Portmoak Community Woodland
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Recent news:
Des res nest boxes for Kilmagad Wood
What a start to the year we’ve had. It’s been one of the busiest times in the woodlands, with dozens of nest boxes going up in Kilmagad Wood and countless birch saplings coming out of the peat dome in Portmoak Moss.
We marked national nest box week in February with a day involving the whole of Portmoak Primary School. We had initially hoped to attract a few children to such an event but head teacher, Louise Gordon, asked if all the pupils could help make and install boxes. Absolutely!
This year the school are celebrating local birds and that ties in with curriculum work on migration and coping with climate, which several classes are doing
Kinross and District Men’s Shed offered to make the nest box kits; bird box experts David and Linda Gibson supervised the design and installation, while members of our woodland group and staff from Woodland Trust Scotland helped out on the day.
Teachers, teaching assistants and a number of parents accompanied three groups of children on the walk from the school to the ‘workshop’ in Portmoak Village Hall. Then they watched as teams of us climbed ladders to fix up the boxes. The pupils had decorated them with beautiful pictures of nature, so not only cozy homes for the nesting birds but an art exhibition to enjoy if you’re in Kilmagad Wood.
It was organised by PCWG member Dave Batchelor, who began to plan the event last summer and was delighted everything worked out: “It was as perfect an example of a whole community coming together as you could imagine. Even the weather cooperated.”
Lunch for the Men’s Shed, et al, was provided by the group - lots of soup and home baking, not to mention hot fruit crumbles (thanks Marje!).
Green Christmas, festive fun
We welcomed more people than ever to our alternative Christmas tree event in Portmoak Moss on Sunday, December 10th. Was it the promise of warm crumbles, mulled juice, or a wonky tree which drew the crowds? Whatever it was, we reckon at least 160 people turned up, including many bairns.
Thanks to everyone for taking away around 60 spruce trees and donating over £1,400. This was an amazing sum and will help to pay for all sorts of things next year - from lots of bird boxes, for a special day with Portmoak Primary School, to an exciting calendar of public events.
We'll try to maintain our standard of homebaking to accompany all our activities. Marje Smith went the extra mile this time, providing custard to go with the crumbles. The other goodies included chocolate torte, clootie dumpling (a shout out to Michael McGinnes for these), shortbread and cookies.
A further thanks to those of you who couldn't immediately drive into the car park, at our busiest time, and who were very nice about it. And well done, the folk who walked; that's obviously not practical for everyone but is a good, green approach.
And that ties in with what we're doing by removing the spruce trees from the peat bog, to stop it drying out, helping to store carbon and creating the right, soggy conditions for beautiful sphagnum moss. It's working! Members of Portmoak Community Woodland Group had a snowy walk out onto the bog, on December 30th and discovered lots of bright green and pink patches of sphagnum and very little tree regeneration, on an area where restoration effort has been focussed.
We're exctited about the prosects for 2024 and wish you a very happy New Year!