In previous posts I’ve explored four key habitats of my bioregion: Peatlands, Freshwater, Scrub and Celtic rainforest. Unfortunately they are far from flourishing at the moment, but if the situation were to change they would make a big contribution to our efforts to slow down Climate Change.
To represent these four habitats I’ve chosen the frog (peatlands), the beaver (freshwater), the Green hairstreak butterfly (scrub) and the filmy fern (rainforest).
The frog is called “losgann” in Gaelic and several old Gaelic place names refer to it. Up on the hills near where I live there is a deserted farm called Lagloskine: Frog Hollow.
The beaver has been reintroduced at the northern edge of our region and has already made a significant impact on the landscape by creating leaky stick dams.
The Green hairstreak butterfly would greatly benefit from the creation of scrub, for its food plants include gorse and broom, two key components of this habitat.
Out of the hundreds of Lower Plant species that inhabit the Celtic rainforest I’ve chosen the extraordinary filmy fern, a tiny fern no bigger than a moss, which is quite common here in damp gullies and ravines. Its “filminess” refers to the fact that the leaves are very thin, only a single cell thick, and translucent, giving the appearance of a wet film.
I want to live in a region where there is much greater diversity: not less. Let’s work to change that downward curve to an upward one. The recent publicity about the decline in insect populations is helping to make more people aware of the dire situation.
In future blogs I will examine what current land practices are continuing to thwart efforts to create greater diversity.
bioregioning 