Where there's a will-ow, there's a way!
Cairngorms Connect partners have been working to restore the montane woodland high up in the Cairngorms and recent monitoring has shown the work is paying off.
Montane woodland habitat has all but disappeared from Scotland due to historical land management but it is recovering in some areas where browsing pressure from deer has been reduced.
It is being restored locally by planting on Glenfeshie Estate and RSPB Scotland Abernethy Reserve.
Each June since 2021, rare native willow tree saplings have been carried into the remote Loch A’an basin on the reserve by Cairngorms Connect Partnership staff and volunteers, and then planted out by specialist contractors.
The aim of this work is to revitalise remnant populations of montane willow species, too isolated and lacking the genetic diversity needed to reproduce successfully.
The species being planted include downy willow, whortle-leaved willow, and eared willow.
This combination of willow species, and other associated vegetation, forms the habitat known as montane scrub.
The Cairngorms was once a stronghold of this specialist type of woodland, which occurs high up in the mountains between the familiar pine forests and extreme harshness of the montane plateau.
However, this habitat is now extremely rare.
Of the sample population of planted willows in the Loch A’an basin monitored in August last year, 97 per cent were recorded as either healthy or surviving in May.
The Cairngorms Connect Partnership held their third Willow Walk earlier this month with 60 dedicated staff and volunteers carrying 1500 downy willow saplings, 500 whortle-leaved willow saplings and 2000 eared willow cuttings up to the Cairngorm plateau and down into the Loch A’an basin ready for planting.
This year’s Willow Walk was the biggest yet and the new batch of trees will almost double the 4500 that have been planted over the previous two years in this area.
With this number of trees going in the ground, and the survival rate being seen, Cairngorms Connect are hopeful that natural regeneration will occur, and this largely missing habitat will grow stronger over time.
The young trees were grown in the Cairngorms Connect Tree Nursery at RSPB Scotland Abernethy Reserve from cuttings and seed.
The parent plants have been collected from existing trees across the Cairngorms including populations on Wildland Ltd's ground, National Trust for Scotland Mar Lodge National Nature Reserve, Drumochter, and from the Loch A’an basin itself where less than 40 individual plants survived clinging on to rocky ledges.
The eared willow cuttings were taken from healthy populations elsewhere on the reserve.
The staff and volunteers who joined the walk spanned generations, ability, and experience – all working towards a shared 200-year vision for the future.
Contractors Alban Tree Care & Consultancy have since planted out the trees and the Cairngorms Connect science and monitoring team will continue to assess the health of the trees and
the success of the regeneration.
Ellie Dimambro-Denson, Cairngorms Connect monitoring officer, spoke about her recent survey of the previously planted trees at Loch A’an.
She said: “They seem to be surviving their second winter! Only a little browsing, mostly by hare, but they’re budding with a few producing catkins that are beginning to open up too.”
Ms Dimambro-Denson also found two catkins containing seed that was germinating below one of the native willows which is likely the result of planting a broader genetic mix of both male and female plants in strategic locations which will enable this historic population to reproduce naturally once again.
This work in the Loch A'an basin and on Wildland Ltd. Ground is part of the Cairngorms Connect Partnership’s landscape-wide plan to restore native woodlands across a vast area within the
National Park and is further enhanced by the similar work being carried out by the neighbouring National Trust for Scotland on Mar Lodge.
The work at the Cairngorms Connect Tree Nursery is currently being funded by the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund, managed by NatureScot.
Cairngorms Connect is a partnership of neighbouring land managers Wildland Limited, Forestry and Land Scotland, RSPB Scotland and NatureScot working towards a 200-year vision to enhance habitat, species and ecological process across a vast 600 square kilometre area within the Cairngorms National Park.
