SNH Area News Southern Scotland


Correspondents: Trevor Godden, Andrew Panter


Keep bees buzzin’


Bees are having a hard time at the moment; it’s a complex problem that’s been linked to environmental changes, pests and diseases. This is not only bad news for bees, but also for us. One in three mouthfuls of the food we eat is dependent on bees and other pollinating insects. So unless we start to do something to safeguard our bees, many of our favourite fruits and vegetables could disappear from supermarket shelves. This was the theme of SNH’s


colourful stand at this year’s Dumfries and Galloway Environment Fair. Our aim was to encourage people to take simple, practical steps to make their gardens more bee-friendly. For example, the greater the number of suitable flowering plants in your garden from March to September, the better it will please the bees. Plenty of single flowers, like daisies and asters, are good, and so are lavenders, buddleias and heathers. Creating a wildflower garden or bed will add to the pollen and nectar supply throughout the summer months. And by cutting the lawn less often, nectar-rich daisies, buttercups and clover have more time to flower. By providing a haven for bees in our gardens, we can all help safeguard their future and our food security.


River volunteers


A three year project run by Galloway Fisheries Trust to get volunteers involved in work to improve freshwater habitats is proving to be a success. With the help of an SNH grant, the Galloway Fisheries Volunteer Scheme was set up in early summer 2011. The scheme now has 31 regular volunteers who’ve carried out over 1,000 work-hours to date. Their work covers a variety of tasks from hand pulling invasive Himalayan balsam on the banks of the River Cree to removing riverbed obstructions to assist the passage of migratory fish. But most of the ongoing work so far is aimed at managing river bank vegetation and trees. Beside the Water of Fleet near Gatehouse of Fleet, dense trees and shrubs have shaded out much of the low-level bank-side vegetation; this is important because it reduces soil erosion in the winter and provides a habitat for wildlife. The volunteers are carrying out selective coppicing and thinning to increase light levels. This will also improve the in-stream habitats for young salmon and sea trout, and benefit other species, such as water voles, which depend on the vegetation as a food source.


Projects like this are making a big difference to local wildlife, and the scheme is hoping to encourage more volunteers in the future.


46


Whitlaw trap set


A newly constructed ‘silt trap’ at Whitlaw Mosses NNR in the Borders will help to conserve the amazing variety of plants and animals that live there. The intricate mosaic of mosses and sedges supports such rarities as holy grass, coralroot orchid, alpine rush, and several unusual fly and water beetle species. They’re all able to flourish because of the mineral-rich springs that flow in from the surrounding area. But the water quality can be affected by nutrient-rich fertilisers entering the system from past and present applications on many of the surrounding fields.


Silt high in nutrients is often washed into the burns and spreads across the mosses. It encourages the spread of reeds at the expense of the more sensitive species-rich fen vegetation. Luckily the main offender, phosphate, binds itself to silt particles; so the plan is to stop the silt, and stop the phosphate. The silt trap slows down inflowing water round a series of baffles, causing the silt to fall out of suspension and build up within the trap. The silt is then cleaned out of the trap annually and removed, taking the phosphate with it. This is just one tool we use for protecting these vulnerable wetland habitats, but it is one that operates quietly by itself, until clean-out time!


The Nature of Scotland


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68