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Recent News

Green work outs: growing appeal.

We have had two birch pulling events in Portmoak Moss this autumn and their appeal seems to be growing.  The first one attracted a record attendance of 27 people, with the Lothians Conservation Volunteers and the Bog Squad joining us for the day.  It's very hard work - playing tug o' war with birch saplings - but people really like the excercise. With the help of tree-poppers, we were able to pull out some quite big trees and piles of small ones, which means the sphagnum moss will have a chance to grow. Sphagnum is, of course, the building block of our raised peat bog.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency once again chose us for a corporate volunteering day and we had a cheery team to work with and more banter and homemade cake to keep everyone's spirits up. We are so grateful for everyone's help, as we continue to restore the peat bog. This work ticks so many boxes - from helping nature to looking after our own minds and bodies.  It is fantastic that after all the hard graft people leave with big grins on their faces. 

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Just in case you're wondering; don't worry, we made sure that everyone left the conifers alone, so that we'll have enough for our community Xmas tree day on Sunday 15th December.  This year it’s taking place from 11.30am-2.30pm beside the main path in Portmoak Moss, Scotlandwell. It’s a free event but we do invite cash or card donations. 

We’ll also provide home baking and mulled juice to put everyone in the mood for Christmas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swarms of people and no wasps!

The sun shone for apple day, on September 29th, and the crowds came out. A big thank you to everyone who joined us and helped to pick and press apples to turn them into juice. Thanks also to the wasps, who left us alone, unlike last year. We only saw one all day which may be of concern, if you’re a wasp but was one thing less for us to worry about.

Another big thank you to people who brought bags of apples from their own gardens. We had a smaller crop than usual in the community orchard but the additional contributions kept the press busy all afternoon and everyone went away with fresh apple juice. 

The home-baking stall was also busy, with plenty of apple-themed cakes, crumbles and flapjacks to go round. 

We’re so blessed to have a lovely, enclosed space in the orchard, where everyone can hang out and watch, as their children gather apples from the trees up the slopes. It’s always good to see the youngsters doing the work! We’re also lucky to have good friends of the woodland group who mucked in all weekend, to get the marquee up and help out, wherever we needed extra hands. 

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Andrew Lear, aka ‘appletreeman’, wasn’t able to join us this year but we managed to put on a good display of apples - everything from the enormous cooker-cum-eater, Howgate Wonder, to the bright red Discoveries. 

We had a new, special guest, Cameron Diekonigen, a mycologist from Scotlandwell, who had the great idea of running a guided fungal walk in the morning, in Kilmagad Wood, and then inviting his group of 20 people to stay on for apple day.

It was a great success.  The group came back with a huge collection of fungi which they identified and displayed on another table. 

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The children also had plenty to do. When they weren’t clambering amongst the trees, they had quizzes and games to keep them occupied, including the ever-popular task of creating all sorts of weird and wonderful constructions out of apple cubes and cocktail sticks.

In all, around 150 people joined us and we received donations of £377 - which included £60 kindly donated by Cameron from his fungal walk.  This all helps to pay for the costs of running the event and looking after the orchard during the rest of the year, so we are very grateful for everyone’s generosity.

Save the day - now two great events!

Nature seems to be forcing us beyond our boundaries. And I don’t think we’re the only community group working in new ways to try to increase the chances for wildlife.

This summer has seen a lot of connections made and while our focus remains on Kilmagad Wood and Portmoak Moss and the rich biodiversity at both sites, its future depends on what’s happening in the wider area.

Let’s begin on home territory, though, and it’s time to save the day - September 29th - for our annual apple event.  In one of our new partnerships, we’ll have not only the usual apple picking, pressing and home-baking in the afternoon but also an expert-led, fungus walk in the morning. 

Both events will be in Kilmagad Wood, the first starting in Portmoak Village Hall car park, at 10.30am, where you will be met by mycologist Cameron Diekonigin, from Scotlandwell, and the second at 2pm in Portmoak Community Orchard. For the fungus walk there will be a small, £2 charge and you can book your place by emailing Cameron at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Apple day will be free, as usual, but we welcome donations for the drinks and home-baking. Please remember to bring containers to take home fresh apple juice and, if you have your own apples, bring them along to add to the mix.

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Some of our group, led by Marje Smith, have teamed up with Portmoak Primary School, on a project to count how many spring blossoms go onto produce autumn fruit and we’ll be very interested to see their results.

Marje has also been busy producing the latest in her series of booklets which make it fun to look out for nature and try to identify what you’ve seen. The first two, Bogtastic and Treetastic, were based on Portmoak Moss and Kilmagad Wood. The third, Biotastic, takes you from Loch Leven’s Larder to RSPB Loch Leven. You don’t have to do it all in one go!

We’re grateful to Portmoak Festival for helping to fund the new booklet and to primary school teachers from a wide area, for ‘test-driving’ it at an event hosted by the Scottish Schools Education Research Centre at the Larder.  Our local primary school pupils have also tried it out and it'll soon be available at various outlets around the loch.

To help biodiversity in the area we were also involved in a Swift walk on Sunday June 30th in Kinnesswood. This came out of the biodiversity mapping day with Tayside Biodiversity Partnership in April.  The village used to be a hotspot for Swifts and we wondered what could be done to get them back.

Danièle Muir is a brilliant and experienced guide and she helped us to identify where some of the few, remaining swifts are nesting - under eaves in The Cobbles and Main Street.  The locations have been recorded and we hope to add to them, with some special nest boxes, to make up for a lack of nesting sites, and with a much better idea of how to spot them. 

Glastonbury:who needs it?

 

Worthy Farm has its attractions - obviously! But for a more laid-back experience, minus the travelling and the crowds, we had a great time in Scotlandwell.

As part of the Portmoak Festival, the woodland group and Woodland Trust Scotland were delighted to host a lovely open air concert in the community orchard in Kilmagad Wood. Ace musicians, Vicky Gray and Sean McLaughlin, from Scotlandwell, organised the gig which featured a fantastic line-up of a dozen singers and instrumentalists performing traditional Scottish tunes as well as songs by the likes of Neil Young and Eric Clapton.

The sun came out and there was no need for wellies, on Sunday June 9th. The audience brought folding chairs and picnic rugs and were surrounded by apple trees and native woodland for an afternoon of great music.

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Generally, the loudest sound in Kilmagad Wood is bird song (once you're away from the road) and this year the bird theme dominated the Festival.

Across the road, in the village hall, there was an exhibition, by Portmoak Primary School, of beautiful pictures and craftwork inspired by the birds they’ve been learning about this year. It included photos and a write-up about the nest box project we did with them in February. Good news on that front: the first blue tits moved in a few weeks ago. 

Portmoak Community Woodland Group also contributed to the Festival by organising two guided bird song walks, led by Scott Paterson, of Kinross Ecology. 

Starting at breakfast time, we slowly walked round Portmoak Moss with Scott helping us to identify which birds were singing and calling and sharing his wealth of knowledge about what the different species might be communicating to each other, whether it was about territory, mating or something to be alarmed about in the undergrowth. 

Meadow pipits were very active in the centre of the peat bog, great spotted woodpeckers drummed on the trees and song thrushes sang brilliantly and inventively. They seem to be having a good year.

Not so good are the numbers of swifts. They used to be such a common sight on summer evenings in Scotlandwell and Kinnesswood. But there maybe things we can do to help and, to that end, there’s a guided walk, all about swifts, starting at Kinnesswood bus stop at 8.30pm on Sunday 30th June. This has come about as a result of our involvement with the Tayside Biodiversity Project. It'll be led by Danièle Muir of Perthshire Wildlife. It’s free and open to everyone. 

 

 

 

The great egg race

It’s amazing what you can use an orchard for, even when there are no apples! At least we're seeing blossom now but things were pretty dormant at Easter when we used it as an egg race track and a sunny space for families to hang out and enjoy some unexpected warmth. 12 children arrived with their eggs and support teams (parents/grandparents) for the event.

The fastest egg down the hill was easy to judge, but the best decorated egg ‘was a tense and difficult affair due to the egg decorating talent on show’ said our judge. But winners were found. Some older folk present were a little put out when they realized there was no upper limit for the over six category. So, maybe an adult egg competition next year? 

Portmoak Festival will be using Chris’s Place (the orchard) in June, weather permitting, for some live music. This month the Primary School will be doing their John Muir Award, looking to see if the bird boxes, installed in February, have any new tenants moving in.

As our contribution to the festival we will be running two Bird Song Walks in the Moss on Sunday 2nd June and Wednesday 5th June, both at 8am. 

They'll be led by Scott Paterson who runs Kinross Ecology and who was, until last year, the Perth & Kinross Bird Recorder. Scott has led these walks before for us and they were very popular, so keep your eyes on the festival programme and our website. We hope that the Sunday morning walk will be good for young families with children. If you walk in the Moss a lot and ask yourself what’s that bird, song or what you should be looking out for and when, then this is your big chance. If Scott can’t tell you no-one can.

Decorated egg 24 Storm Kathleen put paid to our last work day on the Moss in April but no fear, we will be back in the late summer after the ground nesting birds have brought up their young. We still need help, so follow us on our website and Facebook, and we are always in the Well on the third Tuesday of the month 7:30 talking trees, bogs and many other things besides.

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! 

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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. 

Nest box building

 

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.

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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. 

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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. 

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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!

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Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

Come and join the fun of finding yourself a tree in Portmoak Moss from 11.30am-2.30pm on Sunday, Dec 10th. We're making it easier again this year by cutting some the day before, to save you the trouble of plowtering about on what is now a very wet site, thanks to all the bog restoration that's been going on.

There will also be the chance to go a wee wander and see what else you can find. We'll cut the tree down but don't forget that you have to take it away, by foot or by car. We usually manage to find a few mini conifers, if children want their own to decorate. 

Portmoak Community Woodland Group are looking forward to helping you get the right tree and enjoying the festive fayre, including hot spiced drinks and warm apple crumble. If you also want to help us, please feel free to do a stint on the catering table or bring some home-baking.

We invite donations for the trees and baking but there are no fixed prices. Just what you can afford and in cash, please, as we’re not (quite) yet digital in the wood. 

We hope you go away with a nice, warm feeling - not only from enjoying the event but by doing your bit for bog restoration. By taking a sitka spruce off the Moss you're helping us create the right habitat for the rare and colourful sphagnum moss. Trees take a lot of water and quickly dry out the peat, so we try not to give them a chance.

Two final reminders to help you enjoy the day - wear shoes or boots suitable for wet and sometimes icy conditions and, if possible, bring you own beaker for the hot drinks. 

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Apples pressed and records crushed

Portmoak apple day was a record breaking event. Good to look back on, as the dark nights set in.

We had a bigger crowd, more baking and more fresh apple juice than we’ve ever seen. Also, it took place on an October afternoon when the sun shone and there wasn’t a drop of rain - noteworthy in itself! 

It was Sunday, 1st October, there were frequent showers and dark clouds gathered on the horizon. Up until the last minute Portmoak Community Woodland Group was poised to move everything from the community orchard, in Kilmagad Wood, to Portmoak Village Hall. But we got lucky. Just as we finished setting up the weather turned warm and dry. 

That was enough to bring out a crowd of around 200 people - a big leap from our previous record of 120. It was just as well group members had spent many hours creating apple-themed baking. The catering table was laden with cakes, tarts, cupcakes, flapjacks and a new tray bake, developed by Graham Smith.

He had kept the recipe secret but he’s now revealed that his Apple Tray Bake Spectacular involved drying apples, melting chocolate and adding icing sugar to one tray and marzipan to the other. It was fabulous.

This autumn didn’t see our largest apple crop but the summer rain had helped to swell the fruit and that, together with apples from peoples’ gardens, meant we pressed an extraordinary quantity of juice. We estimate that around 100 litres went into the containers brought byeveryone. We’re very grateful to all the friends and relations who rolled up their sleeves and helped out on the day. 

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Donations were down a bit, which may have been a sign of the times, though we were delighted to collect £365.70, which covered the event costs and will allow us to invest in more equipment and tools for the year ahead. 

It was also good to welcome back Andrew Lear, aka Appletreeman, who was more popular than ever, attracting a queue of folk keen to have him identify apples they’d brought along. He also found time to identify apples in the orchard which had lost their labels. Group member, Sheila Buchanan, has mapped all the trees and we're aiming to get new labels so that everyone can see what an extraordinary variety of species are planted there.

We were pleased to see lots of young families and the children were a great help, bringing in the harvest (as well as enjoying all the games and quizzes). They weren’t the only apple pickers this year. Over three days, at the end of September, we were pleased to welcome around 150 visitors, from far and wide, for some special Woodland Trust members’ events. They collected the first of the season's fruit and enjoyed some freshly pressed juice. 

Looking ahead, it’s time to ‘save the day’ - namely 10th December, when from 11.30am-2.30pm, we’ll be having our popular Christmas tree event in Portmoak Moss. You’ll be able to choose from trees of all shapes and sizes and, of course, there’ll be more home baking!

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Apple pressing time

We pressed a ton of juice in the orchard last autumn (pictured) and it won't be many weeks before we're ready to do it again - with your help.

There's a good crop of apples in Portmoak Community Orchard; not a bumper crop, like last year's, but plenty of varieties to pick and blend.

Most people with apple trees are reporting a very mixed picture - some trees heavy with fruit, others with none. Please bring any apples you can to the orchard on Sunday 1st October, 2-4pm, and we'll turn them into juice which you can take away (remember containers).

We're delighted to welcome back Andrew Lear, aka 'appletreeman', who will do his best to identify your garden apples, if you bring the fruit as well as twigs and leaves. 

As ever, Portmoak Community Woodland Group will produce a groaning table of apple-themed baking, to go with the teas and coffees. Apple Day is free but we welcome donations to help cover the event costs, as well as other expenses, like the equipment needed to maintain the orchard. 

There'll also be games for the children. If you haven't been before, there's a lovely terraced area in the centre of the orchard, called Chris's Place, in memory of our late member, Chris Vlasto from Kinnesswood. The orchard is across the road from Portmoak Kirk and Portmoak Village Hall. If we're unlucky and it pours with rain, we'll move to the hall, which has worked well on previous occasions.

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Giant Horsefly on Portmoak Moss

Giant Horsefly

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Giant Horseflies are visiting Portmoak Moss and surrounding areas.  Although they are intersted in Horses and Cows they do tend to be aggresive and do give a nasty bite. Avoid if you see them and dont disturb them.  They are easy to identify as they are about 25mm ( one inch )long.

Women whittling

As part of the Portmoak Festival, in the first half of June, we organised a womens’ only practical activity, “Women Whittling in the Wood”, run by former Countryside Ranger, Kiri Stone.  This involved working with birch wood to create mushroom- shaped key rings, while sitting under the shade of the Portmoak Orchard trees.   Kiri does these events to encourage women to take part in a new and different practical activity.

In this case there was a real mixture of young and old and most had never done anything of this type.  She received many compliments, such as from Tina, “Loved your workshop, would love to try more” and Andrea,“So much fun and relaxing with a group of women.” It was very successful, with 19 women over the two days. 

Kiri organises other courses on this theme throughout Fife and Perth and Kinross and you can find her at Woodswoman on Facebook or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Up with the robin

‘Why get out of bed to hear the dawn chorus? You could just open the window wide and stay in bed.’ This was well-meaning advice from a friend but it missed the point.

Unless you get out of bed, at around 3.45am, put on enough layers for an Arctic expedition, pour scalding water into flasks (for hot chocolate) and creep out of your house so as not to wake the dog or, worse, next door’s dog, then you’re simply not trying! 

 And it’s worth it, to be out there, in Portmoak Moss, for the full immersive experience. 

That’s what 9 of us decided on Sunday, 7th May, as Portmoak Community Woodland Group celebrated International Dawn Chorus Day, led by two of our members, Stuart Garvie and Stuart Byers. 

We met at 4.30am, just as the first robins began to sing, and we walked around for more than 2 hours, until we’d identified at least 20 different songs and calls. There were the true songsters,  like the song thrush and the garden and willow warblers; and the rhythm section - the relentless chiffchaff, repeating its own name and the great tit, shouting ‘teacher, teacher’.

 As the light crept in, bird after bird joined the chorus, until we had a surround-sound cacophony, under-pinned by an occasional, unexpected ‘woo’ from a distant tawny owl. 

Last to make an appearance was a green woodpecker and when these ‘yafflers’ start laughing at you, it’s definitely time for breakfast. As we left, there were brown hares still ‘courried down’, sleeping between the furrows in a neighbouring field and a red squirrel beginning the day’s business. 

It was magic.

 

 

We're on a roll!

An Easter event to look forward to and, with luck, a good harvest later in the year. It’s a creative time for Portmoak Community Woodland Group.

In a change from some of our normal winter work, instead of pulling trees out of the Moss, we’ve been tending the living ones in the orchard. ‘Hoorah’, I hear you shout -  looking after them, not destroying them!

Of course, there is a reason for pulling them out. We have to control birch saplings on the peat bog or we’d lose all the wonderful sphagnum moss. But the Portmoak Community Orchard, in Kilmagad Wood, is a different story. Back in 2011/12 we planted 100 fruit trees and every winter, while they’re dormant, we have to prune them to keep them healthy and ensure a good crop in the autumn.

Actually, we did a rough count last year and found that there were no longer as many as 100 trees. A few had succumbed to damage by roe deer. Others had been outcompeted by some of the native woodland trees, especially hazel. So, while we were out there, with the loppers and secateurs, we also took the opportunity to plant six more apple trees.

Dave and Louise Batchelor (pictured) were ‘volunteered’ into the job of clambering over the fence of our new compound to carry out the work of digging, planting and staking. The Woodland Trust Scotland have kindly built it, to protect the young trees from the deer without the need for plastic tree guards (now against their policy).  Apparently, deer aren’t keen to jump into a confined space.

We bought the trees - all species that grow well in Scotland - from Andrew Lear, aka ‘appletreeman’, who helped us plant the orchard. And, as ever, we’re grateful to those who’ve donated money at events, like Apple Day, to pay for them. 

We won’t get a crop off them this year, as they’re too young, but fingers crossed for plenty of apples, pear and plums from our established trees. We did our best to cut out any dead, diseased or damaged wood from them; all we need now is a good spring and summer, without untimely frosts, to ensure plenty of fruit for Apple Day, planned for October 1st.

Long before that, we’ll be having an Easter event for children in Kilmagad Wood, where there are plenty of slopes for egg rolling. It’s on Saturday April 8th, starting at 3.30pm. Please bring your painted eggs and there’ll be prizes for the best decorated and the fastest rolling. In case you haven’t been before, it’s across the road from Portmoak kirk car park.

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Tough work: tough team!

We were delighted to welcome back a fantastic team of staff and volunteers from NatureScot last month, to help with the ongoing work of pulling birch saplings out of Portmoak Moss.

It’s really tough work so we were especially pleased that, after doing it for a day last year, they were prepared to return for another onslaught. Altogether, there were 5 volunteers and 2 members of staff from NatureScot and 5 members of the Portmoak Community Woodland Group.  

It’s amazing how much work you can get done with a dozen folk - and how much fun it is.

By the end of the session we had crossed from one side of the bog to the other and cleared trees from 800 square metres of ground, as well as partially clearing another 200 square metres.

If you’re walking the circular path round the Moss look out for the big heap of brash which was created, on the northern side of the main peat dome. 

The aim, as always, was to take away the young trees, which draw too much water from the raised peat bog, and to provide a better habitat for sphagnum moss, which eventually rots down and creates more peat  - as it has been doing for thousands of years on this spot. Lowland raised peat bogs are a rare habitat, so it's worth making the effort.

Simon Ritchie, (pictured on the right), the Nature Reserve Officer from NatureScot’s Loch Leven Nature Reserve, said: “We do a little lowland heath restoration, which requires pulling out young trees, but nothing on this scale.” 

And he was full of praise for the task force: “We have a hardy, dedicated bunch of volunteers who help us with a lot of habitat management on the reserve and it’s great to spread our resources onto other local community projects.”

PCWG can only agree and thank them wholeheartedly for the tremendous effort they put in. We hope it won’t be too long before we see them again.

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And a Happy New Year!

We celebrated Christmas in our usual way, with a big, family Xmas tree event, at which Santa's helpers served up lots of festive baking. Calories which might have been shed, through the whole business of finding a tree and lugging it home, were amply replaced by shortbread, warm apple crumbles, blueberry muffins and cake, setting the tone for the rest of the holiday.

It’s traditional for everyone to argue over which is the perfect tree and because we like a happy ending our solution is to let children take a wee tree of their own, which helps to keep the peace. 

Once again, the event was well attended with 159 people turning up, including more young families than ever. We were slightly worried that a hard frost on December 11th would put people off but it was a beautiful sunny day and, with snow on the hills all around us, folk were really in a festive mood.

We are grateful for very generous donations amounting to just over  £1,000  which will go towards various projects and equipment for our work in the woods. 

This event has become a fixture in many calendars and, speaking of which, we were pleased to sell around a dozen of our own, created by Michael McGinnes from Kinnesswood, and featuring pictures of wildlife in our woodlands.

Michael has also organised the first event of the new year, a day of birch pulling in the Moss by NatureScot staff and volunteers, on Wednesday January 18th. We're delighted to welcome them back, for this really tough job, and some of the Portmoak Community Woodland Group will be working alongside them. Please give us a wave, if you're passing. 

As ever, removing the birch saplings, as well as the 'Xmas tree' spruce, from the peat bog, is all part of our restoration project.

We had hoped that, this month, we would be looking forward to our Burns ceilidh but regretfully we are unable to go ahead with it, due to a number of circumstances beyond our control.

Of course, we’ll be lining up lots of other events and your suggestions are always welcome, as is your attendance at our friendly meetings at 7.30pm, on the third Tuesday of each month, in the Well Inn, Scotlandwell. 

We wish you a very happy 2023.

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Festive fun: Xmas trees and Burns ceilidh

We haven’t had much seasonal weather but nonetheless Christmas is A-comin’ - as the song goes - and it’s time to think about trees.

Our Christmas tree event this year will be on Sunday, December 11th, from 11.30am - 2.30pm, in Portmoak Moss and will feature home-baking, hot drinks and - yes - trees.

There’s a slight change to the normal process but you still come to the main Scotlandwell entrance to the Moss, where you will be greeted and directed along the path to ‘Shep’s bench’. Then you will have a choice between finding a conifer that you like and asking a member of Portmoak Community Woodland Group to cut it down -  or selecting a freshly cut tree.

Regulars will know that we are gradually removing trees from the raised peat dome, as part of the restoration programme. Trees dry out the peat so we don’t want too many growing there.

This means that the tree line is now further away from the main path and to save people having to traipse across the bog we’re going to cut more down just before the event, with a smaller selection of standing trees not far from the bench.

There will be plenty of volunteers to keep you right and serve up refreshments. Many people combine the event with getting the kids and dogs out and we love seeing everyone getting into the Christmas spirit and arguing over the choice of tree.

There’s no price ticket on the trees but we invite donations towards woodland group funds, for spending on other events and on equipment, to help with our work in the Moss. Please bring cash, as we are not digital out in the wood, and remember that you’ll need to take your own tree away. 

After all the Christmas cheer, January can be a bleak prospect. But fear not. We’re bringing back the popular Burns’ Ceilidh when we’ll let our hair down to one of Scotland’s top dance bands, Ceilidh Minogue.

It’ll be in Portmoak Village Hall at 7.30pm, on January 21st, and there’ll be haggis, neeps and tatties, as well as some of your favourite Burns’ poems and songs. Please keep an eye on our Portmoak Community Woodland Facebook page for ticket details. 

We hope you’ll be looking forward to these events as much as we are and it’ll be great to celebrate our community woodlands once again.

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Apple feast

A record number of people came to the annual apple day in Portmoak Community Orchard on October 2nd. We counted at least 160, well up on previous attendance. The numbers were particularly welcome as we had one of our biggest harvests since we planted the apple trees back in 2011 and 2012.

The first job was to pick the fruit and we had a lot of enthusiastic help, especially from the children who came along. As soon as we had enough, the apples were wheelbarrowed across the road to Portmoak Village Hall where they were poured into a machine and chopped up, ready for turning into juice.

Back in the orchard, the crushed fruit was heaped into a big apple presser, which was turned by hand to get the juice flowing. This was put into bottles for everyone to take away.  It was tough work and Portmoak Community Woodland Group were very grateful to all who helped. 

People quickly worked up appetites and there was plenty of food. We had spent the days before the event preparing lots of apple-themed home baking, which included warm apple crumbles and apple cake. There was tea and coffee and, of course, fresh apple juice, to wash it all down.

It wasn’t ‘all work and no play’ and there were lots of games and quizzes for the youngsters, though some of them preferred to carry on helping with the harvest. 

The only disappointment was the absence of our good friend Andrew Lear aka ‘appletreeman’ who had to pull out for family reasons. He has always been there in the past, to identify apples brought from peoples’ gardens and to bring a wonderful display of his own apples. 

We did our best to fill the gap by putting together a display of fruit from the orchard and from nearby gardens but we lacked his expertise in identifying the mystery apples brought by visitors.

The fine, sunny weather helped to make it a great afternoon. We are delighted to report donations amounting to more than £400 which will go towards the hire of equipment on the day, maintenance of the orchard and the planting of new fruit trees later this autumn. In the orchard’s tenth anniversary year it was wonderful to see this flourishing community event and now that it’s over, it’s also lovely to see the birds and other animals enjoying what’s left of the windfalls.

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The Great Birch Pull of September 2022

The Great Birch Pull of September 2022

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The Great Birch Pull of 2022 took place at the end of September with the assistance of Lothians Conservation Volunteers and the Bog Squad (Butterfly Conservation) along with the Group and some members of the community. It was a lovely dry day and 3000m2 were cleared in the centre of the raised dome area.  This is about 4% of the total area of the main part of the bog.  In total we have now cleared in excess of 30% of area.  Clearing the top of the moss allows for bog plants to grow and reduces the water loss due to the uptake by the trees.  Raised bogs are one of the most rare habitats on earth and Scotland is one of the few places where they still exist.  Previous work has resulted in the nesting of Meadow Pipits in the middle of the dome area and this has also attracted Cuckoos to the site for the first time.  It is essential we clear the main dome area and then maintain its open nature. The next Birch Pull event will be in January 2023 for another nature organisation.

We are the 'champignons'!

Perfect weather and good numbers of fungi - what more could you look for in a ‘fungal foray’?

Perhaps an expert guide to open your eyes, not to mention your sense of taste and smell, to the wide variety of mushrooms and toadstools in Portmoak Moss.

We were lucky to have all those things on Sunday 28th August when Dr Tony Lyon, from Kishorn, led 36 members of the public on a guided walk in the Moss. The event was organised by Portmoak Community Woodland Group whose chair, Jeff Gunnell, promised exquisite knowledge and understanding from our guide and an exquisite experience for the rest of us. He wasn’t wrong.

Members of the group had been praying for rain in the weeks beforehand - to encourage the fungi to produce their fruiting bodies - the visible parts, like the mushrooms you see in the supermarket. Some well-timed downpours did the trick and there were fungi to be found everywhere, growing on the woodland floor, as well as on fallen trunks and live trees.

Dr Lyon, who lectured on mycology at Sheffield University, for 35 years, before moving to Scotland, quickly led us to delicate fungi smelling of chlorine, others tasting as hot as chilli and one, called Sulphur Tuft, with the flavour of strong quinine. Not advised for your gin and tonic - as it’s mildly poisonous.

Others had evocative common names - like Turkey Tails, Horsehair and the Hoof fungus, which especially like growing on birch. He discovered a Stinkhorn emerging from the forest floor at the base of a tree. It looked like a large egg but when he cut it in half you could clearly seen its component parts - green jelly and all. When it ‘fruits’ it smells like rotting drains so we weren’t sorry to catch it young.

Some of discoveries were made by the group - like the Bay Bolete - which is both safe and good to eat. Others Tony described as safe to eat but not worth trying, as their taste or texture were pretty disgusting.  By the end of the two hours we knew a great deal more than when we started - not only about the different species but also their function in the environment, from helping trees, by supplying them with minerals, to rotting down dead or dying wood. 

In fact, when you come to think of it, without fungi to help decompose the fallen leaves and branches we’d never have been able to get into the Moss at all!rsz 1rsz img 4261

 

 

 

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