Dunning Community Trust
New tenants wanted for Kincladie Wood
by Felicity Martin
Bill Howie installs one of the bird boxes
photo by Felicity Martin
Dunning Community Trust combined a major clean up of Kincladie Wood with the erection of affordable homes on Saturday, 28 January 2006. About 50 volunteers removed several tons of rubbish from the wood and erected 22 of a planned 40 bird boxes, which are now available for feathered tenants. This weekend work signalled the start of the village¹s projects to enhance the local environment and improve the biodiversity of the wood, which the trust bought in May 2005.
People are being invited to sponsor the bird boxes at £20 each (only one per household). A good number of sponsors have already signed up, but there are still many desirable residences awaiting backers.
Bill Howie is coordinating the sponsorship and siting of the boxes. Dunning villagers, Dave Doig and Ken Cameron made the boxes and each bears a smart brass number. Sponsors will receive a note of their number and its location in the wood, as well as updates of who has taken up tenancy and their annual breeding success.
The clean up of the wood was organised by Arthur Wright, who enlisted the assistance of local farmers, Harold Corrigall, David Myles and Ian Philip, to uplift rubbish that volunteers carried to the edge of the 20-acre wood.
Much of the rubbish was rusted or half-buried, be it bikes, plastic bags or glass bottles. However, not a single shopping trolley nor Roman artefact was found (Dunning is miles from the nearest supermarket, but a bank and ditch of a Roman camp runs through the wood).
During the work, volunteers had close encounters with some of the wood’s wildlife, including a roe deer, a hare and numerous small birds. As well as providing more homes for an expanding population of tits, the Trust is encouraging less common species, such as spotted flycatcher and redstart, with open-fronted bird boxes.
Kincladie Wood is popular with villagers wanting a short, peaceful walk and there are plans to use it as an educational resource to help schoolchildren learn about the natural world. Over the coming year, Dunning Community Trust will be fundraising for the wood and starting to implement the woodland management plan.
1. Bill Howie with some of the bird boxes
2. Gary Fraser removes some scrap from the wood.
3. Frances Minto struggles to extricate wire from leaf mould.
4. No, not Santa Claus but Carol Dorsett with a bag of bottles!
5. Harold Corrigall removes some scrap.
6. A bucket full of rubbish.
7. David Pentland and John Ritchie clear rubbish to the edge of the wood.
8. Moira Corrigal finds an old oil drum.
9. Colin Dunbar and John Ritchie carrying out scrap.
10. A group work in a particular 'hot spot'.
11. Ted Dorsett and Thomas Fleming with their finds.
12. Ian Philip and Frances Minto bagging rubbish.
13. Simon Warren and Peter Duncan share the work.
14. It's amazing what a wood can hide!
15. A pause for coffee as the pile grows.
16. Paul Cookson and his two daughters after testing their wellies.
17. Ian Philip, Frances Minto, Bill Howie, Elspeth Pentland, Simon Warren and, on the ladder, Andrew Thompson.
18. A job well done - John Ritchie, David Pentland,
Ted and Carol Dorsett.
19. Arthur Wright, who organised the clean up, with Conner
All Photographs © 2006 Felicity Martin
