Scottish Wildlife Trust

Myself and the local SNH Officer met with one of the other owners of the SSSI moss late last year.  We were hoping to get a management agreement with this owner.  However, this did not happen, but he has taken advice on the best way to manage his piece of the SSSI from us and we are hopeful of a good working partnership with him in the years to come.  Both myself and SNH are still trying to persuade the other landowners to show some interest.

We have been very lucky to find a new Convenor for the reserve – well two actually!   Nick Littlewood and Rose Toney are our new convenors.  Nick works for the Macauley Institute and is leading a team on a review for the IUCN UK Peatland programme.  On their first visit to the site they recorded a Great Grey Shrike – a first for this reserve!  Mike Stevens continues to read dipwells and carry out routine maintenance on the reserve.

Mike Stevens and his volunteers have started work on the new cliff-top footpath, and work is progressing well.  The section to be completed by a contractor had a bit of a hiccup. The original contractor went out of business. However, we have now appointed a new contractor and work on this section should be completed by April.  Still occasional (unconfirmed) reports of Sea eagles around the reserve.

Mike is carrying out annual work on the reserve as planned.

Our funding application to the Scottish Rural Development Programme is now in its final stages and we are hopeful of starting work on this project this coming year.  This will include felling non-native trees, fencing and some bracken control.

Robert Potter

Scottish Wildlife Trust

Reserves Manager North East

The Kennels

nr Cortachy, by Kirriemuir

Angus DD8 4QE

Tel 01575 540396

Mob 07920 468568

e-mail rpotter@swt.org.uk

Like all of us in SWT I am sure you, our members, are very keen to ensure that we provide as much protection and opportunity for wildlife as possible.  One really effective way to do this is to ensure that plans for development take account of biodiversity; not only at designated sites, reserves and other protected hotspots, but also in the wider countryside which is especially important if we want to maintain viable populations of birds, insects, mammals and other wildlife.  Local Authorities have a statutory duty to protect and improve biodiversity and they employ people to advise them in this duty.  But SWT can have great influence by pointing out where development plans might have a detrimental effect on wildlife or, just as important, how changes to development plans can maintain biodiversity in urban and rural environments.  I can assure you that local councils do pay attention to comments from SWT.  By becoming a planning volunteer for your local Member Centre, we can comment most effectively.  You will join a network of SWT planning volunteers, receive a lot of help and support and you will rapidly become very useful to both SWT and the Local Authorities.  Please consider it – and let me know if you would like to volunteer by emailing me at:  roger@owen25.fsnet.co.uk.  Roger Owen - Chair - Aberdeen Member Centre.

For more information please read SWT Planning Newsletter which is on our web site: http://www.swtaberdeen.org.uk/Planning%20Newsletter%20Oct%202010.pdf

As many SWT members are already aware, Wetlands such as Loch of Lintrathen, near Kirriemuir, are an invaluable habitat for a host of species, both resident and migratory.  These include several UK Biodiversity Action Plan species such as otter and water vole as well as wildfowl and a plethora of plants and invertebrates. For centuries, naturalists have been able to share in the unique joy of witnessing these plants and animals in their natural habitat.  Not only is the aesthetic beauty of wetlands and its associated flora and fauna of vital importance to the people of Scotland but wetlands also play a key role in assisting communities.   It can do this by providing ecosystem services by storing and purifying our valuable water source, helping to alleviate flooding and mitigating against the effects of climate change with their potential to store carbon.

We may think of Grampian as a dry region; this has not always been the case. The North-East has a suffered dramatic loss of wetland habitats such as fen, reedbed, swamp, wet woodland, bog, forest wetland and wet grassland, as indeed has the rest of Scotland, due to extensive drainage, particularly over the last fifty years.  With this has come a marked reduction in biodiversity.

To help reverse these declines, a conservation initiative headed by North East Scotland Local Biodiversity Action Plan (NES LBAP) is being launched in an effort to help restore these valuable habitats.  As part of the Action Plan, the NES LBAP is seeking to form partnerships with local landowners and communities to help restore this essential habitat through the Wetland Pilot Project.  The initiative, launched this month, is a partnership involving Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Aberdeenshire Council, the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute and RSPB, in conjunction with Landcare NorthEast.  It has a two-strand approach to help save our vanishing wetlands; identifying potential locations suitable for working with landowners to create/restore wetlands and working with communities to help create and sustainably manage smaller wetland areas.  For more information, contact Flora Grigor-Taylor or Steff Ferguson at Landcare NorthEast on 013398 81376, or Rose Toney, LBAP co-ordinator on 01224 395189.

Although familiar with text book photos of what a Comma  butterfly looks like with its apparently half nibbled wing edges, orangey colouration and the distinctive white comma mark on the underside of the wings, I have never seen a live specimen until last September.  This is not surprising since Comma butterflies were until very recently restricted to England.  However, reports have come in that they were spreading northwards and had reached the Scottish Borders.  Indeed, we should be pleased that the most northerly specimen was sighted last year in the grounds of Castle Fraser.

My encounter was while visiting the area in Berwickshire near Coldingham.  I was out hunting the hoverfly as usual and had stopped at a roadside lay-by near for a coffee.  Beside the road was a small Elm growing out of a hedge alongside the boundary of a churchyard.  I noticed a caterpillar on the elm leaves and it had a distinctive white blotch on its body.  This puzzled me because I thought I should know this caterpillar but could not put a name to it.

The next day I was passing through Gifford and had stopped to hunt the hoverfly in the public park next to the river.  After having a fruitful time recording some species, I was returning to my car when a movement from within a cast off empty coke bottle caught my eye.  I approached and discovered that the movement was the fluttering of a butterfly trapped within the bottle.  It had entered to sip the remnants of the sticky nectar and had become trapped there.  Indeed, there was another specimen.   Unfortunately, it had succumbed and drowned in the liquid.  I extracted the hapless specimen and quickly recognised it as a Comma butterfly, my first record, before releasing it.  But then the old grey cells started whirring and I realised that in fact my first encounter with a Comma was not this adult but the caterpillar on the Elm leaves (its food plant) the day before.  Having recorded an adult as well as a breeding record of this delightful species these sightings really made my day and were in fact the highlight of the weekend away.

A Week Birdwatching in Majorca in May 2010 - Rodney Payne