Supporting Our Local Wildlife

We understand that rather than being seperate from the natural world we are part of the same ecosystem – from the samllest gnat to Buzz (the Buzzard) who spends a lot of time on the track telephone pole surveying his kingdom. Wherever we can, we are hoping to encourage more and diverse fauna and flora to live here. Some of them I could do with less – midges for example. Our hope is that if we can find some sort of balance there won’t be too many of any one thing. So with the midges if the bat population is optimal they will eat some of the midges. Burmieston is only a little place though so there are limits to what we can achieve but everyone can do something. Variously sized boxes are dotted around the buildings to help: for swifts (thanks to Elspeth Coutts!) in the gables, for bats on the house and various trees, for owls at the back of the barn, and even hedgehogs in the garden.

Some of the bird species seen this year include: buzzards, tawny owls, kestrels, curlews, lapwings, snipe, oyster catchers, black grouse, cookoo and more. Butterflies include peacocks, orange tips, cabbage whites and monarchs.