Spring into volunteering!

As we move through the seasons, more people are getting outside, enjoying the warmer weather and looking for opportunities to get involved. In March and April, our Community Ranger was busy at Drumbrae and Rullion Green Wood working on a number of projects with the help of volunteers.

Boosting local plant life

At Drumbrae we are working with neighbouring landowners and local groups to increase the populations of two locally important plants: common rock-rose and sticky catchfly. Students from the University’s Wildlife and Ornithological Societies spent a day at Drumbrae working alongside our local expert from the Scottish Wildlife Trust.

The students planted 35 plants and we look forward to revisiting the area in a few months to see if they flower this year. You can find out more about this project on our story map.

Student planting common rock-rose at Drumbrae

Protecting birds at Rullion Green

A lovely morning was spent working with some volunteers from Friends of the Pentlands at Rullion Green Wood in the Pentland Hills. We installed metal markers on a section of the fence line to reduce the risk of low flying birds flying into the fence and did a litter pick in the new woodland. 

Planting crab apple trees

At the start of the easter school holidays, 190 crab apple trees were planted at Drumbrae as part of the Scottish Plant Recovery project with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Another student society, the Dirty Weekenders, helped out, and the following day local community volunteers joined in. It was a great effort with 28 people helping to plant these special trees.  

Community tree planting at Drumbrae

Trash Free Ochils

To wrap up the Easter holidays a litter pick was organised at Drumbrae by Trash Free Ochils. The local mountain bike community came together and collected 10 bags of litter around the popular paths to Dumyat. No-one likes seeing litter in the outdoors so hopefully it will encourage others to leave no trace when they visit.  

Unearthing Drumbrae's history

Although we have all been enjoying the recent warmer weather, this isn’t always the case. Back in November a hardy group of volunteers from the Scottish Artefact Recovery Group helped with a metal detecting survey at Drumbrae in the north of the site, which is part of the Sheriffmuir battlefield. Armed with their metal detectors, and working alongside archaeologists from Rathmell Archaeology, they surveyed the battlefield to recover any buried items. The metal detecting survey was completed by Rathmell Archaeology in March.  

The survey recovered 11 items of archaeological and cultural significance, these included coins, dress accessories and ammunition. Only one item had the potential to be linked with the Battle of Sheriffmuir: a small fragment of scrap lead. We don’t know for certain that it dates back to this period, but as soldiers often carried a supply of raw material, it is possible. 

If you are interested, you can read the metal detecting survey report and watch our video.

Want to volunteer?

A huge thanks to everyone who has volunteered so far. We appreciate your time, effort and enthusiasm! You can see photos from our volunteer days in our Story Map here: Drumbrae photos

There will be more opportunities to get involved, including path maintenance tasks, looking after the new apple trees, and wildflower surveys. 

Upcoming events will be advertised on our volunteer page: Volunteering opportunities | Social Responsibility and Sustainability. 

You can also sign up to the mailing list to be kept updated by emailing Community.Ranger@ed.ac.uk. 

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