Flying rowans

Heather Beaton, RSPB Scotland Uists Warden, shares a lovely piece on the magical flying rowan...

Flying rowans

They are the flying ones, these rowan that grow elsewhere. They could be on fenceposts, inside that lovely soft, rotting centre left from years of rain and weather and decay. They could be on rocks, the roots squeezing any nutrients out of the cracks and crevices that have built up a small volume of debris over the years. They appear in the most unexpected of places, but the ones that I love the most are the ones that have flown onto other trees.

Flying rowans: you can see where the name comes from. They’re not on the ground, therefore they must have flown. But I think even back when they were first given the name, it would have been a bit tongue in cheek. For the trees do not fly of course, but are carried there in the bellies of the birds. The large seeds, encased within the bright red berries and deposited with their own fertiliser courtesy of their avian transporters, are vigorous and have a high germination rate. The energy contained within the seeds provides the sapling with enough to keep it going until it can ease its growing roots into further gaps and openings in search of water, nutrients and support.

In folklore, these rowans are magically powerful. Rowan is considered a protective tree anyway, but when lifted into the boughs of another, it gains further mystique. It is said that the power of the rowan is amplified if the tree has never touched the ground. Useful to know, should the need for protection ever arise.  

This flying rowan was a new discovery at Loch Druidibeg, our newest reserve on Uist. We are still discovering this woodland’s secrets. Although it’s one of my favourite and most frequented places on the islands, the more time I spend there the more is revealed. This rowan is on an ancient pine that has fallen over a long time ago, my recent guess was around 10 years past from the way the birches have grown up through the broken branches. This rowan is on the main trunk, the edge. It’s young: three years old maybe, but it seems strong and healthy.

This particular rowan is a symbol of the complexity of these habitats. When trees are planted they’re all of a similar age, and our orderly human brains like to put them in grids or patterns choosing the ‘best’ places for them. But nature isn’t like that. Nature is chaotic. Nature sees mature trees come crashing to the ground, with force enough to break fifty-year-old branches. Nature sees opportunity in the exposed root beds, where seeds gather on the rich humous soils creating vertical habitats we’d never dare to think of. And nature sees the now-horizontal tree trunk as the perfect place for a new tree to grow, and grow it will. I’ve seen flying rowans in other places eke out a niche where you’d never think possible. Grown rowans laden with berries in the nooks of other trees, or else roots that have eased their way downwards until upon hitting the soil they themselves turn into a trunk, a step down that provides a link to the enriching earth, binding the flight.

I wonder what the story of this miniature rowan will be. I wonder if it will ground itself, or whether it will remain airborne. Time will tell, and I’ll be watching.