Woodland of the Black Isle
Contents
- Introduction to the Black Isle
- Background to the woodland of the Black Isle
- How to get the best out of this article
- Black Isle Woods promoted by the Woodland Trust
- Exceptional Woods - Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)
- Special Woods - Woodlands of Significant Conservation Interest
- One hundred Black Isle Woods waiting to be explored
- Lifetime and age of woods
- The best of Black Isle woodland
- Regional focus
- Avoch and Killen
- Conon Bridge
- Cromarty
- Ferintosh
- Fortrose and Rosemarkie
- Killearnan
- Knockbain
- Muir of Ord
- Resolis
- Acknowledgements
Introduction to the Black Isle
The Black Isle lies in the East Highlands of Scotland. Compared to much of the Highland region, the Black Isle is lower-lying, and except for the Milbuie Ridge is dominated by farms and large estates with rich agricultural land. The Black Isle is not an island; it is mostly surrounded by the sea, and the main north/south access to the Black Isle is by the A9 road, with bridges over the Moray Firth and Cromarty Firth. A small car ferry crosses over the Cromarty Firth at Cromarty to Nigg in the summer. The Black Isle has an area of around 300 square km and a population of 12,000.Background to the woodland of the Black Isle
The scenery of the Black Isle is dominated by three fs, farmland, firths and forest. In Scotland the word forest signifies a vast tract of countryside; this is usually moorland, sometimes bare, sometimes with relics of former woodland, but often planted to a monoculture for commercial use. Forestry and Land Scotland has many holdings on the Black Isle which include one extensive area of commercial forest on the ridge of the Black Isle, which the standard OS map calls the Milbuie and Findon Forest - one name for over 35 square km of coniferous plantation. That apart, the Black Isle has numerous smaller woods, many privately owned with far less thought of an economic return from ownership, and these form a landscape patchwork partnered with the agricultural land. These woods are surprisingly diverse and acknowledged as such by some of them being Sites of Scientific Interest or having Significant Conservation Interest. There are woods dominated by beech, other woods dominated by oak, others dominated by birch. As expected there is woodland of firs, pines and spruces, and also plantations of Christmas Trees - a Black Isle speciality.How to get the best out of this article
This article provides a comprehensive survey of woodlands on the Black Isle with links to images and location maps on the Geograph website. The links are provided by clicking on individual images to open their web page. Each individual page contains a larger version of the image, a map of the local 1 km square Ordnance Survey Grid Square, the exact position from which the image was taken, the date of the image and descriptive keywords to help search through the Geograph database of over 7 million images of the British Isles. By clicking "More sizes" on the web page you can access the image at higher resolution and download it if you wish. All the images are copyright but may be freely used in any media with the author's name and Geograph affiliation - JG PAREN/GEOGRAPH.( Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ... next >> )