Dune Restoration Update

By Sean Reed | Published: 16/09/2024

We are very much looking forward to a visit from the charity Butterfly Conservation on Sunday 1st September. Tracy Munro (Species on the Edge Project) and Dr Tom Prescott (Head of Conservation) will be holding a mothing event at 10:30, at the Conservation Hub. Moths will be caught overnight and then viewed together, before being released unharmed back to their dune homes. We hope to see you there!

Did you know that the Findhorn Dunes are home to around 400 species of moths?! These include rare dune specialists such as the Portland and Lyme Grass moths. There are also records for even rarer species, such as Caryocolum blandelloides, new to science as recently as 1981 and with a UK range limited to dune systems in the western Moray Firth. Findhorn Dunes are also the most important site in Scotland for the moth Scythris empetrella, known from only one other place.Portland Moth

Moths are just one group of super-rare species found on the dunes. There are many others, including flies, wasps, leaf hoppers, lichens, and fungi. Indeed, our dunes are of national importance for biodiversity.

Red-banded sand wasp. Alan Watson Featherstone

The dunes were historically part of the second largest sand dune system in Europe, but only small fragments of this wild ecosystem now remain, and those that do – including the Hinterland Area – are threatened by gorse encroachment. Healthy sand dune ecosystems have around 5% gorse cover, but in the Hinterland area its more like 90%, as you can see in the aerial photo. This is not a natural situation, its the result of the wind-sheltering effect of houses and plantation woodland, so that sand is no longer able to blow about, as it naturally would.

The Findhorn Hinterland Trust recognises the urgency of the world-wide biodiversity crisis and the importance of local action to restore rare habitats. The Trust has been clearing scrub over recent years using hand tools and volunteer work parties, but action on a larger scale is needed to restore sand dune habitats and secure the future of threatened species.

Thanks to your generous support we are now in the final stages of planning this year’s dune restoration work – converting around half a hectare of dense gorse to bare sand. The only way we can practically do this is with heavy machinery. The work will hopefully take place over five days in November. We will be using a forestry mulcher and then scraping back to bare sand with a large excavator. This may appear to be destructive, but please rest assured that we are using best practice methods to revitalise out dunescape. Similar work was done in 2020 at Heathneuk, as part of the North Whins ecological enhancement measures, has been very successful. Please do pop in and to have a look – you would never know that a big digger had opened this area up just four years ago.

Our local contact at the RSPB, Project Officer David Tompkins, recently sent us links to a conference on sand dune restoration in Wales . It is very interesting to see the scope and scale of sand dune restoration taking place elsewhere in the UK, and the various methods used. One of the things that stood out to me was the importance of newly-created bare sand for rare sand dune invertebrates, explained in Mike Howe’s presentation, in Session 2.

Please help us with this important project by keeping a safe distance from the machinery and by explaining to others how important this work is in restoring natural ecological processes and the precious biodiversity of our dunes.

Sean Reed,
Sand Dune Restoration Project

 

Posted in News

Bats by Saille Mawson

By Saille Mawson | Published: 16/09/2024
(Photo courtesy of Aileen Salway of a brown long-eared bat)

(Photo courtesy of Aileen Salway of a brown long-eared bat)

Bats are our only flying mammal. Due to a 55% decline in numbers since the 1960’s in the UK, their breeding and resting places are protected by law.

Bats are also the inspiration of much ghoulish folklore and are of course rolled out in costume form on Halloween accompanying witches and vampires !

The oldest bat fossils though tell us an amazing story which is that they have been on the earth for 52 million years ! Surely any species that has been around this long deserves our curiosity and respect.

Here in the Park Ecovillage Findhorn, where I have lived since 2012, we are lucky to have a small but widespread bat population.

My own love affair with bats began when I was 4 years old and living in a Cumbrian keep. I remember being woken by my dad one night and with great excitement being brought down stairs with my brother. There, attached to the sitting room curtain, was a bat that had somehow ventured inside.

I marvelled at the sight of such a tiny creature with long ears which looked decidedly weird. Added to which it was hanging upside down which seemed even more peculiar. This certainly spiked my curiosity.

My hope for our coming generations is that they too will have magical, real life bat encounters that will make them want to protect and care for this species as they are truly extraordinary creatures.

Recently between April- August 2024, I carried out a bat survey in Park Ecovillage Findhorn and surrounds.

This was prompted by the fact that our human settlement is going through a lot of change. As more development is being discussed, I wanted to get a more detailed picture of what bat species live here; what habitats they are using and where they are roosting so that we can not only protect them but also help them thrive.

One of the Findhorn communities foundational values that drew me to live here is ‘co creation with nature’. People have different ways of interpreting what this means to them of course. For me, co creation can only really begin when we first truly get to know species other than ourselves, through observation and from that learn what their needs are. Then the partnership can begin !

My research methods in the survey developed as I went along. I started off with a heterodyne bat detector. Going out just before sunset (around which time most bats emerge from their roosts.)

This detector makes the echolocation calls made by some bat species audible to the human ear.

The common pipistrelle, actually makes really loud high frequency sounds at around 120 decibels. At 80 decibels we humans need to wear noise protectors. So perhaps it is just as-well that pipistrelle calls are outside our normal human hearing range otherwise it could be quite deafening to be out at dusk !

As I have mentioned bats navigate using a remarkable system, shared by dolphins and whales, called echolocation. They create sound pictures of their environment by emitting high frequency calls which bounce back to them off objects.

A fleshy spike called a tragus in the bats ears receives and interprets the sound telling it how far away an object is. This helps them map their environment, move around safely and most importantly locate insects with incredible accuracy.

A single common pipistrelle bat can devour up to 3000 midges a night. Definitely a reason why we in Scotland might be grateful to them !

Food types vary slightly between species but in general it is insects: mosquitos , beetles , lacewings , spiders and moths.

Once I had located areas where the bats were with the heterodyne detector, I then set up an additional static anabat swift bat detector loaned by NESBATS. This is a more sophisticated detector, which can help distinguish between bat species with greater accuracy by recording bat sounds to an SD card which can then be read as a sonograph on a computer.

The recordings I made were kindly interpreted for me by ecologist and bat specialist, Aileen Salway of NESBATS.

What emerged is exciting.

As expected the most prevalent species in nearly all recordings was the common pipistrelle.

In Hinterland 3 species : common and soprano pipistrelle (both small bats) and Brown long-eared bats were all present.

The sonograph showed that bat activity was high on the nights recorded there on the ride that straddles the south of the woodland burial ground.

Bats use tree lines and hedges for commuting i.e travelling from their homes (roosts) to their foraging areas. So land features that support their echolocation in this way are incredibly important .

Grass rich edge areas and tree canopy also provide a good source of food for bats and the hinterland has been carefully thought out to provide both.

The brown long-eared bat has, I believe, already been documented in the Hinterland so it is good to see it showing up again on these recordings.

These bats have exceptional hearing due to their long ears and tend to live in and hunt near woodland. They have a slower flight and can hover and take insects off leaves or grass. Moths are their favourite food.They tend to be more difficult to see due to their later emergence in the night than other species.

The bat recordings from Cullerne Garden’s pond identified all the above species plus one more: the natterers bat.

This bat also showed up in the north end of Mr Bickens land bordering the ecovillage and in Pineridge by the quiet garden. It is a medium sized bat characterised by its slightly white underbelly and is less common. It likes areas withwater but will also feed in pine plantations

An interesting project in in Tentsmuir forest in Fife has found natterers maternity roosts sometimes high up in mature Corsican and Scot’s pine where the main trunk branch has divided creating a crevice.

Identifying roosts is challenging as bats will roost in different places at different times of year. The locations can range from in mature trees under thick bark flaps and hollows to attic roof spaces and under soffits and tiles.

Females tender to gather together to form maternity roosts in May/June where they raise just one pup a year who they feed on their own milk for 3 weeks.

They tend to look for very warm, dry places that are sheltered for this purpose.

The young are particularly vulnerable to predation by cats when learning to fly in August as they sometimes get stuck on the ground.

So one way you can help bats in your area is to keep your moggies in at night over this month !

Mating roosts are taken up in Sept/Oct time and hibernation roosts are also scouted out for the Winter.

Gradually as the weather gets colder and there are less insects bats will begin to spend more and more time in torpor eventually going into full hibernation in November.

During hibernation, a bat’s heartbeat can drop to about 20 beats per minute.

Hibernation sites need to be cool and at a constant temperature, usually between 0-9C, where the bats will stay over the Winter until as late as April in Scotland.

Obviously this pattern of changing roosts at different times in their yearly cycle can make bats vulnerable to human activity.

So tree felling, especially of those with roost potential, over the Winter and demolition or renovation of old buildings at any time needs to be done with care and awareness of what bat signs to look for.

Mapping roosts is a useful step in this process to avoid unwittingly causing harm to a bat population.

It is also a task which demands a lot of time and patience. Tracking which direction the bats are flying in and back tracking to see where they are emerging from. As well as looking for other tell tale signs such as bat droppings or moth wings and watching potential sites for that critical moment just either side of sunset when most bats emerge.

If you feel inspired to get involved in mapping bats and their habitat on the Findhorn peninsular, please do get in touch with me. I would love to hear from you.

Saille Mawson

(Nesbats member and committee member for Scottish WildLife Trust NE Branch) [email protected]

Posted in News

Meet the Team – Birgit Carow

By jonathan.caddy | Published: 16/09/2024

Birgit has lived in the Park Ecovillage Findhorn with her daughter Olivia for about seven years and has been involved with the FHT for the last three. She is a valued and important member of the FHT team who enriches our organisation with her smiling face and positive attitude as well as the marketing and design skills she brings from her home country of Austria. What follows is a little bit about her story and involvement. Enjoy!

What inspired your love of nature?
My journey started in my late teenage years when I first discovered hiking in Austria – I was brought up in a small town surrounded by mountains but my parents were not outdoor people so it was only at this older age that I started to engage by sleeping in huts and tents with lots of lakes to swim in. In my early thirties I was then drawn to a wilderness school with all its ancient wisdom much from native american culture. We would learn to make fires using a bow and sleep outdoors when it was snowing using a tarp – these were beautiful experiences. Now as a mum it is also really beautiful as when my daughter Olivia was small this gave me many chances to be outdoors with her here in Scotland and do all the fun stuff like collecting, pressing flowers, gathering flower bunches, making leaf prints etc. There is lots of fun stuff for kids to do outdoors and it is great for adults too! This led me to start the Fledglings Group in Wilkies Wood in the Findhorn Hinterland. The initial motivation was to find a way to bring parents together whilst also giving time to let the kids play outdoors. We saw how great this was for the children. Sometimes we organised some activities for them but most of the time they made their own entertainment together. A fire was important as a centre point around which these gatherings would happen. It was about being there and having a commitment to show up in the woods every Friday morning. It was during the time of Covid when all of us particularly needed and greatly appreciated this.

What sort of work were you involved in during your working life?
My background is in marketing and design which I studied in Austria. I worked using these talents and skills with an Austrian company that is involved in furniture design, textiles as well as cosmetics and has very high environmental standards. I still do some work for them which includes marketing, writing sustainability and CO2 balance reports etc. Coming to Findhorn I realised that having both these talents was useful particularly to small organisations that do not have large separate marketing and design departments. My gift here is being able to offer these things in a package – asking questions and then being able to translate needs into a visual design to help market a product. At present I work with both the Phoenix and the Findhorn Hinterland Trust here at the Park Ecovillage Findhorn.

Why did you decide to get involved in the work of the trust and how have you been able to contribute?
My way into the FHT was very organic. It started by living with my family in your house in Bagend on the edge between community and everything that the trust looks after. I started to go to FHT work parties planting trees when Olivia was one. During the pandemic our family decided to take on the Woodland Garden – we were there most days enjoying seeing what was coming up on its own. This came about as I had got to know Ariane Burgess, who is now a Green Scottish MSP, by helping to finish off the Outdoor Learning Space building in the garden so we naturally got involved in the actual gardening. I was inspired by her helping to set up the garden and I wanted to give something back. It is a beautiful place particularly with a child who can then move around freely. Conversations with you followed and I became more aware of what the FHT does. I could see how I might be able to offer something by using my marketing skills to reach out to more people about the beautiful and fulfilling things the trust does. It is so inspiring the large number of things it is involved in which I don’t think most people notice. I think it is often taken for granted that we have these woods, these fire pits and shelters where we can meet. I do not take it for granted, it is very special and I am very grateful for those that started it and the people that come with the energy to volunteer. There is so much knowledge and passion that is being shared by various people. To have some paid work was ideal for me to be able to pay my rent when I split up with my partner so it was a win/win for everyone.

What aspects have you found most satisfying with regards to the FHT work that you have been involved in?
It really satisfies me when I do something and I see the impact it has. For example this spring when we did the fundraiser for the Big Give match funding appeal for the Dune Restoration Project. Coming up with marketing ideas that are a bit different to be able to reach people and come up with enough money to have a big impact in our backyard to save some species that may not have survived otherwise. If I do something really well with good energy there is something that comes in return and results in improving something in the future. Since I am a mum I think this is especially important to me. I was also involved in the design work of the Conservation Hub as part of the team where I found I could help with my skills and gifts. I have experienced how people coming to work parties feel after putting in three hours of work on the land – they connect to land, other people and who is holding the morning. They might gain some insight into what is special on this land, see how everyone can have an impact and learn what goes into caring for land or building a building in a different way.

What would be your high dream for the FHT be if anything was possible?
That it is a strong and solid organisation that has the set up and means to continue to do and expand what it already does so well including inspiring and involving more people. Establishing this as a place that people know that they can come to and find peace, rest and connection. A place where they can contribute as well as just be whilst knowing that someone looks after it. I would like it to be a place where people know that it is here and is available to nurture them on all levels. I would also like to find ways to bring all these beings that are so small and significant into the spotlight so that when we walk on the land we know more stories about what is going on. The passionate people here have these stories so that we can share them more and change human perceptions. We could make them big and have stories told through drama and creative storytelling for both children and adults. I am deeply grateful for the trust, the passionate people involved, and the enthusiasm of the team members to share, do and get things done.

Interviewed by Jonathan Caddy
August 2024

Posted in News

FINDHORN HINTERLAND TRUST MOTHING EVENT SUNDAY 1st SEPTEMBER

By Sean Reed | Published: 16/09/2024

There was a very good turn-out for a mothing event last Sunday at Wilkies Wood, Park Ecovillage Findhorn. The event was hosted by local charity the Findhorn Hinterland Trust, who manage around thirty hectares of land adjoining the Ecovillage.

Experts from Butterfly Conservation and the Species on the Edge project deployed nine moth traps on the dunes overnight. Moths were then viewed in the woodland on a beautifully sunny morning, before being carefully released unharmed back into their habitat.

The dunes at Findhorn are nationally important for rare plants and insects, supporting over four hundred species of moths. Despite it being an unseasonably cold night there was a surprisingly large catch of the moths, with over fifty species recorded, including striking species like the Canary-shouldered Thorn.

Pete Moore, Chair of the Highlands and Islands branch of Butterfly Conservation, explained how moths are undergoing dramatic declines due to habitat loss, but also how moths new to the area appear each year, due to our changing climate. Pete said: “I always wake up with a sense of excitement after trapping for moths at a new site, like a child on Christmas morning. I was delighted to see two species for the first time ever for me!”

The Species on the Edge project is a partnership of conservation organisations working to protect the most biodiverse coastal sites in Scotland. The Project raises the profile of these places and works with communities to restore threatened habitats, including through scrub removal. Tracy Munro, Project Officer for the East Coast, explained how places like Findhorn dunes are the last refuge for some of our most threatened species. Tracy said: “Linking special wildlife sites along the coast is key to securing the future for some of our rarest species. Moths aren’t just found in special places though. Gardens are also great for moths. Getting a closer look is as simple as hanging-up a white sheet overnight and getting up early the next day to see what you’ve got. It’s great fun and very addictive!”

Hinterland Trust Chair, Jonathan Caddy, described how he grew up playing on the dunes as a child and how being surrounded by nature there had inspired him to go on to study ecological science at Edinburgh University, saying: “Events like this are a fantastic way to inspire the next generation of people who will take care of our natural environment. It’s a real privilege to be able to give back to a landscape which has given me so much.”

 

 

Ecologist Sean Reed explained that the Hinterland Trust is embarking on a dune ecosystem restoration project, starting this November. The project will convert half a hectare of dense gorse into pristine bare sand. Sean said: ”The aim is to connect-up the few remaining refuges of high quality dune heath habitats and restart the natural process of wind-blown sand in these areas. The work may appear to be destructive while it is taking place, but it is a vital part of our wildlife conservation work and the land will very quickly take-on a natural appearance afterwards.”

 

 

Sean Reed
Ecologist

Posted in News

News from the Land – Summer 2024

By Kajedo Wanderer | Published: 16/09/2024

‘I ask for a moment’s indulgence to sit by Thy side.
The works that i have in hand
I will finish afterwards…’

(R.Tagore)

As the first day of September – and the end of the summer – is fast approaching, I sit under a tree and pause to reflect on the abundance of these last months…

Out on the ‘fallen acres’ a 17 strong ‘vision quest’ group from Central Europe is preparing for their solo time in the wilder parts of our land.

While throughout the summer we’ve had a slow trickle of campers and the occasional event at the shelter- it is great that now that every camping pad is occupied by a tent, and there are even some tents on the tracks through the birches. It is the only time this summer that we had the camping pads and the shelter area being so busy for 10 days.

While much of the world is heating up at alarming rates it seems that here in the North of Scotland things are getting cooler. We’ve had a fresh and damp summer. Yes, there were days of working in shorts and T-shirt, but overall it was never too hot for the strong physical work required on the land.

Over the last months we have been blessed with committed volunteers willing to show up every day – in exchange for staying in our ‘Shepherd’s Hut’ or the bell tent. Chris, from California, our Shepherd’s Hut resident, Fern from Tasmania, who gave the Woodland Garden some much needed love & care, and Stuart from Australia stayed longer than intended and helped wherever needed.

Together we achieved a lot. Much of our time was spent with ‘prickly issues’ – cutting gorse. We maintained and improved all our areas of ‘species rich grassland’ and the now beautifully purple flowering heath lands. We cleared tracks and paths and fire-breaks. On one of the fire-breaks – which gets mowed every year – we counted 25 different species of flowers and grasses ! Together they provide an inviting home for a spectrum of insects and birds.

And many of our days are filled with numerous, unglamorous small jobs which are needed to be done to care for this land and all its creatures. Replacing fence posts on the pony fields, putting over 150 little trees into 1.20m tubes to protect them from the deer, replacing broken tree-stakes – or loading the tractor-trailer with woodchips to give our camping pads a fresh layer in preparation for the vision questers. Brambles were pulled up on newly planted areas, and baby trees have been dug up in areas where they would not have a future and potted to be planted out in the autumn.

Logs have been peeled in preparation for the imminent building of the new Sanctuary.

And within it all we have explored the deepening of the human connection with the surrounding natural world.

I often set tasks for the day beyond the physical work –

How can we stay curious ? (As a gateway to intimacy…)

Can you find something on the third day of doing the same job, something which you have not seen here before ? (findings ranged from flowers and fungi, to insects, to lizards…)

How can we move from looking at things to actually really seeing them ? What is the inner equivalent to the outer work we are doing ?

How can we turn our work into ‘worship’ – an offering of our devotion ?

Well, the harvesting season is about to begin. Apples & pears are nicely ripening in the gardens, so are the wild plums on the land. We’ve snacked on the wild raspberries and now the first blackberries are ripe.

With the recent warm rains the mushrooms are finally poking their heads above the ground in great variety.

I am sure the many bright red berries which shine like rubies on the rowan trees are a happy sight for the birds.

And with that it seems right to sit quietly for a little while and consider our ‘inner harvest’ – as the summer comes to a close.

‘…Now it is time to sit quiet
Face to face with Thee,
And to sing dedication of life
In this silent and overflowing leisure.’

(R.Tagore)

Posted in News

Report Article from Forres Rotary Club Presentation – 1st August 2024

By Tanya Barker | Published: 16/09/2024

As part of reaching out and promoting the work of the Trust I took up the offer of member Lorraine Warshaw to give a presentation to the Forres Rotary Club which was a fun thing to do and was very well received. It was good to connect with some old school friends but also other locals I have worked or interacted with over the years. One of these was Tanya McLaren now Tanya Barker who for many years was a reporter for the local paper the Forres Gazette. For fun she wrote a little report on the event which you can have a look at below. Some of the facts are not totally accurate which was always the case with Tanya but her genuine appreciation given during the Q&A session after the presentation of the work of the trust and the long journey it has taken to develop its work was most heart warming.

Jonathan Caddy
FHT Chair

Forres Rotary hosted retired local teacher, Jonathan Caddy, as speaker for one of their August evening meetings, held at the Mosset Tavern.

Mr Caddy spoke to Rotarians about the Findhorn Hinterland Trust which was originally formed in 2015 as the Hinterland Group to manage a large parcel of land which encompasses dunelands and the former Wilkie’s Wood on the edge of Findhorn.

The organisation was originally created to manage the 35 hectares, following a meeting in the James Milne Institute in Findhorn where Mr Caddy explained that although Duneland Ltd had purchased the area that it was a huge area to manage and would be in the interests of the community to jointly manage some of the land outwith the Ecovillage, so working in partnership could begin to protect the fragile dunes area which was included.

Forres Rotarian and former Forres Gazette editor, Tanya Barker was at the meeting and recalled the atmosphere at the JMI (James Milne Institute) was originally suspicious of the offer to jointly manage land, given plans to build homes on the outer edge of the Foundation were taking shape, and there was confusion about what was actually being proposed.

“It was a very long and at times, a very volatile meeting, where a room full of people all wanted to have their say,” she said. “I had to go back to the office and write a story which captured the main essence of what was being proposed without showing bias. Thankfully, things progressed quickly, and the community headed up by a small group embraced the idea of working together to try and protect the fragile dunes area. It is clear to me from speaking to Jonathon recently that obstacles have been overcome and the Hinterland has benefited from community involvement over the years.”

Mr Caddy explained to Rotarians via a powerpoint presentation, that as well as a green burial site which has been created there, existing alongside the eco-village that following a lot of work, the Hinterland Trust has now successfully achieved official recognition of some of the extremely rare lichen and other fauna and flora that exist near Findhorn, which demonstrates the ongoing need to protect the duneland area for future generations.

President Jackie Stephen thanked the speaker for an interesting and informative talk which included information about future plans including the Dune Restoration Project and an offer was made for Rotarians to go along to have a look at the site and work being done there.

The Hinterland group is also holding a Moth Trapping Event on September 1st where moths caught overnight will be viewed before being released. And a walk and talk open to the public is due to take place on November 2nd with more information available on www.findhornhinterland.org

Tanya Barker

Posted in News

Vision Quest – A Support for Life Transition

By Jakob Reitberger | Published: 16/09/2024

21st-31st September

Spiral into the centre
The centre of the wheel
I am the weaver, I am the woven one
I am the dreamer, I am the dream
Song of the natives

Holger and Gesa Heiten were the leaders of this vision quest that I have just completed that took place on land managed by the Findhorn Hinterland Trust over the last ten days. Holger in particular has had a long, forty year connection with the Findhorn community (the Park Ecovillage Findhorn) having initially come here when he was eighteen. He was so impressed and influenced that he has been coming back every year since. He is also connected to native american elders through the School of Lost Borders and for many years has had his own organisation, the Eschwege Institut, which is involved in gestalt therapy that supports life transitions.

The sixteen strong group that came to the Findhorn ecovillage this year was made up of the leaders with their older teenage daughter, four assistants/ apprentices and nine participants. The group was based around the Woodland Shelter in Wilkes Wood where we camped on the bark camping pads- I found it particularly pleasant to sleep on the soft and warm bark of the purpose built pads. We were so blessed to be in such a beautiful place to do this kind of retreat and I felt it was perfect for this sort of experience involving a rite of passage. There was something important in this particular landscape to do with the connection between the land and the sea. This landscape seemed to reflect my internal landscape and it was so good to simplify back to the bare bones of life during this experience. On this land there are a lot of mini habitats with moss, insects and lichens that grow on poor nutrients and hardship. Only in such extreme conditions with poor nutrients,drought and variable temperatures do you get such abundance of special species. This hot spot zone was a key for me as I came to see how I could grow having less around me in my life.

Let me introduce myself. I am Jakob Reitberger 44, a handicraft/technical Montessori teacher for class 5-10 in Eichstaett, Bavaria, Germany. I am married with four children 23, 20, 13 and 10 – two boys and two girls. I have worked in the school for thirteen years and two years ago there was a change in leadership in our school which became one of my struggles. I also had a winter sport accident this last year and later experienced paralysis in my face which shocked me and was the reason that I felt I needed to take a pause in my life – I felt totally broken! I love my wife and children very much but they seemed to have different needs from what I felt was essential and important for me at this time. This was tearing me apart and was part of the backpack of challenges I came with. Others in the group came with lighter and some with heavier packs but all felt it was beneficial to have others here to help them heal, move on and grow in their lives.

The core of this experience/ritual of this retreat was to stay in solo time for 100 hours which involved going out with a tarp and something to drink to fast in a place that only you know. You stay there and be with yourself. Before going out and when you come back there is a process so that you can get the most out of the experience and then be able to integrate it. For me it felt like I was cutting up the old pieces of my life to create both a seed and compost to help grow a new essence to help me move forward. After the experience I feel very connected and bonded with the earth as well as feeling still, calm, full of enthusiasm, boldness and daring.

Every day during the retreat, from the human doing to the human being, we dove deep into listening to nature outside and inside us – we were re-naturing the human being. A life transition is a time where the old things including deep wounds are faced, acknowledged, appreciated and transformed. A pause in life creates the possibility to process and integrate the struggle of life. It is possible to bury old beliefs.

I am not new to the idea of a vision quest as fifteen years ago I had taken part in one in Sweden. What I received there helped me look at life in a different way – to see how my life is like a swaying grass stem that moves in the wind but always comes back near to the quiet and stillness of the centre. It helped me see that the things around us are like the wind. This experience sustained me until the upheavals of the last two years. I wanted to come here because I knew and was touched by Holger’s and Gesa’s work and also wanted to connect particularly with the Findhorn Ecovillage and other communities as I lived for one year in a yoga ashram, Yoga Vida, in Germany and am connected with some other communities there such as Templehof in Bavaria.

At this moment I feel brave and with this fresh energy and direction am ready to go back to Germany with a courageous and open heart and new thoughts to share with my children, group and school family. I feel I have let the old things go and am able to return fresh and enthusiastic. Because of facial paralysis, for three months I had had to give up my teaching but now I feel I can go back and return to work helped greatly by this vision quest experience and so thankful that my facial paralysis has almost faded away. A huge thank you to Holger and Gesa, the vision quest magic, this community and the special landscape that has helped my personal transformation to happen.

Whatever you do and dream you can, begin it. Just begin it
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it
Just begin it!

Goethe

Written by Jakob Reitberger
Vision Quest Participant

Posted in News

FHT 2023-24 Pictorial Finance Summary

By jonathan.caddy | Published: 11/06/2024

Sometimes looking at figures visually can be fun and revealing which is what David Hammond FHT Treasurer with the help of Trustee and Bookkeeper Christopher Raymont have done here by putting together simplified figures from 2023-24 data on the trust’s income and expenditure.  What are some of the observations that we can draw from this way of presenting the figures?

  • The first that I notice is that I am thankful that we as an organisation are presently living within our financial means  with income very slightly above expenditure for the year. I realise that this is only made possible by the generous support of our members, donors and grant givers and the willingness of the team and community to give of their time and skill to support our good land based work.  Let’s be thankful for this community support and celebrate this achievement!

Looking now specifically at the income  and expenditure pie charts, here are some other things I note:

Income

  • One of our strengths as an organisation is that we have a variety of income sources that in most years roughly cover our annual operating expenses so we are not dependent on generating grant income to do this. Securing grants for operating expenses is often difficult so this is definitely a plus.
  • Income is hugely dependent on green burial income (33% for the year in question) which varies from year to year.  This variance is illustrated by looking at the green burial income that has come in over the last two months of April and May 2024 which has been £7,955  compared with £11,350 for the whole of last year!  Are we headed for a bumper gb income year?
  • Of great importance though is the income from paid membership and donations as together they roughly brought in the same income (30%) as the green burials but do not fluctuate as much from year to year so giving a more stable income that helps when putting together our annual budget.  Members, your contribution is really valued and counts!  Thank you and do encourage a few more people to join and help contribute and connect in this way.
  • We can see that there is plenty of potential to increase the income from grants and also retreats and workshops.  Our policy is to only depend on grant income for new projects not for general trust maintenance costs.

Expenditure

  • Much of what we spend money on goes to pay for support people (63%) like our Land Manager, bookkeeper, green burial team members, minute taker, marketing person and our ecologist involved in the Dune Restoration Project this year.  They are all essential to the smooth running of the organisation.  The FHT is proud to be able to create some local employment out of what it does and be able to pay above the real living wage to those that do essential paid work for us.  That said, I have also noticed that those involved often generously give back by volunteering some of their extra time. Good to see both sides in this mutually giving and supportive relationship.
  • The greatest expenditure is on our half time Land Manager employee (37%) who is out there for part of every week day making sure the basic work of the trust is covered.  Appreciation goes to this often unseen steady hand who also, like others already mentioned, contributes voluntarily beyond his paid working time.

No doubt there are other gems of wisdom that can be gleaned from this basic information but I will leave it to you to explore and find them for yourself.  If you have any questions around this work and the FHT finances in general , do not hesitate to get in touch.

Jonathan Caddy (Chair)
David Hammond (Treasurer)
Christopher Raymont (Trustee and Bookkeeper)
June 2024

 

Posted in News

My Story as a FHT Volunteer

By Mitch Tarbit | Published: 11/06/2024

My name is Mitch and I am a 23 year old young man from the Lake District who has been living in the FHT Shepherd’s Hut and volunteering for the charity for the last two months. I would like to share with you a little of my positive journey over the last couple of months.

How I ended up here is quite an interesting story.  I had no intention of coming here  and getting involved in the work of the trust and knew nothing about this community before I arrived here.  How I got here actually involved a tube of toothpaste!  I was working for the army base down the road at Kinloss and was looking on my phone to try to find out where I might get a non-fluoride toothpaste and came up with the Phoenix Shop here at the Park.  Afterwards I took a little walk around the place and into the woods where I happened to meet and start talking with Luna, the previous FHT volunteer.  She told me about her work and that started to bring up a lot of questions inside me.  I went away and thought about it for the next five months or so and I just couldn’t let it go and ignore the fact that the place was just up the road – it felt like the right place to be within my heart so after a lot of thought I left my job.  It aligned with the time I needed to move on and I felt that I couldn’t go back down to England before spending some time here.

Two months on it has been everything I hoped it would be and more.  The interaction with nature has been a highlight.  Living in nature, living in the forest a hundred metres away from the sand dunes and heathland makes you appreciate the little things – you start to live in their world and begin noticing strange little things happening in the earth and around you.  For example the other day I saw ten magpies in one tree playing around and dancing and this morning I woke up and there was a red squirrel two metres to my left watching me eating my porridge!  People ask me if it is difficult living in the Shepherd’s Hut as they see that I don’t have very much – no electricity and only a small gas stove and wood fired heating stove.  They say it must get quite cold  and I say look I may not have much but I feel that I have everything.  I feel my eyes have  been opened to what the world actually holds.  You don’t need to have much as so much is already here and has been given to us.

Physically what I have been doing has been connected to this season.  There has been a lot of gorse that has needed to be cut back which is a repetitive task but I have found that the task can be a meditative way to work rather like when I am running – I find I can think whilst I am doing.  A lot of the work here I have found has enabled me to think and be introspective.  Kajedo Wanderer, the FHT Land Manager who I have been working with, is good at externalising these thoughts.  For example with working cutting back gorse he has got be to ask the question, “What do these actions represent within you?” He starts to help me think about the prickly things in our life and inside us which can over grow and block out the small things that are intricate and don’t often have a lot of fight.  What does it represent cutting back those prickly things in you?

I have also been working with Jonathan Caddy and others which has been practically and mentally stimulating involving creating and working as an individual in a team to build beautiful products such as the chunky wooden benches and even the platform to lay the body on for a funeral that we did the other week.  It is all just good – I am not doing it for myself or to make money but doing it for the good of the people and the planet.  I am finding what you put out comes back to you.  I think people are beautiful around here – I find them whole, genuine people being open and willing to speak and to have interesting, intellectual, spiritual conversations about really meaningful topics which I have not necessarily felt elsewhere in a 9 to 5 job.  This has been something that I feel I really need to do again.

Being brought up in the Lake District I had access to the wild from the towns and villages that I come from.  When I was little I pushed the nature aside that was around me – I wanted to be inside playing games and whatnot.  As I got older I realised how important nature is.  I used to intellectually understand why people would love horses or why people would love flowers but I didn’t really feel this myself.  It has been only by giving something and fully interacting with nature that that has definitely changed.  For example I came across the three  horses kept on the land in the pony field the other day.  It gave me joy witnessing them watching me as I watched them, patting them and looking at the flowers.  I now find myself all inquisitive and asking questions about the nature around me: “What is this flower?  How did its seeds get here?”  A new world has opened up to me in which my eyes have been opened and I can see more.

I have had this experience between jobs.  Unfortunately I am moving on to find a new job in a new sector.  Sales in an entrepreneurial world is what I am looking at but I am going to take lessons from here with me particularly from Kajedo and see how I can apply them in the entrepreneurial and corporate landscape.  Hopefully I can bring good to that area of the world as I am aware that there are a lot of corrupt minds, narcissism and selfishness in that world and I am hoping to spread love throughout it.  When I start my own business, right at the beginning I want to have my new employees come here and experience some of the life changing magic I have experienced.

Mitch Tarbit
FHT Long Term Volunteer
March to May 2024

Posted in News

Chair’s Report – Spring/Summer 2024

By jonathan.caddy | Published: 11/06/2024

It has been another whirlwind spring season as far as the Findhorn Hinterland Trust and the various activities on the land go.  

The ‘When the Bough Breaks’ film, which starred our trustee Alan Watson Featherstone and the rewilding work he was previously involved in with Trees for Life, took place on the 16th March in the Universal Hall and was well attended and received  It led nicely into a public presentation on our very own rewilding project, the Dune Restoration presentations by Alan, Heather, Sean and I the very next day with a follow up walk and talk on the dunes for some. 

 

This was part of raising awareness locally about this major and important project and allowed us to promote the BigGive Green Match Funding campaign which took place from the 18th to 25th April.  This was very successful and a huge thanks goes to the BigGive organisation for selecting our project and everyone who contributed; we raised over our £10,000 goal plus an additional £1000 being donated through John Clausen and the Hygeia Foundation in the USA.  This will be used to pay for work done on the ground during this next winter.  We were also fortunate to secure further funding  of £3250 through TSI Moray and the CAN (Climate Action Network) that helped pay for project set up work; the film, the public presentations, an unexploded ordnance report essential as part of our risk assessment measures, project development by Sean, marketing by Birgit and help with monitoring the project through another ecologist James Bunyan.  James visited us in April and we are excited about him looking at some cutting edge monitoring of our project using drones.  

Another exciting and connected development has been the securing of a £3,500 grant through the Newbold Legacy Trust which will help fund a three year partnership with Forres Academy to build awareness and involve pupils in our biodiversity and nature awareness project work; the school already spends a day here with around 50-60 pupils carrying out their Biology fieldwork work in the summer term and we expect them again on the 18th June.  This is a major step forward in fulfilling our educational purpose as a charity and watch this space to find out how this partnership develops.

Birgit Carow, who does the marketing for our charity, put together the splendid FHT Educational Programme for this year and her colourful and appealing posters can be seen dotted around and some online marketing has taken place.  Despite not yet having a working community website to advertise through, all three day workshops so far, Sharing Nature, Sacred Ways and the one on Biodiversity, have gone ahead.  It is great to see local people taking advantage of the educational expertise and knowledge offered by our exceptional and talented local experts. We are offering two week long retreats/workshops in the next months which are still to fill so please do spread the word and encourage those you know who might wish to come and benefit from these.  

 

Other areas of the trust’s work are ticking along nicely. After very few green burials last year there have been a number already this year including the moving funeral and memorial service for long term and much loved community member Duerten Lau.  There were several hundred people present at the Wilkies Wood green burial site to send our dear friend off.  Duerten did much to help develop the community at the Park Ecovillage Findhorn including for a period being the Chair of the Findhorn Hinterland Group the precursor of the FHT charity.  We now have 58 bodies buried at the site and 62 reserved lairs with 3 burials and 2 more reserved since April of this year.  The site is still used for community events which included this year’s May Day Celebration organised by Draeyk and complete with May pole dancing and a small play. This event was part of a one day visit by a group of keen and enthusiastic teens from an alternative school in New Jersey that were visiting the land and theEcovillage as part of their studies through an organisation called Travel for Teens.  It was a privilege to host these change makers of the future who showed great interest in our work.

It has been good to see the sun and feel some warmth in May as April was unusually cold and rainy.  For this reason our bees had to be fed with fondant all through the month of April to keep them alive and we are glad to say that nine out of our ten hives are now thriving with two extra artificial swarms already having been set up and a large swarm having been housed.  Unfortunately both the other bee team stalwarts, John Willoner and Martin Harker, have had health challenges which has left me holding the fort.  Thanks to Amanda and Goran for some help but please do contact me if you are interested in offering help or even being part of our core team in the future.  No bee experience – come along to our two day bee workshop on the 22nd and 23rd of June!  You will love it and learn a lot.

 

Another creative endeavour that will lead to a Chunky Bench Making Workshop in September has been the creation of two lovely rustic benches sponsored by FHT member Helen Kalis which are now installed on the high dune ridge above the North Whins site at the Park.  Woodworker Steven Porter has been volunteering has time and skill to make this all happen.  Do take the time to wander up and enjoy the benches and the view and have a look at Steven’s article elsewhere in this newsletter. 

Great to finally see the new sanctuary project moving again with the foundations now in and we are looking forward to getting the logs down to the Conservation Hub for their final preparation and to have the joints constructed under tarps by talented woodworker Henry Fosbrooke.  Help with the log scraping will be needed and grading and helping with the transport of the sawn timber we milled from wind blown wood will be much appreciated. 

Change is a constant in the world, our community and the Findhorn Hinterland Trust.  The charity has been planning how it can be more sustainable and resilient as an organisation so that its good work can be carried on for a hundred years and beyond. How will this be done especially as I step down as Chair January 1st 2026 and others in their roles just now will need to be replaced over time?  To help us consciously take the next steps we secured some consultation time with Just Enterprise, a government organisation that helps the charity and community enterprise sector. This involved them finding out about our charity, exploring the thoughts of the core team through a questionnaire and gathering us together for a meeting at Cullerne House to carry out a SWOT analysis and look together at our next steps.  (See their detailed report elsewhere).  The main change will be from an organisational structure where I as an individual maintain links to one where even more of a team structure is put in place where the organisation is effectively held by the group.  For this reason we are very open to new trustees and team members and as part of this change welcome Talitha Ross as our new FHT Secretary who will be replacing Judith Bone after many years of service. Vivienne Wylde has also stepped down as our Membership Secretary and although Arun has offered to hold this position for now, we are on the lookout for a younger person to grow into the position. Might that be you?         

Jonathan Caddy
FHT Chair
May 2024

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Findhorn Hinterland Trust, Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) SC045806
228 Pineridge, Findhorn, Forres, Moray IV36 3TB