Wild Britain: S02E01: Caledonian Forest Scotland

Well, to my surprise, good old Ray Mears is back is a second series of Wild Britain. He explains that the Caledonian forest is part of the Boreal forest – a woodland that stretches around the Northern Hemisphere. Birch, Aspen and Oak, as well as the expected Pines form a wonderful forest. The forest was formed at the end of the last Ice Age and has a handful of trees that were starting to stretch their way towards the sun at the time of the Great Fire of London.

Jumping quickly into looking at the signs that nature gives us, we see that we can see semi-destroyed pine cones and that by looking closely (and with a heck of a lot of knowledge) we can see ‘who dunnit’ . In this case – a Red Squirrel.

Moving on we learn that a strategy is being formed to safe guard the Red Squirrel in the Caledonian forest. Squirrel pox, is just one of the problems that Grey Squirrel bring to Red Squirrel populations. They’re hoping that the rivers that are running through the forest will help to keep the Reds and Greys separate.

Being led to a secret location, we get a few minutes looking at a nesting site of the Osprey, a raptor that’s sometimes called the Sea Eagle. We learn that there are around 240 nesting pairs in Scotland. They’ve had a lot of help, with the creation of lots of nesting sites by the RSPB. This just shows that from a single breeding pair 50 years ago – conservation done well is worth doing.

After the break we look at the Horse hoof fungus, Ray shows us how to make tinder from this fungus. By scraping away the tough outer layer, we see the soft inner layer. Eventually removing the hard layer under the soft layer, we have the very soft part of the fungus. This seems to look like paper when torn.

We now look at the large mounds of pines needs that are the wonderful creation of the Wood Ant. The Ants take the pines shed by the trees and they also help the tree out by eating the parasites that can harm the tree. I remember in the Wild Food programme, Ray and Gordon Hillman raid one of these nests to get the grubs, which can apparently be done twice a year without damaging the nest beyond repair. Probably not worth doing unless you’re at death’s door though – I can’t imagine that they’re very sustaining!

Capercaillie Grouse are the next feature, and this sees Ray and the cameraman camping until the next morning in the hope of seeing the courtship rituals of the Capercallie. The males are displaying around their territories! After hearing of a bit of a scrap between two cocks, the birds have dispersed…or have they? It seems that they were just biding their time and we see two cocks shouting clopping sounds and a brawls ensues. It’s brief and the winner leaves to take his females.

Unfortunately, this is where the programme ends. It was a shame, this episode was much tighter than the whole of the previous series. It feels much more like Ray when he was at the BBC. Like Ray back at the top of his game. I’ll be looking forward to episode two.