Rannoch is an area of great scenic beauty and one which has been a Mecca for biologists and conservationists
since last century. Ten thousand years ago the ice, which covered Scotland retreated and the land became clothed
in a spacious pine forest from coast to coast. Scots pine was the dominant tree, supported by rowan, birch, oak
and juniper. Man burned or cut most of this forest to flush out bandits and exterminate the wolf, however a few
important patches of the original forest remain. These include the Rothiemurchus and Abernethy forests and the
Black Wood of Rannoch.
The Black Wood is owned by the Forestry Commission and jointly managed by the Commission and Scottish Heritage.
The northern part is a minimum disturbance area which is not touched at all. There is some active management in
the outer regions. Scottish Heritage is trying to extend the wood by removing exotic species to allow the native
species to propagate.
The Black Wood lies immediately to the west of Rannoch School and features splendid pines, some hundreds of years
old. Rannoch School has assisted in a number of biological investigations. Aberdeen University came to the school
to study Capercaillie. From time to time birds become very tame in the spring and they wander about the school
taking little notice of people. There is a photograph in an old school magazine of a female capercaillie sitting
on the (stationary) rotor blade of a helicopter which came to the school.
The institute of terrestrial ecology has fenced off a number of areas of the black wood to study the effect of
deer grazing on the regeneration of pine, rowan, and birch. It is clear that regeneration is much more obvious
in the fenced areas. The school was enlisted in the institute's survey of red deer. This involved half the school
forming a human wall to drive the deer through the trees towards the counters. We also benefited from tuition on
the information provided by deer droppings. Droppings also featured large in a survey of otter and mink along the
Dall burn. Otter spraints (droppings) were found at a number of places along the burn. Mink are relatively common
in the area, numbers having escaped from fur farms near Pitlochry a long time ago. Another prominent member of
the Mustellidae is the pine marten, which has spread into the area during the last 14 years. Pine martens appear
at one member of staffs house as a welcome visitor. Stoats and weasels are fairly common mustellids but the badger
is rare.(Mammals)
Rannoch school has assisted the Nature Conservancy in surveys of insects, plants and fungi in the Black Wood (Peter
Orton, a former member of staff is a world expert on one particular genus of fungus found in the Black Wood, called
Cortinarius). He is also a very good entomologist and has discovered manyinsects new
to the list for the Black Wood. There are two moths that have been named after the area, the Rannoch Looper and
the Rannoch Sprawler. Butterflies are not terribly common but Painted Ladies, Scotch Argus, Green-veined White
and Northern Brown Argus are to be found. There are also two species of dragonfly which are almost peculiar to
the Rannoch area. An interesting feature of the Black Wood is the Scottish Wood Ant (Formica aquilonia) which is
very similar to the English Wood Ant but which is hairier. It makes large conical nests from pine needles and twigs.
The presence of these nests is a good sign of the ecological health of the Wood. The nests are designed to warm
up in the sun so that the ants, which are cold-blooded can become active as soon as possible. The ants are largely
camivorous and will overpower other insects using their jaws and squirting jets of formic acid. They are well known
for tending the aphids (greenfly) which are found on all sorts of vegetation but especially the Scots pine. The
aphids are protected from predators and parasites by the ants and in return they provide honeydew which is a sweet
substance rich in carbohydrate. The honeydew is the aphids excretory product and is held on a ring of hairs around
the anus of the aphid before being ingested by the ants. The ants themselves fall prey to predators and parasites
that live in their nests. Some of these produce sweet substances to fool the ants into not attacking them. A larger
predator is the Green Wood Pecker which digs into the nest with its beak, making a conical hole from which it gathers
ants using its long sticky tongue. Its tongue is so long that it has to be wrapped in a special track around the
back of the skull. It is thought that regeneration of the native Caledonian pine in the Black Wood is hindered
by browsing deer (both red and roe) and these animals are culled by the forest rangers. Regeneration seems quite
strong along tracks where there is light and where the ground is disturbed. tracks are also good for the discovery
of cones eaten by either red squirrels or cross bills, each leaves distinctive signs. There are adders to be found
but no grass snakes, perhaps because adders are oviviviparous (which means that the eggs hatch inside the female
and then it gives birth to live young) while the grass snake is oviparous and has to find somewhere for its eggs
to be incubated. Common lizards abound in the hot summer and the slow worm is common. The latter is often mistaken
for a snake but it is, of course, a legless lizard and is able to shed its tail if attacked, as is typical of lizards.
The idea here, is that the predator will delay, eating the tail while the lizard escapes and grows another tail.
Loch Rannoch (a ribbon lake) is eleven miles long and 1.5 miles wide at its widest point. It is sufficiently large
to sport large breaking waves in windy weather when it can look quite like the sea. It has an interesting population
of Charr (Salvelinus alpinus) which was the subject of a taxonomic study at Rannoch School. This was funded by
the Royal Society under the 'research in schools scheme'. Charr populations seem to have been isolated from each
other in deep lakes, since the end of the last ice age and races or subspecies have evolved. It was thought that
the Loch Rannoch Charr might belong to two separate populations, one deep water and the other shallow water. Our
study, however suggested that the observed morphological differences were a continuum and that they were therefore
probably one continuous interbreeding population.
Other fish that occur in the loch are pike (which are netted by the Loch Rannoch Conservation Association to reduce
there predation on trout), brown trout, salmon, perch and some rainbow trout. The rainbow trout were introduced
and may be disappearing as they do not breed. It is now policy not to introduce any but native, locally bred fish
when stocking the loch to avoid genetic pollution.
The fish research laboratories at Faskally have a long running project to 'seed' burns around Loch Rannoch with
salmon parr to encourage a larger returning population. The original population having suffered from the difficulty
of returning past the hydroelectric darns in the Tummel system. The dams have fish ladders but these apparently
still represent a formidable barrier. Assessment of the population is done by stunning fish in the burns with electric
probes. The fish are unharmed and can be returned to the water.
The Rannoch Natural History Society (founded by a member of staff of Rannoch School) has brought the School into
contact with many organisations involved in conservation. The Royal Society for the protection of birds keeps a
weather eye on the birds of prey in the area and was grateful for the assistance from members of staff of the school
who discovered a photographer in a local eagle eyrie, making the eaglet flap its wings so that he could get a better
photograph. we were able to take his car registration which was traced to an address in Lancashire.
Other birds of prey of note in the area, include hen harriers, short eared owls, merlins, peregrine falcons and
ospreys. The latter seem to be getting quite common; I have seen two at once from the kitchen window.
In autumn the loch and local reservoirs play host to numerous ducks (mallard, teal, wigeon, pochard, tufted, goldeneye,
red-breasted merganser, goosander) and geese (greylag, pink foot). Hundreds of greylags spend the winter but are
not always popular with the farmers. The geese are accompanied by whooper swans and one pair of these stayed to
breed, an unusual event. Unfortunately the pair had their eggs stolen and failed to breed although they had had
four cygnets the previous year. Black throated divers breed on the larger lochs and red throated divers breed on
smaller bodies of water. One small loch has been the breeding site of the rare Slavonian grebe.(Birds)
Rannoch School Conservation Service has worked with the Countryside Commission to set up an information board and
parking area at a local disused lime kiln. The kiln was repointed and made safe, trees were planted and the board
describes its history and technical details of the function and functioning of the kiln.
The service also helped restore stone dykes at Kinloch Rannoch. We hope to help Bristol University with its survey
of British hare populations. We have both brown hares and the mountain or blue hare.
The Conservation Service is a member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and has joined the Loch Garry
tree project whose aim it is to reafforest areas around Loch Garry with native trees such as the Scots Pine and
birch.
At present the Conservation service is cooperating with the Forestry Commission to help remove non-native trees
from the Black Wood and allow the regeneration of the native species. It is intended that the area of native woodland
should be increased. The Commission has felled the trees such as Sitka Spruce and Conservation Service members
are helping to cut up and transport the timber. Other members of the service are recording environmental information
such as plant types, insect larval types, bird species, geology in the region of the Dall Bum and the effects of
acid rain for their Duke of Edinburgh Projects.
A number of the local landowners and farmers have taken advantage of government grants given to encourage the planting
of deciduous trees. the areas need to be fenced in order to exclude deer.
The encouragement of native species and their reintroduction has been a long term policy but is perhaps gaining
pace. The capercaillie was reintroduced from Scandinavia after going extinct in Scotland. The red kite has been
reintroduced to Scotland after having gone extinct in Britain except for the Tregaron bog area of mid Wales. The
Caimgorms are quite famous for their reindeer which were brought from Sweden. The white-tailed sea eagle is now
reasonably common on the cliffs of islands such as Rhum, again after reintroduction from Scandinavia. At one time
it nested on Rannoch Moor and was, in fact, more common
than the golden eagle but proved less adaptable. In Roman times these eagles fed on bodies after battles. It is
interesting to note that a brief newspaper article claimed that brown bears had been released in the area of Amulree.
This is presumably not the case and would not really be a feasible proposition because of the potential conflict
with human activities. As yet I have heard of no plans for reintroducing the wolf or lynx but perhaps Rhum would
be a suitable site.
Rannoch Moor is a site of international importance, since it is a national nature reserve and here the Rannoch
rush which is peculiar to the area is to be found. It is perhaps fortunate that a road has never been built across
the moor or it would have changed the character of the area. There is nevertheless a railway, the West Highland
Line. In places the line is built on brushwood which cunningly prevents it from sinking into the bog.
The Rannoch area is blessed with an unusual limestone called the Dalradian limestone which is 600 million years
old. The lime which it provides to the soil has an influence on the vegetation and is favourable for certain plants
such as the Northern Felwort, Astragalus, thyme, bottle sedge, rock rose, wild strawberry and globe flower to name
but a few. The limestone pavement on the Schiehallion road is one of the best in Scotland and all the more mteresting
because it is in Dalradian limestone. The grykes (furrows) in it protect the original woodland plants from grazing
and contain, Dog's Mercury, Herb Bennet, Ivy, Wood Sorrel and Wood Anemone.
Further to the east an on going conservation issue resides in the barytes deposit at Farrogon Hill. Barytes is
a mineral (barytes is a mineral (barium sulphate) which is used as a drilling mud in the oil wells of the North
Sea. The MI mineral company now exploits the resource with consequent very heavy lorries crossing Wade's bridge
in Aberfeldy and disturbance of the hillside with heavy vehicles. The mining has brought to light a rare mineral
called celsian which is a barium feldspar and which has caused some of the site to be declared an SSSI. The barytes
deposit continues further east to Cluny Moor where the deposit is even purer and will be of use for medical purposes.
(it is used for barium meals and enemas since it is opaque to X-rays). Whether or not to exploit the Cluny Moor
barytes is the subject of a public enquiry.(Geology)
At the present time many conservation organisations are worried that the government has no serious intent of protecting
SSS I's. This issue has been the subject of a recent New Scientist article and has been discussed on the radio
4 program today. Many have been deregulated because they have been so badly damaged by agriculture and by industry.
Some Scottish landowners have been able to buy SSSIs and then claim more compensation from Scottish Heritage for
not destorying them than the land cost them. Areas which are said to be particularly at risk are the Cairngorms
and Dartmoor. It is considered that breaking the Nature Conservancy up into three separate national bodies has
had the effect of weakening the conservation lobby. This may even have been the intention!
The John Muir Trust is a conservation body which is devoted to reserving the wild areas of Britain.