off fully laden making for the saucepan tree among the pines of Glen Derry. En route we heard our first Scottish crossbills (104 in the year list).

After pitching camp we had a fossick amongst the pines looking for capercaillie and black grouse. The suspected female capercaillie, on close examination of the blurry photographs has proven to be a grey hen (female black grouse), another new bird species for the year (105).

The picture shows a typical view through the pine forest. Something to note is the lack of regeneration of new trees. The culprits are red deer, whose abundance means that new trees can never get away from the seedling stage unless deer proof exclosures are erected or the deer are severely culled. In Glen Derry, exclosures are being used to encourage self-sown new trees, and this is working well. The trouble with high fences is that the black grouse and capercaillie tend not to see them when flying fast and low through the woods, and many are fatally injured in collisions. These days the fences have canes threaded through the wire to make them more visible, and this appears to work. The long term solution would be to bring back large predators, the long extinct wolves, but that's perhaps a forlorn hope. It would certainly make winter camping trips a lot more exciting though.

This is a backblip, I still have one gap to fill, the Sunday following.