Bulletins Index

Caithness Field Club

Caithness Field Club Bulletin
2008

The project to survey and report on the juniper in Caithness is a two-year project supported by Scottish Natural Heritage. The previous issue reported the 2006 surveys, while this report is about the second and final year.

Introduction
Juniper is becoming scarce in Europe and the Scottish Highlands is a stronghold. With support and funding from Scottish Natural Heritage the Field Club has undertaken a survey of the state of the juniper populations in Caithness. The survey was to take place during 2006 and 2007 and report back to SNH in March 2008.

The survey involves identifying places with substantial colonies, and looking in detail at members of the colonies to put them into the following categories:

Location – the precise position of a plant or a group of plants using a GPS device to a nominal accuracy of 1 metre.

M – male plants identified by seeing the male flowers;

Fb – female plants recognised by carrying berries;

Fnb – female plants recognised by examining the plant with a hand lens to see the flowers, despite it having no berries;

MorFnb – plants not recognised as male or female, but having no berries;

? – plants that are too immature to be sexed, particularly first or second year seedlings or plants which have no flowers on show.

T – is the total number of plants at that location.

Surveying during 2007
The intention was to survey locations on the Hill of Forss and Scrabster Hill. An initial reconnaissance revealed that the juniper was confined to a field at the Ravenshill part of Hill of Forss and a small area of Scrabster Hill. 14 members assembled on Sunday 3rd June in damp and misty weather which soon turned to persistent drizzle. It was decided to abandon the Scrabster Hill part of the survey and concentrate on Ravenshill to get it finished before the rain finished us! This worked very well and 169 plants were found and catalogued. Most were on areas which had been subject to muirburn some years ago, while the edges close to a big dyke had not been burned and a few very substantial shrubs were to be found.

A few other reports came in during the year of individual plants across the county.

Results
The following two pages give the results for Ravenshill.

M

MorFnb

Fb

Fnb

?

T

Ssp.

1

2

3

1

2

3

3

1

5

9

1

1

1

1

2

2

2

2

1

1

2

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

3

4

13

17

2

1

4

4

4

2

2

1

1

2

1

1

2

1

1

2

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

3

6

3

14

1

1

1

1

3

1

9

2

2

2

1

1

4

1

Thanks are due to all the members who took part in the survey over the two years. The club has benefited by gaining three good GPS units which can be used in other activities.

There will be a final report to SNH due at the end of March 2008 which will draw all the information together. We will not be able to publish it here, but it may be published on the Internet by SNH in due course.