Orchids galore...

The route between the old railway line south of Ballindalloch and the Garvault plantation is fringed with carpets of moorland flowers. Cotton grass, orchids, ragged robin, even alpine bistort if you keep your eyes open. Best display we've seen in years.

Return of the ghost trees....

They're at it again! The Bird Cherry ermines! I talked about this on the 4th of June last year, but I think it's worth another comment. The Bird Cherries (prunus padus) on mid Speyside are suffering what appears this time to be an extreme Ermiine Moth infestation. The ‘cobwebs’ you can see on many trees along the Speyside Way are not the work of an invasion of giant spiders, only the result of activity by a relatively common moth, the Bird Cherry Ermine (Yponomeuta evonymella)

On hatching, the caterpillars of this moth can quite quickly spin a silk ‘tent’ over the twigs and branches where they can feed on the leaves in safety, protected from birds and parasitic ichneumon wasps by their surrounding shield.

During a major infestation of ermine moth caterpillars, whole bird cherry trees can be completely enveloped in this silken stocking and become totally defoliated. These outbreaks are sporadic, however, and while the trees may appear leafless and lifeless immediately afterwards, they tend to recover in subsequent years.

This year, however, many trees are also weakened by snow damage with many broken and cracked branches. It remains to be seen what the outcome will be.

Snow for the hinds calving

What did I tell you? (see 5th May below) OK, it's a week early but we surely now have the 'Snow for the hinds calving' ** - Ben Rinnes was pictured today at lunchtime.



Bad news for birds sitting on eggs, or those that rely on hatches of insects on warm sunny days to feed chicks. Traditionally, though, this is winter's parting shot and hopefully summer may
soon follow.

** The 'snow for the hinds calving' is an expression you are most likely to hear in the West Highlands of Scotland where I worked for a number of years - in Gaelic it's 'Sneachda laogh na fiadh' - thanks to my colleague John Morrison from Harris for the Gaelic version!

Be prepared!

Should be our motto. I had a sparrowhawk swoop down and settle on my front garden wall last night. I was on the phone and just happened to be looking out of the window when it happened....now descision time, do i hang up on my mum or roam around my house to find the camera whilst trying to sound interested at the same time, as luck would have it (or not ) it shot off before i could do either.

Well i'm hoping that it will visit again as the wrath of one's mother is a thing not to be trifled with.

So be prepared for nature sightings anytime, anyhow and any place. If you do see anything, flying, scurrying, crawling, hopping, hovering etc then somebody needs to know. These chaps especially.....www.nesbrec.org.uk the North East Scotland Biological Recording Centre. Check out their website on how to input sightings yourself on-line, paper or via the phone. Whether its casual sightings as you're on the way to work or an indepth survey for a school or college project, let others share your finds and help us put together a picture of what wildlife and habitats we have in the NE, you never know it may help preserve some of our most threatened habitats.

Spring is here and change is a foot!

Its been a wee while since i've posted on here....thank the snow and crazy weather for that...pictures of my commute to work will follow (just can't bring myself to look at them now we have sun and green grass).

As Jim has said spring is sort of here....its taken its time thats for sure. We're probably looking a being a month or so behing schedule, but do not frown...things are growing and have truely been reborn.

Not unlike our selves here in Aberlour central. Although still repsonsible for the Speyside Way within Moray we now have a wider county remit. You can watch this space for tales of daring do's, wildlife intrigue and more ranger events. We're still finding our feet with our new role, checking out what the far flung reaches of the county have to offer us rangers, so bare with us and keep tuned for events and works that we will be doing in the future.

Here's a picture of the massed daffodils that can been seen throughout the county....gauranteed to bring a warm spring glow to anyone.

The Gab o' May

Hold that last post! Spring has disappeared again, temperatures are back into single figures and there's snow on the hills!
But don't worry, it's only the 'Gab o' May', that evocative Scots name for what is often poor weather at the start of May (you know, that bit of poor weather between the 'Teuchat's storm' in early April and the 'Snow for the hinds calving' in early June!) After we've had all these it might just be summer!!

Spring at last.....?

The swallows arrived on Saturday 24th April, exactly the same date as last year. I hope they have had a better winter than we have! The banks of the Speyside Way are now carpeted with spring flowers, particularly primroses and wood anemones, and particularly striking between Craigellachie and Aberlour.

Take a careful look at the wood anemone flowers - though appearing to be white, they are often streaked with pink or purple, especially on the outside, and are carried on a reddish stem. Like many other spring flowers, they turn to face the sun as it moves across the sky. The plant is said to be named after the Greek legend in which Anemos, the wind, sends his namesakes the anemones as heralds of his coming: hence its other common name of 'windflower'.

The spring is sprung, the grass is riz,

I wonder where the Speyside Way iz?

"It's fallen in the water!"
Apologies to Ogden Nash and Little Jim (aka Spike Milligan) respectively!!
Anyway, to be serious, the Speyside Way has or is trying to 'fall in the water' in a couple of places. Bank erosion between Spey Bay and Fochabers has resulted in a short diversion, same as two years ago in 2008. The Spey simply wants to go somewhere else......

Elsewhere at Knockando the slippage is a bit more mysterious - or is it? Further slippage has revealed a piece of blue tape sticking out of the bank - a sudden reminder that about 20 years ago a water main was laid along this section of railway - is a leak in the pipe causing a subterranean wash-out? If not, the slip is clearly now threatening the integrity of the pipe. The route is still open for the moment, but Scottish Water is now involved and we will keep you posted as to what will happen next.

The times they are a changin....

From 1st April, unitary management of the Speyside Way will cease. That means that the Moray Council, who have to date managed the whole route on behalf of the other authorities (Highland Council and the Cairngorms National Park Authority) will no longer manage the route within the National Park. This role will be taken on by the National Park Authority themselves.
For one further year, however, Moray countryside staff will continue to provide a central information service for the whole route, while an alternative strategy is developed for information provision for the National Park section. For the moment, then, the point of contact for information about the whole route is still the Moray Council Countryside Section in Aberlour:

tel - 01340 881266

email - speyside.way@moray.gov.uk

web - www.speysideway.org

post - Speyside Way Visitor Centre, Broomfield Square, Aberlour AB38 9QP

No news is good news?

For those of you waiting on news of the slip at Knockando, well, there's no news really. Since it happened, we have hardly seen the area without snow cover in order to be able to assess the problem. A slow thaw of our second extraordinary dump of snow this winter has now set in - some places had even more than over Christmas and New Year, and very much determined by altitude. Higher parts have had around 3 feet (90 cm) this time, plus drifts to twice that. For the second time this winter I have found my self saying that that I have never in my life seen so much snow!
Anyway, it appears that the slip has not moved much since we saw it originally, so we are now optimistic that a serious collapse may not actually take place. We'll try to keep you posted.

Slip-sliding away.....

It's not just the humans who are slip-sliding away (and yes, the snow has returned again after only two days of 'clear ground' last week).

The Speyside Way railway embankment near Knockando has joined in the 'slippery' action with a major and potentially catastrophic landslip developing in the last week. From bitter past experience, we know how much this kind of slip costs to repair and this time the financial cupboard looks particularly bare. A full assessment cannot be carried out until the snow goes away again - for the moment the route is not actually closed, though any further developments on the ground may change this at any time . No obvious alternative route exists here and closure remains a very real possibility. For the moment, approach and cross the area with great caution

Watch this space.

Quick update

No, we didn't get flooding (except for briefly on Saturday morning), we got ICE. Night time re-freezes have brought us now into the 'crampons required' phase, and that's just to get in the front door of the offices or walk along the pavements of Aberlour High Street.

The plastic gutters and roan pipes on the Visitor Centre building duly came away with the snow avalanching from the roofs. We have escaped lightly but destruction is all around, especially of farm buildings, where I understand that literally hundreds have collapsed in NE Scotland, many on top of the cattle inside. Many of these buildings, I am told, were not manufactured locally but were brought in as second-hand purchases from south of the border. Scant consolation except perhaps to our local manufacturers whose more substantially built structures have largely survived.

We do winter so badly in this country.

Speyside Way car park in Aberlour (or is it a skating pond!!)

And one more favourite snowy photo -

White Christmas overload.....

Too much of a good thing!

It's amazing how the novelty of a white Christmas wears off when you have 26" of snow, temperatures regularly down in the minus teens, one car packed up, visitors from the other side of the world (who have come from summer and are comlaining about having landed in the Arctic) to collect from and return to airports, central heating playing up... need I go on? All I can say is thank goodness for my 4x4 - without it Christmas may have been white, but otherwise would not have happenned at all and I certainly would not be back at work yet after the New Year holiday.

Let's forget 'global warming' shall we and stick with 'climate change' please!

But enough of me. The Speyside Way has been pretty inaccessible (as in pretty, but inaccessible!) for a couple of weeks now unless on cross-country skis, but just today the thaw has set in - I expect flooding will be the next problem, but we'll keep you posted!

The Spey at Craigellachie by Ged Connell - copyright The Moray Council Ranger Service.

My Morning commute hell.....

Whilst on my way round Speyside, this is the aweful sight that greets me in the morning at the moment.

Terrible i know....but someone has to do it! It does suprise me that this type of weather does seem to take people by suprise. This may not be a regular sight as it used to be, snow does fall in Scotland an the UK in winter, but it seems that the majority of people do carry on in their normal behaviour. Routines, preparedness etc needs to be changed in accordance with the conditions (not just for the snowy times), slow your driving speed down, give plenty of time to get where you're going, have proper clothes with you, shovel in the car, food and hot drinks etc. Or if you don't have to go out ...then don't....enjoy the snow and be thankful for a white Christmas.

I know someone who is enjoying it.....

Look, no leaves!

This November we have enjoyed the unusual sight of rowan trees laden with fruit long after the leaves have fallen. Why? Our rowans are usually snapped up early on by the annual autumn invasion of Scandinavian thrushes - redwings and field fares. Was the invasion late this year? Were there simply too many berries? If the annual influx was indeed late, sheer numbers now seem to be making up for it - there now appear to be tens of thousands of these autumn migrants all across the Speyside area. The abundance of rowans reflects the general abundance of all fruits this autumn - both wild and cultivated. Sign of a hard winter to come? Maybe, but more likely just a reflection of the growing conditions we have had throughout 2009!