Exploring Forests with a Forester

On 21 May, Wild Reekians headed into the Pentlands at Bonaly to discover the woodlands. Our guide was Andrew Heald of Confor, which represents commercial forestry.

Bonaly has a mixture of woodland of different ages, planted for all kinds of purposes: timber, recreation, wind-breaks, flood management and biodiversity enhancement. We were introduced to commercial species including Sitka spruce, Larch, and Lodgepole pine; native species including Silver birch, Rowan, Hawthorn, Ash, Elm, Holly and the three conifers Juniper, Scots pine and Yew; and introduced species like Beech and Sycamore. If you've forgotten which is which, the Woodland Trust Guide to British Trees will remind you.

Investigating oak galls

The challenges of protecting a new woodland against deer, sheep, squirrels, rabbits, voles...

Mature 'policy' woodland: trees of diverse ages and species, with a rich understorey and lots of wildlife habitat.

Have a look at this ten-minute Confor film about modern forestry:




Also this cool two-minute animation about how we are all connected to trees:

If you'd like to get involved in increasing the amount of woodland in the UK, have a look at the Woodland Trust Tree Charter. You can read about Andy's work with WWF on sustainable plantations around the world here.

Mature Sitka spruce: Andy's favourite tree?

Follow Andy on twitter at @andyheald, and future Wild Reekie events on our Meetup page.

Eleanor Harris, @eleanormharris