A chance for sphagnum is a chance for all
by Matt Shardlow from on (#156PA)
Fannyside Muir, North Lanarkshire Legal protection for this Scottish peat bog, and the birds that visit it, has a positive knock-on effect for other species
This fragile peat dome, halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, is lacerated with a grid of channels, ripped through the fibres of its dark earth.
On a cold wet February day, in a biting wind, the summit of Fannyside Muir is an impressively wide expanse of nodding heather plants, but the prominent leggy heather is not the architect of the bog. A closer look is needed to discern the construction team: the resident array of Sphagnum mosses - a scatter of tightly packed pink hummocks and, in a little pool, a different species, emerald green, sprawling into the icy margins.
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