Fairy Glen is a protected area in the Higland,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

Features

The reserve protects a belt of semi-natural woodland, with predominating

broad-leaved tree A broad-leaved, broad-leaf, or broadleaf tree is any tree within the diverse botanical group of angiosperms that has flat leaves and produces seeds inside of fruits. It is one of two general types of trees, the other being a conifer, a tree with ne ...

s, stretching at both sides of the Markie Burn, a stream tributary of the

Moray Firth The Moray Firth (; Scottish Gaelic: ''An Cuan Moireach'', ''Linne Mhoireibh'' or ''Caolas Mhoireibh'') is a roughly triangular inlet (or firth) of the North Sea, north and east of Inverness, which is in the Highland council area of north of Scotl ...

. The valley is narrow and steep-sided, and supports a variety of plants and local birds. The wood management usually operates on ''non intervention'' basis, besides removal of invasive species and, when necessary, some tree safety interventions.

Wildlife

Among the birds living in the nature reserve can be remebered: *

Spotted flycatcher The spotted flycatcher (''Muscicapa striata'') is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family. It breeds in most of Europe and in the Palearctic to Siberia, and is migratory, wintering in Africa and south western Asia. It is decl ...

, *

Long-tailed tit The long-tailed tit (''Aegithalos caudatus''), also named long-tailed bushtit, is a common bird found throughout Europe and the Palearctic. The genus name ''Aegithalos'' was a term used by Aristotle for some European tits, including the long-tail ...

, *

Bullfinch Bullfinch is a name given to two groups of passerine birds. True bullfinches The true bullfinches are thick-billed finches in the passerine family Fringillidae. They comprise the genus ''Pyrrhula''. These birds are restricted to the Old World, an ...

, *

Buzzard Buzzard is the common name of several species of birds of prey. ''Buteo'' species * Archer's buzzard (''Buteo archeri'') * Augur buzzard (''Buteo augur'') * Broad-winged hawk (''Buteo platypterus'') * Common buzzard (''Buteo buteo'') * Eastern ...

s, *

Song thrush The song thrush (''Turdus philomelos'') is a Thrush (bird), thrush that breeds across the West Palearctic. It has brown upper-parts and black-spotted cream or buff underparts and has three recognised subspecies. Its distinctive Birdsong, song, ...

Folklore

The Glen is connected to some ancient costoms. Children of nearby villages used to cast flowers petals in the burn, in order to encourage the fairies to provide fresh water to their hamlets. A peculiar sight in the Fairy Glen are some old logs known as '' Money trees'', bearing hundreds of coins hammered into their wood, traditionally considered ''gifts to the fairies''. Nowadays the management of the nature reserve discourages this habit, because of the pollution produced by metal corrosion and

oxidation Redox (reduction–oxidation, , ) is a type of chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of substrate change. Oxidation is the loss of electrons or an increase in the oxidation state, while reduction is the gain of electrons or a d ...

Access

A footpath follows the small river from its mouth in

Rosemarkie Rosemarkie ( sco, Rossmartnie, from gd, Ros Mhaircnidh meaning "promontory of the horse stream") is a village on the south coast of the Black Isle peninsula in Ross-shire (Ross and Cromarty), northern Scotland. Geography Rosemarkie lies a quart ...

beach flanking two pleasant waterfalls and, after the uppermost of them, ends up in a tiny road which runs on the

left Left may refer to: Music * ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relative direction opposite of right * L ...

side of the glen. A car park is available close to the beginning of the walk. Some part of the footpath are steep and can become slippery with rainy weather; dogs can access the walk but have to be conducted on short leads from April to August, because of the disrurbance they can cause to wildlife.

References

{{Portal, Scotland, Ecology

List of RSPB reserves The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is Europe's largest wildlife conservation charity. This is a list of RSPB reserves. England A * Adur Estuary, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex *Amberley Wild Brooks, West Sussex *Arne, Dorse ...

Wood of Cree Wood of Cree Protected areas of Highland (council area)

Features

Wildlife

Folklore

Access

References

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