Alan Watson Featherstone, Executive Director of Trees for Life, writes about his experiences out in the Caledonian Forest, and about his work for the charity.
Glen Affric: May 15, 2012
The last two old Scots pines at the top edge of the Liatrie Wood, beside the Liatrie Burn, on the north side of Glen Cannich, on the route over to Glen Strathfarrar.
I set out alone on the second day of my Treelay leg from our overnight campsite, near the Mullardoch dam in Glen Cannich, after my son Kevin had gone home. It was a much longer route than the first day, heading east initially in Glen Cannich, and then going over the hills to the north to Glen Strathfarrar. There, I’d have an extended walk to reach the rendezvous point at the end of my leg, at the entrance to the glen near Struy. Continue reading…
Glen Affric: May 11, 2012
Fay Blackburn with the wood sculpture that is serving as the Treelay baton, before setting out on the first leg of the Treelay.
On Saturday 5th May, our sponsored Treelay event began – two weeks of walking and cycling around our Project Area – the 1,000 square miles west of Inverness and Loch Ness where we’re working to restore the Caledonian Forest. The first leg on Saturday, from Dundreggan to the RSPB’s Corrimony Reserve, was walked by Fay Blackburn (long term Trees for Life supporter and volunteer group leader) and Jill Hodge, our Dundreggan Project Coordinator. The second leg, on Sunday, was from Corrimony to Coille Ruigh na Cuileige in Glen Affric – the site of our first significant project in 1990, when we paid for the fencing of 50 hectares (125 acres) of land for natural regeneration of the forest there. It was walked by Fay and Fiona Limbrey, the coordinator of our Millionth Tree events, and three guests on programmes at the Findhorn Foundation. Continue reading…
Dundreggan: May 5, 2012
Aspen trees and Scots pine at Dundreggan. Note how all the broadleaved trees are still leafless, at the end of April.
Because of having been away on the Millionth Tree Lecture Tour, it had been 4 weeks since my last visit to the Caledonian Forest (and 5 weeks since I’d last been at Dundreggan). I was therefore very keen to get out to the forest again, to see all the new life of spring, so about 36 hours after I got back from England, I headed out to Dundreggan for the day. It was a warm, mostly sunny day when I got there, but I was surprised to see that the birches and other broadleaved trees hadn’t got their new leaves yet. Continue reading…
Miscellaneous: April 28, 2012
View from the balcony inside the Palm House at Kew Gardens. The palm frond on the upper left is from a fishtail palm (Caryota rumphiana) that is from western New Guinea and grew to over 20 metres tall in 12 years.
After the lecture in Brighton on 19th April, I went up to London for the start of the last week of the Lecture Tour. The talk in London was one of the better attended ones, and the audience included two directors from the company Phoenix Trading Ltd., which made a substantial donation to us recently – they hope to come to the planting of our Millionth Tree itself at Dundreggan on 20th May. It also included Richard Buggs, a researcher at Queen Mary University College in London, who has recently obtained funding for a 3 year PhD project for a student to do work on dwarf birch (Betula nana), that will be based largely at our Dundreggan Estate. Continue reading…
Miscellaneous: April 21, 2012
Mosaic in front of the Mediterranean biome at the Eden Project in Cornwall.
After the first week of the Millionth Tree Lecture Tour, I had a day off from public talks on Sunday 15th April. I stayed with some good friends and long-time Trees for Life supporters, Geoff and Lisa Sharp, at their farmhouse home in Somerset, which dates from the 14th century. It was a very nice place to rest and relax, being peaceful and secluded out in the country, with a view to the famous Tor at Glastonbury in the distance. Continue reading…
Miscellaneous: April 15, 2012
Epiphyte-laden sessile oak tree (Quercus petraea) in temperate rainforest remnant in the RSPB's Ynys-hir Nature Reserve, near Machynlleth.
On Sunday 8th April, I headed south from Findhorn for the English and Welsh legs of the Millionth Tree Lecture Tour that I’m doing as part of the build-up to the planting of our millionth tree at Dundreggan on 20th May. After an overnight stop at a vegan Bed & Breakfast near Kendal in the English Lake District, I continued down to Wales, where my first lecture was scheduled for lunchtime on Tuesday 10th April at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), near Machynlleth. Continue reading…
Glen Strathfarrar: April 7, 2012
Scots pines beside the River Farrar in Glen Strathfarrar.
Glen Strathfarrar is unusual amongst Scottish glens in that the road up into it is private, with a locked gate across it, which was closed for the winter, until March 31st. So, with Sunday being the 1st of April I decided to visit Strathfarrar again, for the first time since early November. Continue reading…
Dundreggan: March 31, 2012
(Blog updated on 17th April 2012 to include details of the slime mould)
Scots pines and birches on this hazy, warm spring day at Dundreggan.
It had been two weeks since my last trip out to the Caledonian Forest, as I was busy last week-end, in between public talks on the Millionth Tree lecture tour that I’m doing throughout the UK in the second half of March and April. The weather had continued to be very mild and warm for the season, so a few days after the equinox I set out for Dundreggan, keen to see how spring was unfolding. Continue reading…
Glen Affric: March 15, 2012
Lichen-covered birch (left) and alder tree (right) near Dog Falls in Glen Affric.
After a busy week in the office, and two weeks since my last dedicated photography day out in the forest, I was looking forward to some quality time out in Nature. So on Saturday I headed to Glen Affric again, on an overcast but dry day, with the vague intention of continuing my exploration of the Abhainn Gleann nam Fiadh burn, which I’d visited a couple of times in the past few weeks. Continue reading…
Dundreggan: March 7, 2012
Scots pines at Coille Ruigh na Cuileige in Glen Affric, near the fence we funded for natural regeneration there in 1990.
I didn’t have a dedicated photography day out in the forest this past week, because I spent two days out with the Findhorn Foundation’s Ecovillage Training programme group, in Glen Affric and at Dundreggan, so this blog entry covers that trip. That programme has been running for 14 years now, and takes place for a month each year in February/March – I’ve done a session with them in each of those years. I’d given this year’s group of 25 people a talk and Powerpoint presentation about the forest and the work of Trees for Life on Wednesday evening at Findhorn. Continue reading…
