Abundant berries on the Findhorn Hinterland

By Alan Watson Featherstone | Published: 17/09/2021

As anyone who walks out on the Hinterland area will have seen, there’s an abundance of berries there just now. The most obvious of these are the red berries on the rowan trees and the blackberries on the brambles (it’s a particularly good year for them). However, there are also other berries to be seen on different plants and trees, as this is the time when most of them ripen – how many of these have you seen?

Rowan berries

Blackberries

Juniper berries Berries on a guelder rose

Hawthorn berries

Honeysuckle berries

Rosehip on a dog rose

Wild raspberry

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Hinterland’s Gift for the Future Biodiversity and Taking Local Action

By George Paul | Published: 17/09/2021

The inspiration for this article came from items published in the Guardian on 8th/9th August 2021. Firstly an article by George Monbiot: “The gift we should give to the living world” and then the publication of the latest IPCC report on Climate Change.

In our rush to take action: carbon capture, tree planting etc we sometimes lose sight of that other priority, to restore and improve biodiversity. Biodiversity is enriching, stabilising, securing. Our FHT work on the land it manages is very much about biodiversity.

We could simply leave our Hinterland land to invasive gorse, Lodgepole Pine and Sitka Spruce. All are very vigorous growers and would be effective at capturing CO2. But what would we lose?  – The vitality and benefits of biodiversity. Hence our ongoing and long term work:

-To control the spread of gorse onto dune heathland and grassland and their diversity of lichens, mosses, fungi, heathers and grasses and their associated mass of fauna.

-Our creation of firebreaks not only to protect property but also all the flora and fauna that is not fire resistant (gorse recovers very quickly and easily from fire).

-Our ponds created to provide a very different habitat. We now see dragonflies and even heron.

-The replacing of dense, dark plantation with oak, rowan, wild cherry, birch and aspen, which supports a much greater quantity and range of fauna

-Opening up glades in the North East sector of woodland (but leaving standing some of the stronger, older Scots Pine) allows for self-seeding of native flora.

-Our woodland shelter, wild camping pads, path clearance, green burial site all encourage a human presence and the increased enjoyment, knowledge and an appreciation of our environment.

-Surveys of moths, fungi, lichens etc all contribute to our knowledge and understanding.

We are trying to build a solid foundation for true biodiversity so let’s be optimistic about the future. Hinterland may seem very, very small but with your support and involvement, as part of a global movement, it makes a significant difference.

George Paul
FHT Member and Regular Long Term Volunteer.


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A bee’s view of life at the Findhorn Apiary August 21

By Martin Harker | Published: 19/08/2021

The previous report from the Findhorn Apiary was from my great aunt. She hatched last autumn and had the important role, along with about 10,000 of her sisters, of keeping the colony sustained through the winter. She had to help keep the colony warm and the queen fed ready for laying in the spring. Then there was the vital role of raising the next generation. She worked hard and died at the ripe old age of seven months.

My life is somewhat different, there are so many different jobs to do. My first three weeks of life were spent inside the hive. Shortly after emerging from my cell, having had a good meal, I was set to work as a cleaner. It is amazing the amount of rubbish that can collect in a home. Fortunately our beekeepers have supplied hives with mesh floors so a lot of rubbish falls through it, together with varroa mites. However, I soon progressed to polishing cells, getting them ready for the queen to lay an egg in them. That felt really important.

I was then promoted to nurse. When the eggs hatched I was kept very busy feeding the larvae, they eat so much, their weight increases by 700 times from their hatch weight to when they pupate after 6 days. I was even entrusted with feeding the queen.

My final role within the hive was as a house bee. We had to produce wax and build cells with it. That is really hard work because we have to raise our body temperature to 43C so the wax is soft enough to mould. Other duties included processing and storing nectar and honey, ventilating the hive and distributing water to where it is needed.

Sometimes our beekeepers would come to see how we were getting on, looking through the glass ceiling of our hive. However, I don’t think they really know what we are all doing!

After three weeks I was promoted again, this time to guard duty. At last I can see outside our hive. We patrol the entrance, stopping bees from other hives, or sometimes wasps, coming in and robbing our honey. We can detect the queen’s pheromone on a bee and know if they are not from our hive. However, some bees, especially the drones, get up to devious ways of blagging their way in. We do what we can!

We also help our foraging sisters find the way home by releasing a pheromone from our nasonov gland which is near our sting. So if you see us standing with our bottoms in the air and flapping our wings, that is what we are doing.

From our hive we can see the giant whirring white blades of three ‘windmills’. We have heard people ask our beekeepers what we think of them. Perhaps we are too busy to really notice them. Then came the great day of becoming a forager. We explore the area, sometimes flying two miles, or more, from our hive, looking for good supplies of nectar. We have to carefully note features around our hive so that we know the way home. We also register where the sun is and its movement, so we have a sort of compass to navigate by. I thought that would be difficult but it seems to come naturally. When we find a plentiful source of nectar, we can tell our other foraging sisters inside the hive. We do a dance which gives them the ‘compass’ bearing and distance.

We are blessed with many productive gardens around Findhorn, so usually we do not have to fly too far. There is also, close to us, a bountiful supply of heather which produces delicious honey. I have probably said enough and I am very tired. I am now nearly seven weeks old and I expect very soon I will not have the energy to make it home from a foraging trip. It has been a demanding life but hopefully I have helped our colony prosper.

If you are fortunate enough to sample some of our honey, you can now picture something of the work that has gone into producing it. Goodbye.

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Summer News from the Land August 21

By Kajedo Wanderer | Published: 19/08/2021

I have just returned from another round of watering our youngest trees on the land… It’s been a summer of periods of very dry weather and torrential downpours. Sadly for some of our broadleaf trees our watering efforts came too late. We have also finished defining the Northern Heath areas – this involved a lot of gorse cutting by hand over a two year period. There is a bit of chainsaw and brushcutter work left and then it will take minimal effort every two years to keep these precious habitats open.

As the covid restrictions were eased, what was most evident this summer was the increased human activity on the land. We had Paul Howell’s vision quest group camping here again for a week plus the shelter being used on a regular basis by the Northern Light Sangha and less regularly by other groups. Birgit Carow initiated and held gatherings around a fire for young families with small kids for many weeks on Friday mornings -it’s been a joy to see them around the picnic table and in the woods. We also had an unusual overnight visit from a lady with two horses who does cross country charity rides… In addition we had three work-parties with about 10 attendees each – to catch up with work in the Edible Woodland Garden with a small but much appreciated grant from Volunteering Matters to help fund this work. A few people have also started using and enjoying staying on our camping pads during the last couple of months. Other events included ‘Hinterland Tours’ being restarted with some great feedback and as you probably know this is the first year when we, the Findhorn Hinterland Trust, are offering our own retreat programmes.

I am particularly excited about running these retreats here in and for Hinterland as they are a way for us to share some of the wisdom amongst our members as well as the magic of the land. They also open a potential and much needed income stream for the Findhorn Hinterland Trust and the partnership with the Findhorn Foundation is proving to be a fruitful one – hopefully building a model of cross partnerships within our community in the future.

The first weekend retreat held at the beginning of July was very successful with two of the retreat participants coming back to support the next retreat. We are about to start that first week-long ‘Out of the Ashes – turning crisis into opportunity’ camping retreat in a few day’s time which, as I write this, is almost fully booked! There are 100 details to consider and organise before the first participants arrive. As this is a first for us there is still a good deal of learning involved …

On a personal level I am grateful for the FHT for having taken me on as their first employee after I was made redundant by the FF in June. It is a half time position and I have to be creative about finding other income but I believe that creating this position of employment for a Land Manager is another step for the trust towards a sustainable future.

Many blessings,
Kajedo Wanderer, August 9, 2021

 

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FHT Apiary Update: A New Home for our Bee Equipment

By jonathan.caddy | Published: 19/08/2021

Despite a frightfully cold May where we needed to feed our four overwintered hives of bees to keep them alive, we now are in the healthy position of having eleven hives in our apiary up by the wind turbines and should have some honey for sale come September – watch this space! We have also enjoyed having a few more people including some young folks come along to our weekly sessions with the bees to find out more about their fascinating world and help with
the practical work of making up new frames for the hives etc.

We now have a fantastic educational resource that we have developed for the FHT which we hope to use more of over the coming years. This has been created largely through the continual sterling efforts of our enthusiastic core team, Martin Harker, John Willoner and I, plus the generous funding that has come through Robert Holden and others. A huge thank you to all that have been involved to get us and the bees to this point.

One thing we have been missing is a shed close to our apiary to keep our various pieces of bee equipment in. Thanks to the generosity of George Goudsmit donating his shed which has been outside George Ripley’s house for a long time, the much appreciated funding of £250 from the Findhorn Wind Park Community Fund and our neighbour Ed Bichan’s skill with his JCB, we now have a shed in place on site! It needs a new roof and some TLC before it is fully functional but we feel that this is a great step forward.

Enjoy the pictures and if you do want to find out more or contribute in any way to our good work, do get in touch. New members always welcome and it’s a great way of supporting the land based and people work we do.

Jonathan Caddy
[email protected]

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Outdoor Learning Space Completion Report

By Christine Lines | Published: 19/08/2021

Outdoor Learning Space Completion Report

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Baby Owls Born in the Findhorn Hinterland

By Paulo Bessa | Published: 26/07/2021

Somewhere in the hinterland beyond the Findhorn Ecovillage at the Park lives a mysterious creature. It has ears like a cat, it meows like a cat and it appears much larger than a cat. Do you know what it might be?

It is the Long-Eared Owl (also known as the cat owl) – one of the most enigmatic and secretive species of owl in the UK. And… this May owlets appeared -the mama owl decided to nest in the Findhorn Hinterland and hatch out two young, which are now already big and able to fly on their own. This is really special news!

Asio otus, the latin name for Long Eared Owl, is one of the 5 species of owl in the UK the others being our well-known Tawny Owl, the ghosty Barn Owl, the elusive Short Eared Owl and the smallest one, originally not native to the UK, the Little Owl. Long Eared Owls are probably the species that are least often seen and are also rarely heard by birdwatchers. This is because they are strictly nocturnal (other owls sometimes fly during daylight), they have secretive behaviour and they rarely hoot (the sound usually made by owls). Unlike many other owls, they are not strongly territorial but instead have nomadic habits which means they may change their territory from year to year. Having a Long-Eared Owl nesting and successfully fledging in the Findhorn Hinterland is a good indicator that we are doing the right thing in terms of land management.

I like to call them flying cats because they fly silently and when perched, their long ears stand out. Scientists still do not know why exactly they have such long ears which are known as erectile ear tufts. What they do know is that they are a specialised predator which means they are strictly dependent on a specific prey. This makes them very sensitive to population decline of their prey species which can happen for example if humans use rodenticides or rat poison – an important reason for not using these chemicals.

On one frosty night in March earlier in the year, I was lucky enough to hear the slow, repetitive, hypnotic hooting of this owl – “hoooo (…) hooooo (….) hooooo”. It was indeed a lucky event because the owl rarely hoots unless it is calling for a partner and when it does the sound cannot be heard much further than 500 meters away by us humans. To my knowledge it did this only one single night in March and then I had no further sightings and didn’t hear them again for a long time.

Much later whilst walking on the dunes one bright evening in May, I saw the owl again flying silently and low whilst hunting for voles, its favourite prey. I then realised that the owl must have settled and made its territory in the Findhorn Hinterland sometime in March – it had just been very secretive and not shown any sign of its presence. I used my knowledge to guesstimate where it might be nesting and weeks later I had my suspicions confirmed by hearing the call of the two newborn baby owls. Unlike their parents they are noisy for a few weeks when they make begging calls for food from their mother. Since then a few others including Alan Featherstone and I, have seen these baby owls with their outstanding long ears. Their rather slim parents with a wingspan of 1 metre and an ability to fly silently and buoyantly have also been seen regularly. They prefer to roost in conifer trees, but hunt over open ground. Our Findhorn Hinterland has both habitats as well as an abundance of voles and is rat poison free, so this is a perfect habitat for them.

Our Findhorn Hinterland is also home to other special species of birds like Crested Tits and Crossbills as well as rare fungi and lichens. Do consider supporting our work in encouraging and conserving the biodiversity of the special land that surrounds our community by becoming a member and getting involved in the environmental and land based community activities we offer.

For now, let’s wish a warm welcome to our new baby Long Eared Owls! If you are lucky enough to come across them, do make sure to not disturb these beautiful, shy and secretive fellow creatures that we feel so honoured to have living next to us.

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National Honey Monitoring Scheme

By Martin Harker | Published: 04/06/2021

The Findhorn Apiary participates in the National Honey Monitoring Scheme, which is important research making use of the foraging of honey bees to monitor environmental changes. We are delighted to be part of the Scheme. We receive interesting information about which plants our bees have been visiting, derived from DNA analysis of the honey. In due course we will also be provided with analysis of contaminants they experience.

The video gives a brief explanation of the Scheme.

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FHT Chair’s Spring Roundup 

By jonathan.caddy | Published: 23/05/2021

By Jonathan Caddy

There are many things going on connected with the FHT this spring both on the land and within the organisation.  Here is a brief roundup of some that may interest you:

EWG Work Party – The Trust is in the process of securing a small grant from Volunteering Matters to help us run the first of our work parties for over a year.  This will be to carry out a spring clean up of our Edible Woodland Garden. This will take place over a number of sessions to reduce the number of people involved at one time to comply with covid restrictions.  The first will be 9.30pm- 12 noon on Saturday the 29th of May and will be at the same times over the following two weekends.  Contact [email protected]  to get involved.  This will be honouring, caring and bringing more life to this great resource that we have on our doorstep.

FHT  Employment of  Kajedo Wanderer as a Land Manager – After  almost five years of seconding Kajedo from the Findhorn Foundation and with his position within the FF being terminated, the FHT has taken the bold step of becoming his employer for at least half his working time.  Kajedo, with his considerable skill and land-based knowledge, is warmly welcomed as a FHT employee. There will be some further relooking at innovative ways of increasing financial income to meet this important and long-term commitment.

Opportunities to contribute – A part time Land Manager cannot do everything that needs to be done to care for the land that we look after.  There are a whole host of ways others can meaningfully get involved – helping give guided tours when they restart, taking on an awareness of a part of the land (the green burial area, paths, lichen beds, grassland and butterflies, bird boxes), being a camp host for those camping on the land, attending our work parties or green gym activities etc.  Please get in touch by email [email protected] or phone 07825212816 if you are inspired to contribute in any way.   Thank you. 

Paid Membership Campaign– One of the ways the FHT is making sure that it is sustainable well into the future is by people who appreciate what the organisation does contributing by becoming a paid member.  At present there are 82 people who are paid members out of a previous membership of 262 – many of these people still do not understand that the membership criteria has changed.   If you are one of them or simply feel inspired, please do join and support us in this way by following this link – it really does make a huge difference. 

Other Personnel Changes –We welcomed three new trustees in January, Paulo Bessa, Arun Patel and Bryan Parsons as Sylvia Robertson and Donna Skelly stood down after their valued input over the last few years.  Donna did so saying that she was very willing to carry on as the FHT’s solicitor, which is much appreciated.  Paulo has been of considerable help already as he took on a fundraising role to help with the funding of the Conservation Hub and Arun has agreed to be the new Membership Secretary as our Lorraine Rytz-Theriault  stood down after several years of valiant service – she carries on as our tea lady when work parties happen. 

There are also two other new members of our team –  Birgit Carow who is contributing her talented design skills helping produce articles for the Bridge and Christine Lines who takes over from Shanti Codee as our webmaster, updating the website and supporting the marketing efforts.

Will Russell our Green Burial Coordinator is also looking to release his role after over a decade of building up and holding this vital part of the organisation.  As we all know the multi-talented Will cannot be replaced but over the coming months we will be looking together at ways that his FHT functions can be covered. 

As you can see there has been a lot of changes in the last few months which I see as positive as ultimately it is the robust organisational structure that will carry on the good work of the trust into the distant future as all the talented people serving it come, enjoy giving of themselves to our great cause and then move on.

My thanks goes out to all of  you, past and present, that so generously contribute to the smooth running of the  trust and ultimately to the benefit of the beautiful land we live next to with all the amazing beings that live there. 

Jonathan Caddy

FHT Chair

20th May 2021

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FHT Membership Secretary

By Christine Lines | Published: 18/05/2021

By Dr Arunkumar Patel

The year 2020 was an interesting year that gave me opportunity to ask, “What is important to me? What is my purpose in life at the physical spot I am in? How can I become useful to ‘worldly causes’ that builds a better future for generations to come?” Having spent most of my working life in three continents serving to improve human health, it was tempting to look ‘Global’. Then a voice in my mind gently reminded me that ‘charity begins at home’. Having settled in The Park, Findhorn Community for the past four years I have been receiving the gift of living in an environment which I am proud of. It has not only helped me heal ‘old’ physical alignments, it has promoted my full health. I realised, “it is the environment in my backyard, that keeps me healthy and happy”. 

In the past years,  I often joined Findhorn Hinterland (FHT) work parties to make a small contribution towards maintaining the beauty of the hinterland that surrounds my physical living here. As if to answer my question, FHT invited new members to join the Board of Trustees. Like other calls that have brought me to live amongst the Findhorn Community, I responded to ‘the call’. So now I am here, leading the Membership. 

FHT has been emerging as an independent entity for the past few years, and last year it took the bold step to make it a membership organisation. Encouraging individual membership is one way to become inclusive and sustainable. By involving members in financially supporting the organisation and getting involved in work programmes, FHT will become a ‘truly community endeavour’ that looks after nature within the global framework of a sustainable environment that supports human life. FHT will provide a ‘nucleus’ for activities with nature that will emit the sustainable energy to the wider world. FHT members will thus engage in a global environmental movement by ‘think Global, act local’ momentum, which is the call of the day.

In this changing, challenging new world order that is bubbling to evolve around us, can there be any better time to get involved? Already 82 individuals have responded to the call. I am looking forwards to many more. We intend to keep in regular touch with members through newsletters, work-programmes and consultations on various ideas that will evolve in coming months. We will also arrange some discussions, presentations and talks with our active teams and local experts on the progress of FHT projects through online sessions or when permitted in person. I am excited and looking forward to the growth and impact of FHT. I invite you to join us.

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