Golden October

The last few days of October were golden so here are a few photographs to show the Burnieshed burn in full flow after the rains and in this time of sunshine.

The first photograph shows the middle dam below the drive. The beavers are using rhododendron branches to build it up. I have seen this done in past years, but then only a few branches. This year the use of rhododendron is extensive. The footpath is crossed in a couple of places by well used beaver tracks, showing where the animals have been up the bank to cut out branches of rhododendron and birch.

Here we are looking down stream from the middle dam.

This is the famous top dam below the drive, the one below which Ronald Campbell of the Tweed Foundation was photographed in March 2009. Ronald posted the photograph round the web as an example of a dam that salmon would not be able to surmount. This was made all the more interesting when Professor John Thorpe, a renowned scientist in the world of fisheries (and salmon in particular), saw the dam with similar water levels. He told me that he thought that salmon would be able to cross the dam. As it happens, and as followers of this blog will know, this ditch, in the process of rewilding, does not hold salmon at present, though sea trout used to swim up it. I hope that the beavers' revitalising of the habitat will ensure that sea trout will run up the burn once again.

This is the north side of the dam in the previous photograph. The overflow channels are running. The old fence post that stood at the edge of the ditch that was is being submerged by the dam that surrounds it.