Exploring the forest at home in Scotland

I visited a remnant of the ancient Caledonian Forest when I was in Scotland. The forest used to cover the whole of Scotland after the Ice Age. That was thousands of years ago, 7000BC.
The bits left are called remnants. There are 35 remnants left of the forest in Scotland.
Here is me visiting a remnant at Formakin Estate near Glasgow.

This is me with my dog Biscuit. The remnant of the forest is behind me. It is very small. There are only 32 trees left. The people who live here have a plan to protect it for the future.
They are going to fix the fence around it so that deer and sheep can’t get in and cause damage.

The Caledonian Forest used to be the whole size of Scotland but now it only covers 1% of Scotland. Here are some facts about the forest:

• The forest became a forest when the first Scots pines came to Scotland in 7000BC.
• It was a pre-human settlement forest
• It was biggest at 5000BC
• Climate change after 5000BC has brought it down to only being the amount it is today
• The forest remnants have changed very little from the 1600s
• The rarest birds in Britain that are found in the forest are the Western Capercaillie, Golden Eagle and Black Grouse.

The trees are all Scots Pine. Here are five facts about the Scots Pine.

• The trees form an unbroken chain of 9000 years of natural evolution
• The remnants have been shrunk by fire and farming and tree felling
• The trees have a fence around them to make sure that deer do not eat the saplings
• One tree can live up to 700 years
• They can grow up to 35m

This is the pond that the trees are beside. It is only there in winter. It is dry here in summer.

The forest has disappeared in places because of people who cut the trees down, which is called tree felling.

The bark looks very orange and scaly. Some of it flaked off in my hands.

This is a pine cone from one of the trees. I didn’t find many pine cones.
This is a map of where the remnant is.

This is the top of the trees, called a canopy.

Rowan said: “This is an amazingly beautiful place. I understand why it is having to be protected.”

PLEASE NOTE: All photos taken by ROWAN TAYLOR-RAMSAY, except one that mum took of me and Biscuit.