Dear all,
I hope this finds you safe and well as we continue to navigate this long and testing time. The early spring has juddered back and forth, sunning creatures out of their hibernacula, only to dip back below freezing, with strange snowstorms in the past days falling out of seemingly cloudless air: a disorientating electricity.
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Beavers in the snow last week
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But before that, the frogs appeared in the ponds, their sleek heads just above the surface of the water. You see them from a distance if you are looking for them. Walking with my little daughter along the Burnieshed path, something catches my eye in the glinting pond ahead. We creep down the bank and they disappear, each in their own ripple. 'Frogs' she whispers, huskily. We crouch by the rushy ground, the gelatinous soup of their spawn gathered close to the bank. We manage to be quiet long enough for them to emerge, copper eyed, the otherworldly rasp of their nuptial song. A languid decadence about it all, like a scene you might imagine from a Roman bath. 'One, two, ree, four, five, six', Flora suddenly says out loud, as they pop back under in a series of quiet plosives. We set off back along the path, looking in each beaver pond for more frogspawn, searching the bright atlas of their textures, dropping sticks and stones into the shallows, picking up the skeletons of oak and beech leaves, to cherish and then forget.
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Common Frogs in mating season
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We are in the thick of our crowdfunder; raising money for some essential set up costs of our Wildland project (perimeter fence, pigs and ponies for conservation grazing/rootling, and monitoring) - and if we make the first goal, some exciting extras (pond digging, wildflower sowing, small scale tree planting). Our plans for holistic ecological healing of the land do not fall into any Scottish Government funded category, and so we are obliged to find other means. We hope that by doing this we will show that there is a powerful desire among people for rewilding, and that this in turn will help us show that the system needs to change.
And we are confident that there is desire: we are delighted to have raised well over sixty percent of our initial target. If you haven't already, we would love it if you watched the video (below), visited the site, donated, shared, or all of the above! Some of our rewards - the copse adoption - have gone so well they almost sold out and we are pleased to say we are undertaking in collaboration with the Woodland Trust to create twenty more. We have also added a delightful vessel (yet to be decided whether box or bag) of beaver carved chips and sticks. These are surprisingly beautiful items, showing the intricate tooth chisel-work of these master crafts-beasts. A donation is an opportunity to hold a stake in the future flourishing of nature at Bamff, and we hope you will join us on our wild adventure!
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Beaver chips (photo by Beatrice Searle)
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In a few weeks, the ground will come alive with baby frogs as they leave the water. Thousands upon thousands, herons glutting on the sudden abundance. The presence of beavers has hugely increased their numbers, creating pools, slowing water that would otherwise run too fast for safe metamorphosis. We hope one day soon to bring in lost species of amphibian: pool, moor, and agile frog, and great crested newt. We will have to do closer research to discover which are suitable, but the presence of beavers is an excellent start.
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Common Toad (photo by Sophie Ramsay)
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We walk home back down the drive, moving three quiet toads from the middle of the road, hoping to save them from delivery vans and pickup trucks. Their skin is soft and dry. They don't like it. 'That one's a bit shy, Mummy'.
Since then, the geese have flown over on their way back to the Arctic. First, you hear their squawks, then they cross the sky over you, a fragmentary arrow: moving within movement. Now the sound of woodpeckers echoes over fields; bullfinches and long tailed tits busy themselves on hedges; wagtails parade jerkily on the lawn; rooks and jackdaws furl above the rookery by the old walled garden, in loud conversation. Flora and I stop to talk to Chris, who is splitting logs by the stick shed. 'I like rooks', he says 'they're not half noisy, but they look after each other'.
Our warmest and brightest spring wishes,
Sophie and the Bamff Team
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Long tailed tits on the drove road hedge (photo by Dave Maric)
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All photos and video by Dave Maric unless otherwise stated.
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