Autumn is a busy time of year for the team at our Insh Marshes reserve with changing seasons and new visitors. It's just one of many exciting times of year on the reserve. Karen Birkby, Reserve manager, speaks about why Autumn is one of her favourite seasons on the reserve and how the wildlife on the marshes might be affected by the upcoming A9 dualling plans.
How will the wildlife of Insh Marshes fare when the A9 road is dualled?
Being the reserve manager of RSPB Scotland Insh Marshes in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park, I’m lucky enough to watch how the reserve and its wildlife change month by month. Autumn is one of my favourite seasons on the reserve. The change in colours of both the marsh vegetation and the surrounding woodlands marks the end of summer and the arrival of winter. It is a busy time on the reserve. A time when the livestock are moved to the higher ground in preparation for the winter flooding, but also when we undertake most of the management work on the reserve, be it cutting of the coarse vegetation or clearing out the ditches that act as wet fences to keep the cattle and sheep in the areas they need to graze.
It’s not just a busy time for staff and volunteers: this month will see the arrival of many of our wintering birds. Last week marked the arrival of the first Icelandic whooper swans, which will soon be followed by over a hundred more, flying in to the reserve to spend the winter. Hen harriers will gather to roost on the reserve and red deer can be heard rutting far out in the wetland. In autumn we experience the excitement of the first of the winter flooding. Being a natural floodplain of international importance, flooding here is key to keeping the wetland healthy, as well as helping to reduce the risk of flooding downstream. These floods also help to prepare the ground for the spring, when the reserve will be filled with the sights and sounds of breeding lapwings with their tumbling display flights; curlew with their bubbling calls; drumming snipe, and various other wading birds.
Lapwing and chick. Photo credit Amy Millard (rspb-images.com)
There’s one major change on the horizon which doesn’t bode well for the reserve, however. The A9 trunk road crosses through Insh Marshes, and in the next few years it will be upgraded to dual carriageway along its length from Perth to Inverness - as discussed in a previous blog. The stretch that passes through the reserve will be replaced by a new road of twice its width alongside it. The new road will be on a huge embankment, on land which is currently part of the reserve.
Photo Credit Neil Cowie
Transport Scotland has recently published their detailed proposals for this section of the dualling scheme, and they make concerning reading in relation to the reserve and its wildlife. The ruined Ruthven Barracks is one of the best places to sit on a spring morning or evening, looking out over fields of lapwing, curlew, redshank, and snipe. Unfortunately, these fields are where Transport Scotland proposes to build the new dual carriageway. According to their calculations, the road scheme would result in the permanent loss of an area the size of five football pitches from Insh Marshes National Nature Reserve. The effects on birds would extend much further than this. During construction and once the road has opened to traffic, the associated human activity, noise, and imposing structures will deter most waders from nesting and feeding within an area of the reserve equivalent to the size of more than fifty football pitches. That’s a massive impact, especially considering that the land affected is currently one of the best bits of the reserve for so many of these birds. The dualling would have a similar effect on other areas of bird habitat outside the reserve, and result in various other harmful effects on wildlife.
RSPB Scotland has had long discussions with Transport Scotland and their consultants over the last few years, trying to persuade them to design the road scheme to minimise harm, and maximise benefits, to wildlife. We have suggested ways they could provide new, or enhance existing, areas of habitat that could potentially offset the harm caused, making the dualling project a ‘win-win’ overall for transport and for wildlife. The suggested measures include reshaping the ground in other areas of the reserve to provide just the right balance of wet and dry areas for lapwings, oystercatchers and other wading birds, and excavating shallow ponds with muddy edges (‘scrapes’) to provide extra feeding habitat. We’ve also suggested that brand new areas of wet grassland and open water should be created for the birds, and that small burns through the reserve could be encouraged to take a more natural, meandering course, which would benefit various wildlife.
Singing Snipe. Photo credit Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
We’re pleased to see that Transport Scotland has bought an area of land near Insh Marshes (called ‘Dellmore of Kingussie’), which they propose to convert to wetland to accommodate some of the ousted waders. However, the birds are quite fussy in their habitat requirements - they need land which is not too dry for feeding; not too wet for nesting. It’ll prove challenging for Transport Scotland to convert the land to just the right habitat. It’s far from guaranteed that it will become suitable habitat for the birds, and if it does, it won’t accommodate all of the birds displaced by the dualling scheme. It’s a risky strategy for Transport Scotland to put all of their eggs into the one basket that is Dellmore of Kingussie.
We’re disappointed that Transport Scotland isn’t proposing to carry out any of the other habitat management and enhancement measures that we’ve recommended to them. Unless they do, there’s a real danger that the wildlife of Insh Marshes and the surrounding area will fare badly as a result of the A9 dualling, rather than benefitting from it.
For more information on the proposals and how you can help save the wildlife of Insh Marshes and the surrounding area by writing to Transport Scotland before 16 October, please visit this page