This last weekend the Bog Squad traveled north to Logierait Mire SSSI near Pitlochry. The SSSI consists of several ponds nestled within Logierait woodland which are home to a colony of the Northern Damselfly whose UK distribution is restricted to ponds and lochans in a few areas of highland Scotland.
One of the Logierait ponds has begun to 'fill-in' with peat leaving fewer areas of open water for the damselfly to breed in. An artificial ditch draining water from the pond had been identified as potentially having a negative effect so the Bog Squad was called in to block it. Due to the site's natural history interest we teamed up with the British Dragonfly Society for the days work.
The day began with a stiff climb up a landrover track in the forest which with all the tools and materials turned out to be a quite a haul and a few breaks were needed! Once we got up to the site a plan was hatched to create two dams, one on the very edge of the pond and another a short distance down the ditch. In the end this second dam was reinforced with some mineral soil in order to create a better blockage as despite some hard efforts we couldn't get the plastic very deep below the level of the ditch bottom.
As the day wore on it began to brighten up and we started to see some of the sites wildlife including Four-spotted Chaser dragonflies and a Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary butterfly. And a final treat was seeing the Northern damselfly itself on our way out thanks to the quick net skills of a volunteer.