Forsinard Flows is a national nature reserve (NNR) covering much of the area surrounding

Forsinard Forsinard ( ) is a hamlet in the county of Sutherland in the Highland area of Scotland. It is located on the A897 road in Strath Halladale. It is served by a railway station on the Far North Line. The local hotel closed several years ago, but ...

in the

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

council area {{Unreferenced, date=May 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot) A council area is one of the areas defined in Schedule 1 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 and is under the control of one of the local authorities in Scotland created by that Act. ...

of Scotland. It lies at the heart of the

Flow Country The Flow Country is a large, rolling expanse of peatland and wetland area of Caithness and Sutherland in the North of Scotland. It is the largest expanse of blanket bog in Europe, and covers about . It is an area of deep peat, dotted with bog ...

, a large, rolling expanse of

peat Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficient ...

land and

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The p ...

area of Caithness and Sutherland that makes up almost 5% of the world's

blanket bog Blanket bog or blanket mire, also known as featherbed bog, is an area of peatland, forming where there is a climate of high rainfall and a low level of evapotranspiration, allowing peat to develop not only in wet hollows but over large expanses o ...

. The reserve is managed by the

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a charitable organisation registered in England and Wales and in Scotland. It was founded in 1889. It works to promote conservation and protection of birds and the wider environment thr ...

(RSPB), and is designated a Category II protected area by the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of nat ...

. Much of the NNR overlaps with the designated area of the

Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands The Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands is a large area of blanket bog and peatland, covering a number of disconnected regions across the historic counties of Caithness and Sutherland in the far north of Scotland, across an area known as the Fl ...

Special Protection Area A Special Protection Area (SPA) is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and certa ...

and

Special Area of Conservation A Special Area of Conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the ''Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora''. They are to protect the 220 habitats and a ...

Habitat

The Flow Country is Europe's largest expanse of

, a unique type of habitat for many species. Blanket bogs form in cool, wet areas with acidic soils, as

sphagnum moss ''Sphagnum'' is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as sphagnum moss, peat moss, also bog moss and quacker moss (although that term is also sometimes used for peat). Accumulations of ''Sphagnum'' can store w ...

es does not fully decompose under such conditions. Over thousands of years the partially decomposed remains of mosses and other bog plants build up, forming a layer of

that can be up to 10 m deep. As well as providing a home for many species of plants and birds, blanket bogs play an important role in regulating carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, acting as a

carbon sink A carbon sink is anything, natural or otherwise, that accumulates and stores some carbon-containing chemical compound for an indefinite period and thereby removes carbon dioxide () from the atmosphere. Globally, the two most important carbon si ...

, and helping to prevent

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

.Making space for natural processes. p. 2.Making space for natural processes. p. 1. Peatlands hold nearly 30% of all terrestrial carbon despite covering just 3% of the world's land. In the years following the Second World War the UK government encouraged the growth of forestry plantations on peatland via grants and tax concessions. During the 1970s and 1980s large areas of the Flow Country were drained and planted with non-native conifers despite having been treeless for thousands of years. These actions dried out the peat, changing the habitat and destroying its value for birds and other wildlife, and since the mid-1980s it has no longer been permitted to establish new woodland on peat that is over 50 cm deep.Making space for natural processes. p. 4. From the mid-1990s the RSBP began to purchase large areas at the centre of the Flow Country, and began one of the largest peatland restoration projects ever undertaken in the UK.Making space for natural processes. p. 3. The area owned by the RSPB site now forms the NNR, which was designated in 2007. The RSPB undertook work to remove the forestry and block up drainage ditches to allow the original water levels to return. The work began in 1998, and by 2015 the first site to be worked on was showing significant recovery. Although the ridge and furrow land pattern of the plantation remained, the site was found to be returning to a healthy blanket bog.Making space for natural processes. p. 5. The forestry on this site was planted more recently than some other sites, and so recovery was expected to be faster, as some of the original bog vegetation remained. On more mature plantation sites, action has been undertaken to restore the original flat topography by crushing timber into the furrows and removing the ridges by crushing of trees stumps. More recently less intensive restoration methods have also been trialled, in which trees are completely removed from site instead of being left to decompose.Making space for natural processes. p. 6.

Flora and fauna

The peatlands of the Flow Country are of particular importance for red-throated and

black-throated diver The black-throated loon (''Gavia arctica''), also known as the Arctic loon and the black-throated diver, is a migratory aquatic bird found in the northern hemisphere, primarily breeding in freshwater lakes in northern Europe and Asia. It winter ...

s and

common scoter The common scoter (''Melanitta nigra'') is a large sea duck, in length, which breeds over the far north of Europe and the Palearctic east to the Olenyok River. The genus name is derived from Ancient Greek ''melas'', "black", and ''netta'', "du ...

. These species usually inhabit peatland surrounding pools and lochs in the centre of the reserve, and so are less commonly sighted. Birds that can more easily be seen by visitors to Forsinard Flows include

golden plover '' Pluvialis '' is a genus of plovers, a group of wading birds comprising four species that breed in the temperate or Arctic Northern Hemisphere. In breeding plumage, they all have largely black underparts, and golden or silvery upperparts. The ...

dunlin The dunlin (''Calidris alpina'') is a small wader, formerly sometimes separated with the other "stints" in the genus ''Erolia''. The English name is a dialect form of "dunling", first recorded in 1531–1532. It derives from ''dun'', "dull brown ...

greenshank The common greenshank (''Tringa nebularia'') is a wader in the large family Scolopacidae, the typical waders. The genus name ''Tringa'' is the New Latin name given to the green sandpiper by Aldrovandus in 1599 based on Ancient Greek ''trungas' ...

hen harrier The hen harrier (''Circus cyaneus'') is a bird of prey. It breeds in Eurasia. The term "hen harrier" refers to its former habit of preying on free-ranging fowl. It migrates to more southerly areas in winter. Eurasian birds move to southern Eur ...

skylark ''Alauda'' is a genus of larks found across much of Europe, Asia and in the mountains of north Africa, and one of the species (the Raso lark) endemic to the islet of Raso in the Cape Verde Islands. Further, at least two additional species are ...

s and

meadow pipit The meadow pipit (''Anthus pratensis'') is a small passerine bird, which breeds in much of the Palearctic, from southeastern Greenland and Iceland east to just east of the Ural Mountains in Russia, and south to central France and Romania; an isol ...

s. The area is also noted for carnivorous plants such as

sundew ''Drosera'', which is commonly known as the sundews, is one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants, with at least 194 species. 2 volumes. These members of the family Droseraceae lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucilaginou ...

and

butterwort ''Pinguicula'', commonly known as the butterworts, is a genus of carnivorous flowering plants in the family Lentibulariaceae. They use sticky, glandular leaves to lure, trap, and digest insects in order to supplement the poor mineral nutrition ...

, as well as aquatic invertebrates such as dragonflies.

Visitors

The RSPB visitor centre is located in the old station building at

Forsinard railway station , symbol_location = gb , symbol = rail , image = File:Forsinard Station (14982688007).jpg , caption = Looking north towards Altnabreac , borough = Forsinard, Highland , country ...

. A lookout tower provides views over the flat landscape, and two trails have been constructed to take visitors out into the bogland. The Dubh Lochan Trail is approximately 1.6 km-long, and uses a boardwalk to link the visitor centre to the lookout tower. The 6 km-long Forsinain Trail starts about 7 km north of the visitor centre. The RSPB also run a field studies centre, including education facilities, laboratory and bunkhouse accommodation for groups visiting for educational purposes or to undertake voluntary conservation work.

References

Citations

Bibliography

External links

Forsinard Flows National Nature Reserve
- RSPB
Scotland's National Nature Reserves
{{RSPB sites in Scotland Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reserves in Scotland Protected areas of Highland (council area) National nature reserves in Scotland