The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Morag Lindsa lamen loss of histori Tay reed beds.
There’s been an end of the world flavour to a lot of the stories in the news lately, and this week we had the pictures to match.
Courier photographer Steve Brown’s image of a helicopter swooping low over River Tay reed beds draped in jagged red flames and plumes of thick black smoke made for an arresting front page, and a heartbreaking sight for anyone who knows the area.
Monday’s massive blaze left a two-mile stretch of this stunning site of special scientific interest in the Carse of Gowrie charred and battered, and has raised concerns about the damage to nesting habitats and breeding prospects for some of the country’s rarest species such as the bearded tit and marsh harrier.
At its height the flames leapt 40ft into the air, crackling through dense reeds left tinderbox dry by a warm April and threatening to engulf the entire 11-mile riverbank reserve.
That it didn’t spread further is thanks to the actions of the fire crews who battled it for 10 hours, and the presence of local helicopter pilot Guy Stephens who saw the smoke from the kitchen window of his home and volunteered to douse it with the kind of water bombs we last saw being deployed against the Australian wildfires.
It is quite a chapter to add to the site’s five-century-long history, and not the way anyone would have chosen to put one of Tayside’s best-kept secrets on the map.
I must have driven through the Carse of Gowrie a couple of thousand times before I turned off the A90 one drizzly day at the end of last summer and paid my first visit to the reed beds. I was meeting Graham Craig and Vicky Turnbull for a guided tour as part of research for The Courier’s Shaped By A River series, which set out to tell some of the stories of the people and places along the 120-mile route of the Tay.
Graham was the last person to harvest the reed commercially, sending it across the world to thatch the rooftops of the rich and famous – most notably Madonna, who placed a special order for her outhouse.
Since he retired in 2005 he has helped Vicky and her colleagues at RSPB Scotland manage it for a wide range of species, including those bearded tits – it’s thought a fifth of the UK population have made their homes here – as well as water rails and reed buntings.
Together they treated me to a long-overdue introduction to this unique landscape, with a history that encompasses 16th Century monks and Napoleonic prisoners of war, in addition to the Queen of Pop.
Maybe one of the good things to come out of these coronavirus controls we’re all still under, despite Boris Johnson’s cheerful declaration that the crisis has passed its peak, will be a greater appreciation of what’s right under our noses. Like it or not, it looks like a lot of us will be staycationing this summer; and the challenge of getting enough exercise to stay sane, without running the risk of being publicly shamed by the lockdown clypes, is encouraging many of us to explore our immediate surroundings with renewed vigour.
The Carse of Gowrie is beyond the realms of essential travel for me right now but I have found a tree-lined walk by one of the Tay’s tributaries a few minutes from my home that I hadn’t discovered in three years of living here as an adult and 10 as a child and from where I’ve delightedly watched hares, deer and returning swifts and swallows,
Sadly, any benefits to my blood pressure have been lessened by the number of times I’ve had to dodge dog mess while exclaiming “WHAT THE %$*& IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?” – a regrettable downside of the increased activity, and a reminder
that not all of us treat the countryside and our fellow travellers with the courtesy they deserve.
Elsewhere this week we’ve heard from landowners in Fife urging people not to drive to rural beauty spots for their allocated exercise, and reports of littering and cattle and chickens being chased by unruly dogs on Perthshire farms. A flick through the last few weeks’ headlines throws up complaints about unclosed gates, fly-tipped waste, trampled crops, abandoned fires, dog fouling, lots more dog fouling, and even some of the human variety.
Locals in Errol told reporters the reed beds had been busier during lockdown, and not surprisingly this has fuelled suspicions about what caused
Monday’s blaze. The notion that it was lit deliberately doesn’t bear thinking about. A discarded match or a careless campfire, though? That’s less of a stretch for the imagination.
The vastness of the site and the complexity of the investigation mean we might never know what started it, but Steve’s photographs of the response and the terrible aftermath are a sobering illustration of how rapidly a situation can escalate out of control – and a reminder that with our right to roam come respect and responsibility.
The countryside is bringing a lot of comfort to people during these challenging times. Maybe we should all remember that and try to tread a little more carefully.