Recent blogs

Facts & Figures

Old bivouac sites in the Cairngorms

Continuing on the theme of ruined buildings in the mountains, see blog entry for May 2013, Our director Douglas Campbell recently came across some ruined stone-wall bivouacs at the back of Ben Macdui in the Cairngorms which he believes may date back to the early 1940’s when the 52nd Lowland Division of the British Army was undergoing their mountain warfare training in this area. The ‘Mountaineers’ were formed and specially…
October 2, 2013
Our Activities

Deer Population Model

A new project we are just starting up aims to try and understand the dynamics of Red deer populations at varying spatial and temporal scales. The work involves modeling deer populations over a 30-year period across a number of adjacent estates in the Highlands, to try and understand more about the interactions of natural deer movements due to weather/behavior and movements of deer catalyzed by deer culling.
October 1, 2013
Our Activities

Restoring bare peat

We’ve just started a new project on an upland plateau in the Highlands. An experimental trial has been set up to investigate a variety of approaches to restoring blanket bog vegetation on eroding bare peat surfaces at high altitude. The site comprises a complex mixture of intact mire and peatland in different erosional phases. The work involves measurements being made inside a large deer-fenced enclosure and outside it on similar…
September 12, 2013
Facts & Figures

Prostrate Juniper and Dwarf Willow

A recent project we’ve been working on involved an intensive search for montane scrub species on the hills above upper Glen Affric. The area has not previously been surveyed in this way, and so it has been interesting to get the first chance to look at the site in depth. It has been a bit of an epic trying to work systematically across the remote and rocky corries of A’…
August 4, 2013