Looking After What We Have. It was good to see some new faces at the October event where about a dozen volunteers cleared the understory of the small new woodland next to the fireplace in the southeast corner of the green burial site. The area now gives the feeling of what the present burial field might be like once burials have taken place and the trees that have been planted start to grow.
Before the weather turned colder and damper, father and son, Will and Frances Lawrence, arrived. They have been camping out in the woods these past weeks and helping out when Frances has not been involved with Wild Things! events or training sessions. They have been a splendid help in putting the bee hives to bed for the winter and starting to go through a mountain of old bee equipment, cleaning frames and helping chuck out what is too far gone.
Will and Frances have also been helping Kajedo, our land manager, who has been out using the new brush cutter maintaining and widening the semi-natural firebreak which is to the west of Wilkies Wood and to the north of what has been called Lyle’s Wood. This is where Lyle Schnadt, main builder of the Community Centre and the Universal Hall at the Park and founder of the energy conservation company Weatherwise Homes (some of its work now taken on by local firm AES Solar), was buried in 2000. His was the first green burial on the land and you can find out more about the story of how this came about by following this link.
Another annual maintenance task has been filling in the hollows and bumps of the forest track to the burial site and on up to the wind turbines. The FHT receives a welcome income of over £300/year, a tenth of the amount paid to the Findhorn Foundation as rental for having the Findhorn Wind Park turbines on their land, for carrying out this task.
Hygeia Foundation Donation. John Clausen, President and Director of this U.S. charity whose mission is “to promote respect for all life and awareness of the interconnectedness of all creation,” was impressed by the positive work of the FHT during a recent visit and has arranged for an initial donation of £500 to be gifted this year with further annual donations of at least £300. These gifts are very much appreciated and will be used wisely to promote the work of the trust. Thank you John and Hygeia! More information about Hygeia can be found here.
Edible Woodland Garden. The garden has been tidied up and has been in the process of being put to sleep for the winter. Finally the fence around the information boards has been brought alive with the construction of a wooden mosaic around them. George Paul, Will, Frances and Jonathan Caddy have had fun over a couple of sessions putting this all together so do have a look when you are up in that area. Its not quite finished and the construction could lend itself to further artistic endeavour – if you are inspired do contact Kajedo at [email protected]
Integrated Management Plan – Progress. A contract with Chris Piper has now been signed and the scope and timeline for the work agreed. A draft plan structure with aims, objectives and vision will be submitted to the FHT trustees for approval by the end of November with a first draft produced for you and other stakeholders to comment on by mid January, final draft incorporating changes by the end of February and signing off by mid March 2017. It will be good to finally have clear guidelines for the FHT’s direction and projects over the next five years that incorporate and integrate information from the public Consultation Vision Document 2016, the draft Local Biodiversity Action Plan 2013-2018, the Findhorn Dunes Trust Lichen Survey and other important documents.
Scotland is a stronghold for the red squirrel, which is the only native squirrel in the UK with about 120,000 out of the estimated UK population of 140,000 being recorded. Our woods use to have a healthy population of squirrels until three years ago when no sightings were recorded for two years. This spring there were one or two sightings but nothing since then apart from some indications that they might be present by some finds of stripped cones.
Unfortunately a depressing find was made a fortnight after this survey when a dead adult squirrel was found in one of the Bagend gardens in Pineridge. There were no clear indications that the animal had been caught by a cat or how it had died although photos were taken and have been sent to the Red Squirrels of the Highlands organisation for their thoughts about this. The level of decomposition indicated that the squirrel had been dead for less than a week. The story so far does however have a positive ending with two squirrels having been sighted in the NW compartment on the 16th of October by Duncan Easter – the first since the spring! We are hoping that in time a population of squirrels will return again to nest in our woods but in the meantime we would like you to help by reporting any sightings to our land manager at 
fourteen people initially gathering under the woodland shelter to view some of the artefacts he has found over the past ten years whilst investigating the area. These included scrapers, parts of funerary urns, human bone fragments, flint chippings and necklace beads from the Bronze Age. The group then walked out to an important site near the sea on the way locating cracked cooking stones that had been used thousands of years ago and hearing from Michael about how the landscape had been formed, had changed and where archaeological finds are most likely to be found.At the site people became aware of the far greater concentration of artefacts in the 
area including an obvious shell midden where our ancestors had discarded shellfish shells after collecting and eating them. They were also aware that over the next few decades the whole area would no doubt have been completely eroded by the encroaching sea. The group then proceeded to a nearby area where there was a burnt mound – a large collection of cracked heating stones that had been left piled up. After a short question and answer session, Michael was thanked and people disbanded, all with a greater sense of connection with their local past.
This year’s theme was ” Community Woods: Learning and Earning ” and five of us from The Findhorn Hinterland Trust which was one of the host groups, went along.
training schemes for young people in enterprise and forest related skills were just a few of the stimulating inputs. It was interesting to hear of the challenges and successes of other groups and how much we all had in common. The links between people and woodlands was a constant theme, as was the need to work towards making our projects viable for the long-term future.
Engage with the Land – Saturday 26th November 2016
It’s fun, it’s active, it’s sociable, it’s time spent together in nature doing good work!
Findhorn Hinterland Group Project
Maintaining our Woodland and Land
Work Party- Everyone invited, no experience needed.
Saturday 26th November from 09:30 – 12:00
Meeting Place: at the FHG work shed behind the Caddy’s House in Bag End on the edge of the woods (in case of doubt simply ask) – that’s the black dot marked “I” on the Hinterland Map
Come along and join in the fun!