My experiences managing a woodland in the Scottish Highlands
The concept of Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF) has always made a lot of sense to me. Intuitively, forests need trees. The fungi, plants and animals that live in forests need trees. So we should manage our forests to maintain tree cover and not clear fell large areas. Natural processes have evolved over thousands of years […]
After what has felt like a very wet and windy winter, a milder and calmer spell of weather in mid-February brought an awakening in the woods. Frogs began their somewhat frenzied activity of spawning and could be heard croaking in the pond and ditch. Birds started to make their voices heard. Song thrush, mistle thrush, […]
With the dark and cold of winter comes wood burning season, and lighting the wood burner in the evening is part of the daily routine. However, the use of wood burners and wood-fuel in general has recently become a contentious issue. According to a government survey in 2015, 7.5 percent of households in the UK […]
Sitka spruce is the commonest tree in Comar Wood and also the commonest tree in Scotland, very successful but also highly controversial. My feelings towards this tree have been gradually evolving so I thought I would write a bit about it here. Sitka spruce in Scotland Non-native trees have acquired a negative reputation amongst many […]
All of the land above Comar Wood is managed by Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS, formerly known as Forestry Commission Scotland). Their land extends west up Glen Affric, of which they manage a large part. They are currently updating their ten-year management plan for this area and as part of the process they are obliged […]
Time for working in the woods has been a bit limited in recent weeks because of the other project we have on the go at the moment – building a house here! Although the main reason for buying the land was for the woodland, not to build a house, we were lucky that it already […]
