Two bogs, a swamp and some islands: revealing the hidden gems of Loch Lomond and beyond

In this episode we take you on a boat trip down the River Endrick at Loch Lomond National Nature Reserve, where we chat with NatureScot area staff Amee Hood, Stephen Longster and Robyn Hennessey. They guide us through the unique flora and fauna of not only Loch Lomond, but also Flanders Moss and Blawhorn Moss National Nature Reserves, the three reserves they help look after.

We hear about these special habitats, discuss the invasive non-native species that threaten them and reveal the conservation efforts led by NatureScot staff and volunteers.

As we delve deeper, the team explain the type of work that goes on at a nature reserve, from monitoring birds and managing invasive species, to unearthing rare plants. They also share their own seasonal highlights and passion for the natural world.

So, join us in discovering the natural beauty of Scotland's nature reserves and the crucial conservation efforts underway.

More Information:

Loch Lomond National Nature Reserve
Blawhorn Moss National Nature Reserve
Flanders Moss National Nature Reserve
Follow the NNR Facebook page for up-to-date information on reserves across Scotland.
Find out more about our partners: Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park  and the RSPB, which manages RSPB Loch Lomond. 

Transcript

Kirstin:

Hi and welcome to Make Space for Nature from NatureScot, the podcast that celebrates Scotland's nature, landscapes and species. I'm Kirstin Guthrie and in each episode my guests and I will help you learn more about our amazing natural world. In this episode I head outdoors, to Loch Lomond, to meet with NatureScot Reserve staff, Amee Hood, Stephen Longster and Robyn Hennessy, who all help look after three reserves in Scotland. We hear about the unique flora and fauna found at Loch Lomond, Flanders Moss and Blawhorn Moss National Nature Reserves and the important work being carried out by staff and volunteers to protect these precious habitats.

So we're here on the River Endrick at Loch Lomond. You might be able to hear the boat in the background. We're just meandering down the river here. It's such a special place. The view is absolutely stunning. Today we've had a bit of drizzle and a bit of sunshine, but it's absolutely glorious. And we've been joined by Reserve Manager Amee Hood. Hi, Amee, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us today. Could you give us a little bit of information about your role with NatureScot, please, Amee.

Amee:

Yep, sure so I'm the Reserve Manager for the Stirland National Nature Reserves, so one of the reserves that we manage is the Loch Lomond National Nature Reserve. We also manage Flanders Moss National Nature Reserve and Blawhorn Moss National Nature Reserve and together we class them as two bogs, a swamp and some islands.

Kirstin:

I love that description. That's brilliant, Amee. Can you tell us a bit about the local area, please?

Amee:

Yep, so just now we're just coming down the River Endrick, so we're basically in the Loch Lomond National Park. Here we are in the lowlands of Scotland. We have the Inchcailloch. That island actually goes across the Highland and Lowlands. Is it the boundary fault? So we're, yeah, right in the middle between the Highlands and the Lowlands of Scotland.

Kirstin:

Excellent, and it's full of woodlands, wetlands, mountains, stunning wildlife, and it's home to Scotland's largest freshwater loch sorry, loch, it also plays an important part in protecting species such as geese and native oakwoods. Can you tell us a bit more about that as well?

Amee:

Yep, sure. So basically we've got a mosaic of different habitats down here on the National Nature Reserve, as you mentioned. We've got the wetlands, we've got the woodlands and we've got the fen communities as well. So it opens up a lot of diverse habitat for many species of different species. Just now we're going down the Endrick, we're coming into the winter months here. We're going to start seeing the geese migrate back over here to roost and feed over the winter months. So one of the features for the National Nature Reserve is the Greenland White Fronted Geese, which we'll be monitoring shortly, and then in the summer time our reserve offers great habitat and home for our ospreys and with it being on one of the largest lochs, it's got a great good source for food, so we get quite a good few species hunting along here.

Kirstin:

Oh, that's brilliant. And NatureScot managed just one part of the reserve, although it is a large part of the reserve. So how is the reserve split and why does it need to be split like this?

Amee:

Yep. So the National Nature Reserve is split between three different partners. So NatureScot looks after the east side of the River Endrick and also the islands Creinch, Torrinch and Clarinish. We also NatureScot owns Inchcailloch, but that gets managed by the National Park mainly because they have the resources and the facilities to be able to cater to the public. So we rely on the National Park to help us with that aspect. And then on the south side of the river is managed by the RSPB and they have great interpretation. They have visitor facilities, boardwalks, interpretation education platforms, so they manage to offer further visitor interactions than what we do on our side. We, NatureScot, primarily look after the side where we've got the least visitors on it because we don't have the facilities. However, we manage to look after nature and it's quiet, relatively quiet.

 

Kirstin:

That sounds fascinating and a really interesting way that it is a big site and it needs to be managed in very different ways, understandably. And why does this specific area need to be managed by NatureScot, for nature, as you say.

Amee:

So it has a unique habitat. So what we're trying to do is prevent nature loss. So we work with the landowners by going into nature reserve agreements to make sure that it's grazed in the correct way to keep, make sure that it's got the correct sward height for when it comes to the migratory geese coming back to feed over the winter months. Then also the management agreement that we have with habitat management is making sure that the, the rushes and the fen communities don't get cut over the summer months, so then that would impact breeding birds. So we're offering great habitat for wildlife under conservation management by working with our landowners.

Kirstin:

I was just going to also ask you about the invasive non-native species you get here. Is there any particular species that you have to really kind of manage?

Amee:

Yeah, so really that's what we primarily manage here on the National Nature Reserve for the NatureScot section. Through the summer months we'll be primarily based down here controlling the invasive non-native species, and that is hosted by a group of volunteers. We will manage Himalayan balsam, skunk cabbage, Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed and New Zealand pygmy weed, which is actually in fact quite, this year, because the loch levels have been so low we've actually managed to find more of that spread on the surface under the loch because it's been exposed more, which is a highly invasive plant which we try and control. We also do rhododendron controls on the islands and then also bamboo as well. We control bamboo that's been planted there.

Kirstin:

Wow, there's so many different invasive species, that invasive non-native species that need control. That's a heck of a lot of work and obviously you have volunteering groups that come along. Is that a kind of a regular - do they come weekly or how does that work?

Amee:

So our volunteers come every Wednesday and we've got a hardy bunch of volunteers who have been with us for a very long time and they love the challenging terrain that we've got. We don't have any visitor infrastructure on our National Nature Reserve side of the NNR, so basically it's very wild. It's wet and wild, which our volunteers love. So each time that they come out here they get a different experience. They could be walking along the riverbank, which might be easy terrain to start off with, but then to traverse across the land, what might have taken them an hour and a half two hours to meander along the river. They basically have a half an hour walk straight across the fen, which can be very, quite boggy and marshy and challenging. Or they could be on the hunt for skunk cabbage and really dense, thick woodland, which they seem to love.

Kirstin:

It's so important, isn't it? The volunteers, we rely on them so much everywhere and they do such hard work as well, as well as you guys, you know, all the reserve staff, absolutely. Just one thing I was going to ask about is when you talk about fen, can you explain what that means?

Amee:

So basically the site is a wetland habitat, so it fluctuates through the year, through the seasons. So in the summer time it will come, the grass and the sward will be exposed, and then, when it comes into the winter time, it then gets flooded. So basically the habitat is changing through the seasons. So one minute it's going to be a relatively hard surface to walk across and then next minute it gets completely flooded into a wetland.

Kirstin:

So that's fascinating. Thank you, and I was just going to ask you is there any particular species of plants, animals, insects, you know, perhaps unique to this area?

Amee:

So, basically, one of my niches and one of my favourite species is a freshwater sponge which I identified seven, eight years ago when I was a student placement. It was the first record ever to be recorded in Loch Lomond for the loch itself. Quite a niche itself. It's underwater, it acts as a filtration. It's an animal, even though you don't think it is. So, yes, that's my favourite, one of my favourite species. And then the ospreys through the summer, if you're out on the loch on the boat, you can see them dive for the fish and it's really quite exciting to watch them hunt.

Kirstin:

Brilliant. Well, that's great. Well, thank you so much, Amee, and one thing I want to mention while we're chatting here is Amee's been managing to steer the boat as we've been going down the river and talked to us at the same time. So talk about multi skilled and multi talented, absolutely. Thank you so much for explaining more about why areas such as Loch Lomond need to be looked after and the important work that goes on here.

So we've now been joined by Nature Reserve Officer Stephen Longster. Hi, Stephen, thanks for chatting to us today. Hello there. What does your role involve here at Loch Lomond?

Stephen:

Mostly bird monitoring and invasive species and occasional bits of infrastructure as well, you know, installing signs and mending signs when the cows have pushed them about. But yeah, I would have to say, the bulk of my work down here is invasive species and we've got a huge list which Amee has just very kindly gave you. But because we're actually at the end of a big catchment and we're also at the end of where the loch hithes up, just about every single invasive in a huge area ends up on our reserve eventually. So we're just sort of the cauldron really when it comes to invasives. We've been quite successful with some and we're getting there with others.

Kirstin:

I mean it sounds like there is certainly a lot of work that goes on with the invasive species and, yeah, you know, it also sounds like obviously it’s a very special place to work and very varied in the work that you guys do as well. So if our listeners are keen to come and visit parts of the reserve, what can they see and do when they visit Loch Lomond NNR, and what area should they go to?

Stephen:

If they're actually visiting the NNR, I would start with the RSPB bit, because they've got lots of facilities and paths and everything and toilets and what not. But if they are feeling a bit more adventurous there are parts of possibly the Crom Mhin marsh, I would say, which you can access from Balmaha. It's not easy but you can access it that way because that's a great place to watch ospreys and if you're a botanist it's one of the best places probably, I would say, in central Scotland, if not the whole of Scotland, for sheer variety. I mean, we're still constantly finding new things. We found, I can't remember the English name now, Potamogeton filiformis, I think, slender-leaved pondweed. We found that for the first time a couple of weeks ago and there's no other record within 30 miles of here. The next one along is at Gartmorn Dam in Alloa and down near Helensburgh so we're still finding things that we've never found before.

Kirstin:

That's amazing, isn't it, that you're still discovering all these.

Stephen:

Amee found a sponge, so yeah we found a hornwort a couple of years after that. So you know, we still don't know what's here. We’re still sort of constantly running into things.

Kirstin:

And it is such a big area and a big site that you know it's finding these things.

Stephen:

It is and it isn't. It's actually relatively small when you compare it to some national nature reserves like the, you know, the Trossachs Great Forest, you know, but it's just got a humongous amount of variety in a relatively small place. It feels big because it's really hard to get around, you know. I mean you can spend up two hours trying to get a kilometre because it is tough, tough going, but it's actually, if you look at on the map, it's not a big, big place, but it's just got everything in it.

Kirstin:

Yeah, I suppose it is. It's getting around the place that can be difficult. But, as you say, you know the area, the Endrick mouth area, managed by NatureScot, amazing wetland and the habitat, but ground conditions, as you say, are perhaps not easy to access for visitors, and heading over to RSPB Loch Lomond might be the better way to go. And what about during the seasons? So, our make space for nature campaign, it focuses on the four seasons and things people can see and do, as well as actions they can take to help our wildlife, whether it's spring, summer, autumn, winter. Tell us about your seasonal highlights here at the NNR.

Stephen:

Well, the seasonal highlights is probably the plant monitoring that we do in the summer, occasionally. We don’t do it every summer, but I like to keep an eye on the place because we've got a lot of odd little rarities and they're actually quite small and obscure and not very spectacular, but I like them. There's a little one called narrow leaved water starwort which is a teeny, tiny little plant but there's only about four or five places in the UK it grows and I'm quite fond of it and the little Elatine hydropiper hexandra, which again I forgot the English name, six-stamened waterwort and eight-stamened waterwort. And again little, tiny little plants, but really I like them quite spectacular, and, of course, the mighty Scottish dock, which we just had a look at earlier, which is very unusual, only grows in two places in the UK five miles up river from us and here. And that's it, which is this splendid, huge dock. I know gardeners don't like docks, but this, you won't get this in your garden and it's a really magnificent species.

Winter it's definitely the birds, it's the wintering geese coming in, especially the Greenland white fronts, which, again, very globally, very rare, and they come all the way from the west side of Greenland so they have to cross the Greenland ice cap, then make their way to Iceland and then come here. So it's a remarkable journey in itself. When they satellite tagged a Greenland white front in Greenland, they actually were monitoring it and it was going very, very slowly across the ice cap. Then they worked out there had been a storm and the geese were actually walking across the ice cap because the weather was too bad for them to fly. So, but they didn't give up, determined and persistent and I respect that.

Kirstin:

That's brilliant. What about spring highlights?

Stephen:

Spring is everything. The breeding birds down here are just amazing. When you get the swallows and the sand martins coming back and the swifts coming across and the breeding ducks and you walk out here of a spring evening, just hear the place drumming end to end with snipe and the water rails, the oyster catchers and the red shank, it's just a stunning place in spring for the breeding birds. It's definitely one of my highlights coming down here early in the morning, and also early in the morning that's when you get to see the otters and swimming about.

Kirstin:

And what about the osprey, when's a good time to see the ospreys?

Stephen:

The ospreys are basically any time from April onwards really, well, we know where they all nest, we don't like to sort of publicise that and also seeing an osprey on the nest is probably quite dull. Once you've one, you’ve seen them all. Your best bet is actually just to wander down the riverbank or go down the pond, which is on the RSPB side, or just at the mouth of the Endrick, and then you get to see them fishing, which is a really spectacular sight, especially if you see them. I think it's about one in ten they actually make a hit on a fish, but when they do it really is spectacular. You get some really big fish actually it must be a very powerful bird because you've got to do a sort of vertical take-off when they semi-submerge with a massive fish. So they've clearly got very powerful wings.

Kirstin:

Yeah, absolutely. It's a sight to see, indeed. And what's your favourite thing about this special place, Stephen?

Stephen:

Where do you start? I think it's just the overall wildness of the place. You're right in the middle of central Scotland, what would be called a tourist hotspot, but it doesn't feel like it. It's just the atmosphere of the place, you come down here. I couldn't pick a favourite species. That would be wrong, because it's a conglomerate. It's everything combined that really makes it worthwhile. It's just one of the best places in the world. I'm just saying that anyway.

Kirstin:

I totally, absolutely understand that.

Stephen:

It's a little jewel of a place, yeah.

Kirstin:

I mean where we are just now, it's just absolutely stunning with the views and, yeah, even a bit of drizzle is fantastic, obviously for the habitat, but the sun is out, we’ve had rainbows and all sorts, so it's been absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much, Stephen, for talking to us today.

Stephen:

You're welcome. Thank you very much.

Kirstin:

So we're now walking along by the river Endrick and we've been joined by Robyn, one of our seasonal staff members at the reserve. So, hi, Robyn, how are you today?

Robyn:

Wonderful, thanks for having me.

Kirstin:

Excellent, and what a wonderful place to work. You've been here about two years now. Can you explain more about your role and also what seasonal means in this context? I mean, are you here during specific times of the year?

Robyn:

Yes, so seasonal officers are generally hired from around March time to the end of September, and that's just to help the NNR teams out. As we expect higher visitor counts throughout the summer and we also have other things like events going on as well, so usually seasonals would finish up towards the end of September. However, me and Emma have actually been kept on this year, so Emma's my colleague, the second seasonal that the Stirling and our team have and both of us have been kept on until the end of March just to help the team out through winter, as we do have three reserves to manage. So there's a lot to do, so we're going to be about a bit longer.

Kirstin:

Excellent, that's great news, great news for yourself, but also for NatureScot as well to have you as long as we can really, and you talk about the three reserves that you guys work on, so can you give us - is there such a thing as a typical day for you?

Robyn:

Yeah, not necessarily a typical day. With three reserves, we are always doing something really different and it depends whether I'm out with Amee and Steve or if it's a day of just me and Emma. If it's just me and Emma, a typical day for us would be maybe a site visit to one of the reserves, maybe Flanders or Blawhorn. We try and chat to as many people as we can while we're out there and then we'll also be doing some blog writing. We are very lucky in that we do get to do some photography while we're out as well and get to really enjoy the things that we see. But a typical good day can include anything from site visits to doing work on the bogs, peat restoration, hen harrier surveys. We get to do so many different things. I couldn't put it all into one day, but certainly it's a joy to do so many different things.

Kirstin:

It certainly sounds like a varied job, and obviously we're here at Loch Lomond NNR, but what about the other two reserves, could you give us just a brief overview of what they are called and what you can see at these reserves?

Robyn:

So the other two nature reserves we manage are both bogs. The first that you might know more about is Flanders Moss. It's the more popular of the two. It's been getting a lot of attention since COP26 for its capacity for holding carbon. Bogs are very special places. I could go on a huge ramble about them now, but I'll try to keep it limited. So yeah, Flanders is a brilliant reserve and it's a great example of a bog that has been restored. If you can think of almost any restoration technique, the likelihood of it being tried on Flanders is pretty high.

So it's great to bring lots of people for sharing best practice and things like that. But it's also a great place for visitors and anyone just looking to enjoy nature. We tell anyone that visits you know you could walk around the boardwalk there 20 times and each time you go it'll be different. You could see different things so I might be a bit biased, but it's one of my favourite reserves and in terms of what to see everything from lizards, birds of prey, plant species, sundews, it's a really amazing place. Love going around and seeing adders as well, if you're lucky enough to spot one.

And then Blawhorn, it's a little hidden gem. It's a big reserve as well. It has more pathways than Flanders, it has a larger boardwalk and it has a lot of circular routes, so I think it's actually underrated, but people are starting to learn more about it, there's more people starting to come out. Similar to Flanders, we have quite a lot of the same species. We've started to see lizards there again, birds of prey as well, lovely open space. It's just maybe a little bit behind Flanders and the attention that it's had, so that's maybe the biggest difference that you would see. But it's really a nice spot and it's kind of in the middle of, like Bathgate, Glasgow, so it's a strange place in terms of you go there and you feel like you really are in the middle of nowhere. You're right in the middle of the countryside, but you're actually still pretty central to infrastructure and everything and there's great train lines and everything. So both of those reserves I'd love to see more people coming. Again I could talk about them all day, but I think I'll leave it at that for that question.

Kirstin:

You spoke when we were on the boat earlier. You were speaking about an event that you had been involved with, where was that?

Robyn:

So that was held at Flanders. The majority of our events are held at Flanders just because it is the most popular, it's the one that most of our visitors tend to know about and it's got a good boardwalk and everything there. So the event that we did recently was an event called Seasons Change. It was our final big event of the summer and we had it basically as a big open day. So we had Amee and Steve there with us, we're very lucky that they could spare some time to come and join us and we had Stuart Bence also from within NatureScot, a very good moth enthusiast, very lucky to have him came down to do some moth trapping in the morning, along with Ellie Lawson, who did a placement with us a few years ago and she now works for FLS, so we had both of them come along to help us out.

In the morning we did moth trapping, we ran some tours of the reserve and we had pond dipping going on as well. So we had lots of different activities and it was so well attended. I couldn't be more happy with how the day actually went and the feedback that we got from everyone, and I think Amee said as well it was really great to see the capacity that we could actually reach with such a small team. You know, when we get creative and we really put an effort into it and me and Emma we just love doing that kind of thing so when we're really just allowed to go for it and see what we can do, I think the results are pretty impressive.

Kirstin:

Excellent, well done. It sounds like an amazing event. I wish I had come along to it. You're obviously very passionate about what you do and about nature, but what's your personal highlights working here at this reserve and also at the other two reserves as well. What have you particularly enjoyed or perhaps spotted?

Robyn:

If we're talking about specifically like nature and species and counters and things like that, I spoke to you a little bit on the boat about my new found obsession with dragonflies, they definitely have had an impact on me. They first evolved over 350 million years ago and have remained mostly unchanged since, and they are one of the most impressive things to see out on the bog, one of the most frustrating things to photograph but also most rewarding as well, and I think when we talk about, you know if you talk about Loch Lomond in particular, this reserve I wouldn't say I've got a highlight in terms of one particular species, but every single time myself, for me and Emma come out here, we just have such an amazing experience and just have one of those moments where you have to stop and feel so grateful for what you do.

I mean, the first time we came out here in the summer, we just came to collect some camera traps. We walked all the way along the river and we got to this point where we're walking through all the tall reeds and just out of nowhere there's hundreds of blue damselflies that just start rising up from the reeds and like covering us. Anything like that can happen at any time on this kind of reserve, and it's that part that I would say is a highlight. Just knowing that when we come out here we're just at the awe and the mercy of nature and we just get to enjoy it and work in it and share it with other people through our jobs.

Kirstin:

Yeah, absolutely, and even when we've been out today, so we've seen osprey nests, we've seen Kingfisher, we saw two Kingfisher on the river, which was amazing, and we've seen deer. It is just an absolute joy to be out here and I think also you've all spoken about the fact that it's almost like these reserves are like jewels. You just sometimes don't know they're there, and when you're in them, it's just such an amazing place to be.

I just want to say it's a fascinating insight into how a reserve is managed by speaking to everybody here today, and we just want to say a big thank you to Amee, Robyn and Stephen, who've taken time out their extremely busy days, as you've heard, to give us and you, our listeners, an insight into Loch Lomond NNR, and if you haven't been, we'd definitely recommend a visit to here and the other two reserves.

Kirstin:

Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this special episode. National Nature Reserves are some of the best places for everyone to enjoy the magic and beauty of Scotland's nature. To find a reserve near you and for more ways to connect with Scotland's natural world, go to nature.scot.