Surely?

There’s so many of you, there must be an “Adam”???

OK; maybe the wrong sort of ants……

These ones are Scottish wood ants; yes, that’s a species, not just a location. 

Formica aquilonia to give them their Latin name.

I didn’t identify them personally, as it’s all in the detail of body hairs. Of course it is.

So, I’m setting up a new personal project to photograph the degraded status of some birch trees, very loosely described as “woodland” near to a mountain called Cul Mor and I mentioned it to Andy the Ranger.

“There’s wood ants there” he says.

Crikey, I didn’t realise that they existed this far north!

And it’s not exactly proper woodland; just a group of old birch trees on their last legs.

Then Simon from Assynt Foundation said there were more nearby.

Amazing.

And another reason for another walk!

It doesn’t take much, but this is different: wood ants at our latitude have got to be a bit special.

Walking into a wooded gully a couple of miles away, I thought that I’d got lucky: the first birch tree was crawling with them.

They’re fairly easy to spot, being quite a lot larger than “regular ants”.

Tall bracken made me think about not stumbling into, or onto, a nest, so I walked fairly carefully through the trees and was well pleased to find them.

Back to Andy the Ranger, who’s really keen to hear about my sighting, and we’re soon planning a joint return visit to have a proper look. Like an actual survey!

On a nice day at the end of August, loaded down with cucumber sandwiches, ginger beer and a tablecloth all in a wicker picnic basket we set off.

I may have remembered some details incorrectly.

It wasn’t long before we were seeing them on the trunks of birch trees; making their way into the canopy to either eat aphids or harvest their honeydew.

And then the first nest.

Unlike ants living underground in suburban gardens, these build nests on the surface too. They can be quite big mounds. These ones were made of small birch twigs and bits of dry bracken.

Andy recorded grid references and I plotted a track on the map; digital devices are great for some things!

Before lunch, we found seven nests, which made us smile; a good result.

After lunch, we crossed a small stream wondering if they were on the other side too.

Oh yes!

Four more nests, including the largest one of the day, which also had a lovely view. I wonder if they realised?

Living in fabulous scenery is a lucky thing, and, on the face of it, there’s nothing not to like.

However, after a couple of years, it became obvious even to a incomer like myself that some things weren’t quite right.

Now, I believe that’s a massive understatement.
As a kid, I grew up as a birdwatcher and I still have my second pair of binoculars which are now over 50 years old.

They don’t get much use these days: not only do I have smaller, lighter ones, but most of the time there’s “nothing to point them at”.

I have to point out that what I’m saying here are my opinions; some might agree, but others certainly won’t.

The incredible scenery of the Assynt/ Coigach area is an empty sector for wildlife: MAMBA (miles and miles of bugger all).

Bits and pieces here and there, of course.

A trip to the northern Cairngorms is, by contrast, wildlife heaven.

There’s a real problem with trees here. 

This far north, they can be slow growing, but there’s plenty of scope in the right circumstances.

But in most suitable places, none are growing, and there’s no succession for older dying trees.

Without facing up to this problem, sooner or later, there’ll be very little left.

Less trees equals less wildlife; they call it biodiversity these days.

I’ve read in several accounts that the UK’s wildlife has been monitored better than most other countries for many, many years. And yet we score particularly highly for “biodiversity loss”.

Count it and watch it die.

What an achievement.

It beggars belief.

Enough misery.

Recently, the Woodland Trust has signed a management agreement with the Assynt Foundation.

The Foundation are responsible to approximately 44000 acres, including four major mountains: Suilven, Canisp, Cul Mor and Cul Beag.

Reasons, some of them financial, have previously prevented the community charity from active management of this land themselves.

The partnership with Woodland Trust is likely to change this. 

A lot.

Already, tree-less areas have been planted with native species and a transformation has begun.

This is the context.

One of my walks takes me down the valley between Cul Mor and Cul Beag; it makes for a grand day out, and we’ve dubbed it “Little Switzerland”. 

It isn’t, of course; and I doubt whether anyone else uses this description.

There are bits of old woodland, mainly downy birch, which look nice dotting the lower slopes of the valley, Gleann Laoigh to use it’s real name.

But look again: the trees are all on their last legs, ageing and falling down.

If you look down to ankle height, there are in places plenty of baby saplings. 

Nothing between the two.

The saplings are browsed by a population of deer to prevent all growth.

Lawnmowers on a landscape scale; it’s no joke.

No succession then; old trees dying and nothing to replace them.

It’s early days, but there are plans being made to manage this situation properly, and there is now, finally, some hope that the land might be allowed to recover.
And that is really exciting!

It can’t come quickly enough!

So here I am, in Gleann Laoigh, looking for optimism.
Before any new management happens, I’ve decided to set up several “fixed photography points” as baselines.

The only way is up.

I have to make two trips to capture the basics, mainly because I accidentally switched off the image stabiliser on my camera (doooh), and when I realised, it had started to rain.

Anyway, mistake corrected, I get what I need and climb over the foot of Cul Beag to go and visit some more ribbons of relict woods nearby.

Same thing, unsurprisingly, old trees with no successors; tiny saplings in the grass and a browse-line at deer height.

Experts have already looked at these places and full surveys are likely soon, but I’m not a newbie out here; I know what I’m looking at.

It may be the eleventh hour, but it’s not too late yet, and I want to see it develop.

Visiting Inchnadamph on 2nd June, we walked up the Traligill valley to find some wild flowers.

Wild?

Oh yes.

We know that we’re too late for the main show of mountain avens, but we’re hoping to see some orchids and, further up the valley, a burnet rose.

Mountain avens taken last year on 12/5/24 by the roadside at Inchnadamph:

Mountain avens this time in Traligill:

Just past the hostel and couple of houses, the view opens out to a grassy meadow and four wych elms along the limestone crag to the left.

There’s about two dozen red deer sitting in the field, relaxed and comfortable.

They’re the professional lawnmowers that make sure that new trees and many new plants can’t exist in this vast area; pretty much as far as the eye can see.

Except for inaccessible crags, of course.

On our right is the Traligill river, and quite a few sand martins are flying along it, looking for flies, I guess.

It’s difficult to count them as they flit about, occasionally chirping.
Walking on, we’re really heading to the exposed limestone about half a mile ahead.

At the old tin shack, there doesn’t seem to be any swallows; a surprise as they normally nest in there.

Looking inside, there’s a couple of nests, but no sign of any birds unfortunately.

Almost at the conifer plantation, we turn right and head towards the valley; normally dry at this point as the water has gone underground.

I want some elm tree photos: we’ve already passed quite a few along the wet part of the river, but there’s three more over here, one of which is becoming mythical.

It’s a pretty magnificent tree, apparently growing out of solid rock at the base of a small limestone cliff.

Right next to it, there’s a hole in the ground with an underground stream; out of sight but easy to hear.

I have it on good authority that a troll lives here, and judging by the hole being bigger than I remember it, the troll has definitely been eating his Weetabix.

The main tree looks lush with fabulous summer foliage and I get some more photos.

There’s a few really nice orchids along the grassy bank; not as many as I’d expected to see, and I speculate that the cold nights in spring might have held them back a bit.

One of them is (I think) a marsh orchid sub-species, and I was hoping to see it, as the colour is really lovely.

So we pass the footbridge to the caves and carry on as if we’re going to Conival.

Two more cuckoos fly over (or the same two again?) and not only say “cuckoo” but also add that peculiar quacking sound afterwards.

Chatting to some walkers, we say that we’re going to look for a rose and they say they hadn’t noticed it.

Mere amateurs!

Eventually, we got to the sharp left where the path starts to go up the mountain proper, and no sign of the burnet rose.

At our tea-drinking committee meeting, sitting on rocks by the burn, we’re joined by a dipper for a while, but none of us could work out how or why we’d missed the burnet rose.

Heading back downstream, we’re three quarters of the way back to the footbridge when the rose appears, as if by magic, right next to the path.

We join the ranks of mere amateurs as we can’t work out how we missed it on the way up.

Anyhow, target acquired!

Almost back to civilisation, there’s the distinctive sound of a stonechat clacking, and a little brown bird in front of us.

Then there’s two.

Two fledgeling stonechats, no discernible markings without binoculars.

The herd of deer are still where we left them, but wandering about a bit now.

And we’re back to the sand martins too, as we head for home.