Glen Affric Ditch Damming Work Party - March 26th 2017

The Bog Squad ventured into the Highlands with a twelve-strong work party in Glen Affric and despite being late March it was a sweltering hot day with some folk even resorting to breaking out the sun-cream!. The event was held in conjunction with a local British Dragonfly Society volunteer group which has been working here recently to restore damaged peatland habitat with new dragonfly friendly pools being created in the process.

The site was a former pine plantation that has been felled and is now been deemed too wet to plant further trees on. It will therefore remain as a large open clearing providing good potential habitat for species such as Dark Green Fritillary. We were creating peat dams in the many old forestry ditches in order to help keep the site from drying out too much and turning to rank scrub. It proved to be hot work in the sun for the volunteers, but their efforts produced eight new peat dams.

Some moths were seen enjoying the weather including Orange Underwing and a freshly emerged Yellow Horned. Later that night moth trapping nearby produced a total of 72 Rannoch Sprawler including 51 in just one trap!

 Rannoch Sprawler

Hard at work digging.

The team at Glen Affric.