Caledonia Wild! Summer 2005

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Magic morning at Coille Ruigh

Sally Kendall and Dan Tomes watching the black grouse at the lek. Note the fresh snow on the ground! Male black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) in breeding display at a lek.

People said I was crazy, to think of getting up at 2.30 am to look for black grouse in Glen Affric! It was mid-April and Sally Kendall and I were setting off for Coille Ruigh, where male black grouse display at their lek just after dawn, to attract females for mating.

Arriving in the glen, we met Dan Tomes of the RSPB and set off on foot, in the twilight that precedes the dawn, for the somewhat arduous climb up through the old pines and birches. By the time we got above the trees and on to the open hill, dark clouds were all around us, except to the east, where some brighter sky indicated the likely rising point of the sun. Following Dan's instructions, we lay flat on the ground and wriggled on our bellies, military combat-style, up one side of a small knoll for the last part of the approach to the lek site, so that we wouldn't disturb the birds on the other side.

Once in position, we had to lie still and be quiet, and after a while we saw a grouse some distance away, flying briefly and coming down out of sight on the slope below us. As we waited, the sun came up, colouring the clouds above in beautiful shades of rose and gold. The special quality of the early morning light brought a magical atmosphere to the scene, as a shaft of sunlight illuminated a patch of snow near the 1,163 metre peak of Toll Creagach. A few moments later a rainbow appeared in the same spot, heralding the approach of wet weather, and soon enough a few snowflakes began to fall.

Bracing ourselves against the cold wind, we kept looking and were rewarded with a brief glimpse of two grouse. Some time later, as the clouds darkened still further, bright sunlight shone on the hillside about 50 metres to our left. As we watched, a grouse appeared in the patch of sunlight, in full view with the sun glistening on his red wattle, and perfectly illuminated against the background of the pine forest and Loch Beinn a'Mheadhoin far below. It was a moment of heart-stopping beauty, and it seemed as though Nature had put on her best show specially for us. Then, as I watched through my binoculars, the grouse was obscured by white horizontal blurs, and we found ourselves in the middle of a blizzard! After waiting for a few minutes in the falling snow, we set off down the hill, filled with the magic of the morning. By the time we got back into the trees, the snow and dark clouds had gone, the sun was out and suddenly it was warm again! To me, it felt like we had returned to 'normality', after a truly exceptional morning in which I had been deeply touched by the beauty and elemental wonder of the natural world. So, when people tell me I was crazy that day, I know that in fact it's the converse that's true - it's my normal house- and human-centred lifestyle that prevents me from having magical mornings like that more often.

Alan Watson Featherstone

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Muriel Gray with the aspen seedling which she planted as the half-millionth tree of our project. Photo by Barbara Coates. About 40 people attended the special celebration dinner in Inverness. Photo by Barbara Coates.

So much to celebrate and be thankful for!

Half millionth tree planting & dinner with Muriel Gray

Muriel Gray, broadcaster and best selling author, joined us on the 14th of June to plant our half millionth tree and celebrate our success with a fundraising dinner in the evening.

A big thank you to Neil Bruce for playing the bagpipes whose rich, evocative tones heralded the special planting event in Glen Affric, attended by Trees for Life directors, staff, members, supporters and volunteers and local people and Forestry Commission staff and the media.

Welcoming us to Glen Affric, Malcolm Wield, Forestry Commission Scotland's (FCS) Fort Augustus District Manager, said to the assembled group: "We are delighted to host this Trees for Life tree planting celebration. Returning 500,000 trees to the Caledonian Forest is a fantastic achievement. We have worked with Trees for Life in Glen Affric since 1989 and this is a shining example of how working together in partnership can show real results."

Muriel was on top form, full of humour and goodwill, and took up her spade and set to work digging with gusto, preparing the ground for the aspen which had been grown at our tree nursery in the care of Jill Hodge at Plodda Lodge. It seemed apt that we should plant an aspen, given the tree's importance to the beaver, the first extirpated mammal proposed for reintroduction to the Highlands.

We were blessed with good weather for most of the day, dry and breezy (without a sign of midges!), although once the last notes of the pipes were sounded to close the planting ceremony, the heavens burst open and it poured down on us as we rapidly legged it back the short distance to the vehicles!

We received a good deal of positive publicity for the event, including coverage in the Inverness Courier and Press & Journal, and on Grampian TV and Moray Firth Radio.

In the evening we gathered for a fundraising dinner at the Columba Hotel in Inverness, with speeches by Kenny Taylor, chairman of the Trees for Life Board of Directors, Jeff Dymond from FCS, Muriel Gray and Alan Watson Featherstone, who also gave a spectacular audio-visual presentation of Glen Affric through the seasons. Muriel spoke about how what she had seen of Trees for Life's work over the course of the day had touched and inspired her and that, after years of getting used to seeing the Scottish landcsape deteriorating, today she felt proud to be Scottish, heartened by the changes in land reform legislation and the regeneration of wild places. She was struck by how the Forestry Commission, who had once been perceived as the "baddies" were clearly respected partners in our work and was delighted that this was so.

In all we received £2,719 from our fundraising for the Half Millionth Tree day. A list of the raffle prize winners is available on request. A big thank you to the donors of the prizes - Phoenix Community Stores, Richard Brockbank, Natural Collection, Highland Stoneware, Linda Hall and www.turkeyholidayhome.com - and to all our members and supporters who bought raffle tickets and sent in donations and their warm congratulations.

Wedding gifts on the web

Inspired by several couples who have asked friends and family to make donations to Trees for Life to plant trees in celebration of their marriage, we have now set up a web page to enable this to be done online.

Wedding couples simply email to us their contact details, a photo and what they would like to say on their own specially-created web page, and we take care of the rest, so that their friends and family can visit the couple's web page and make a donation online. A list of who has made a donation and the total amount of wedding donations received is published on our web site and once the wedding day arrives we let the couple know how many trees will be planted as a result of donations for their wedding and where their grove will be. Many thanks to Sam and Sandy Pringle who helped launch this, and to Richard Albutt, our webmaster who makes it happen online - much appreciation!

If you'd like to find out more, take a look at our "Wedding Gift of a Lifetime!" page.

David Hammond

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