By Tracy Munro, East Coast Project Officer
Banking on Brilliance!
Butterfly banks are go at Ardersier with the construction of two banks and two scrapes to help link the isolated colonies of the small blue at Ardersier and Fort George on the Moray coast. This has been a real community effort and demonstrates one of our core beliefs here at Species on the Edge, that by empowering coastal communities to connect with their local wild spaces we can inspire action for nature.
Twenty four hardy volunteers turned up on a chilly autumn day to help us with the final raking, shaping and seeding of the banks. It has been fantastic to see the whole community involved; the local community council who kindly bought the seed, a local company who donated the sand for the banks, Scottish Water who own the land upon which the bank sits and who also also provided volunteers on the day, the local JCB contractor who donated his time, and Ardersier Primary School pupils – our Small Blue Ambassador School – who made us some lovely signs to provide information about the banks.
We can’t wait to go back in the spring and see how the banks are faring. Fingers crossed we will see some butterflies on it in 2025.
The East Coast Tapestry goes on tour
At the end of October I transported the wonderful East Coast Tapestry panel from Dornoch museum all the way up to Dunnet Bay Distillery where it will now go on show in their tour room until February 2025. The panel will then be on display in Inverness Museum during March to May 2025, so if you have not seen it yet pop along and have a look.
Habitat management
Autumn of course means we are full steam ahead with work parties and cakes! We have been clearing a mixture of gorse, broom and birch from Tarbat Ness, Logie Quarry and Ardersier. Next up is Tarbet Ness again followed closely by Fort George. Once again I am blown away by the attitude and enthusiasm of all the volunteers, whether it is their first ever work party or their 100th , we are incredibly lucky to have such great volunteers.
At Logie Quarry, the birch regeneration has really exploded this year and in real danger of swamping the kidney vetch. The team worked hard to clear a large stretch using mostly tree poppers to make sure we removed as much of the roots as possible.
Hopefully we will manage a few more work parties at Logie to really knock the regeneration back from this particular area, where the main small blue colony sits. The great thing about this is that the recently set up small blue transect will enable us to monitor just how the butterflies respond to this kind of habitat work. The dingy skipper butterfly will also benefit from the works with patches of bare ground being created and plenty of bird’s-foot trefoil in the vicinity. I look forward to seeing a lovely blooming display of yellow come summer.
Keep an eye on the Species on the Edge website, on our social media channels, and make sure you’re signed up to our mailing list to keep up to date with all programme news and updates over the coming months.
And remember, you can find out everything you need to know about Species on the Edge on the East Coast on our area page, including our local target species, what we’re up to and how to get in touch with the local team.
