Uplands and Birds

By Ian Newton

Ian Newton, author of Farming and Birds and Bird Migration returns to the New Naturalist series with a long awaited look at the uplands and its birds.

The uplands of Britain are unique landscapes created by grazing animals, primarily livestock. The soils and blanket bogs of the uplands are also the largest stores of carbon in the UK, and 70% of the country’s drinking water comes from the uplands. It’s a significant region, not least to the multitudes of bird species that hunt, forage and nest there.

Once again, Ian Newton demonstrates his mastery of the subject matter at hand, in this beautifully illustrated, authoritative addition to the New Naturalist series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Jul 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9780008298517

Ian Newton

Dr. Ian Newton is respected world-wide both as a biologist with a special interest and expertise in this subject and as a communicator. He is a seasoned and popular keynote speaker at National and International meetings, and his talks are often the high point of conferences. Ian Newton was born and raised in north Derbyshire. He attended Chesterfield Boys Grammar School, followed by the universities of Bristol and Oxford. He has been interested in birds since boyhood, and as a teenager developed a particular fascination with finches, which later led to doctoral and post-doctoral studies on these birds. Later in life he became known for his penetrating field studies of bird populations, notably on raptors. He is now a senior ecologist with the Natural Environment Research Council and visiting professor of ornithology at the University of Oxford.

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CHAPTER 1

Uplands and People

Imagine taking a map of Britain and drawing a line from Yorkshire to Devon. To the north and west is the region mainly of hills and mountains composed of old rocks; to the south and east is the younger, flatter and more fertile land of the lowlands. These regions are of roughly similar area, but differ vastly in their climate, topography and scenery, fertility, plant and animal life, human population densities and lifestyles. It is with this northwestern region of hills and mountains that this book is concerned: with the history and methods of human land use, and the patterns of habitats and bird populations that result.

By global standards, the hills and mountains of Britain are small, mostly reaching only 600–900 metres, but some are higher, with Ben Nevis in the Scottish Highlands reaching 1,345 metres. From Wales northward all the mountains were heavily glaciated, as shown by their scoured valleys and gravelly moraines. Over much of the area, the bedrock is near the surface or covered by drift material deposited by glaciers and rivers. Western mountains, from Snowdonia through the Lake District to the western Highlands, tend to be hard, steep and rugged, with jagged peaks, whereas the more eastern mountains, from the Pennines to the eastern Highlands, tend to be of softer rocks, more gently contoured, with extensive plateaus and broad valleys (Fig. 1).

Extending above the limits of tree growth, our highest western mountains are buffeted by strong moisture-laden winds from the Atlantic. For this reason, they are usually cloudy and often rainy. On some high western hills (Snowdonia, Lake District and western Scotland), rainfall can exceed 300 cm per year, rising in places to more than 450 cm, and the atmosphere can be damp almost year-round. Clear skies and sunshine are rare and short-lived. Travelling eastwards, annual rainfall declines sharply, reaching less than 100 cm on the eastern Cairngorms. Considering the latitude, winters are relatively mild, owing to the influence of the Gulf Stream. But on the high tops of more eastern mountains, conditions are colder, and snow can last into summer, sometimes beyond September, especially on north-facing slopes and in shaded gullies. The biggest mountain mass in Britain, the Scottish Highlands, covers just over half of Scotland’s 7.9 million hectares, an area twice the size of Wales. It is in the uplands that the influences of climate, geology and topography on vegetation and bird distributions are most starkly evident. Within Britain, it is here that the forces of nature most prevail, and where animals are most often killed by extreme weather.

FIG 1. Top, the rugged, well-sculpted hills of Snowdonia, typical of those through most of western Britain (Will Pallier); bottom, the rounded sheep-grazed hills of the Southern Uplands near the Dalveen Pass, Dumfriesshire, typical of many eastern ranges (Richard & Barbara Mearns).

Heavy rainfall has two important consequences for the land. First, it rapidly leaches soluble minerals from soils and surface rocks, reducing their capacity to support plant life; and secondly, the waterlogging it causes in some places predisposes the development of extensive peat bogs, which blanket much of the uplands, especially in the west. Temperature greatly affects the rate of evaporation from the land surface, and also the rate of biological processes, including the growth and development of plant and invertebrate life. With increasing elevation, sunshine and temperatures fall (by about 0.7 °C for every 100 m rise), but wind speeds, cloud cover and rainfall all increase. On mountainsides, changing climatic conditions promote zonation in the distribution of plants and animals, which in Britain – despite the deforestation of the past – is still evident in the existence of a climatic tree-line, above which trees do not grow successfully and shorter plants prevail. Among birds, many species gradually drop out with increasing altitude, but the birds of the high tops above the tree-line include three species which do not breed lower down, namely Ptarmigan, Dotterel and Snow Bunting (Chapter 3).

For many people in Britain, the hills and mountains of the north and west provide some of our finest scenery – our most natural-looking landscapes where wilderness prevails. Compared to lowland Britain, the uplands are certainly sparsely populated, but the impoverished vegetation of the hill country is largely a result of human use – the destruction of the original wildwood followed by centuries of livestock grazing and sward burning (called muirburn in Scotland). This high land is too difficult to cultivate, the slopes too steep, the climate too harsh, the soils too impoverished and the growing seasons too short to produce a worthwhile seasonal cereal or vegetable crop. So the grazing of livestock is the only agricultural use that is now practicable. For hundreds or thousands of years, depending on region, domestic livestock have browsed and grazed the hills, at least in summer. Once the earlier forest cover had gone, the history of the British uplands became mainly a history of the impacts of grazing animals on landscapes, vegetation and soil fertility. It provides examples of some of the most destructive of all land-use practices in Britain. The bird populations reflect these historical changes, with species of open land prevailing over most of the area.

For the purposes of this book, upland includes mainly the uncultivated land above the enclosed fields of the lower ground (Ratcliffe & Thompson 1988), usually over 240 m above sea level, but progressively lower with increasing latitude, down almost to sea level in parts of northwest Britain, including the Western and Northern Isles (Fig. 2). In some of these latter areas, plant communities that are elsewhere restricted to higher altitudes reach the coast. The term ‘upland’ thus refers here more to a range of uncultivated and largely unfenced habitat types than to a particular altitude zone. Such areas have an upland-type climate, and roughly coincide with the EU category of ‘Less Favoured Areas’ (currently called ‘Areas of Natural Constraint’) because of their low agricultural potential. They include the poorest-quality land in Britain, and offer little flexibility in the way they can be used (Fig. 3). Meat or tree production are the main options, followed by recreation and tourism. Many such areas often have low or falling human populations, and poor infrastructure.

FIG 2. Left, the distribution of upland habitats in Britain; right, annual rainfall across Britain, showing the heaviest fall in the west. Redrawn from the Climatological Atlas of the British Isles, London, HMSO, 1952.

FIG 3. Some of the poorest-quality land in Britain from an agricultural viewpoint: Alladale in Sutherland, a high-rainfall area with birch woods and scattered pines, on a typical damp autumn day (Ian Newton).

Omitting built-up areas and water bodies, the uplands as here defined cover more than 7 million hectares, nearly one-third of the total land surface of Britain. They currently comprise 2.2 million hectares of peat bog (9.6% of Britain’s total land area), nearly 1.6 million hectares of acid grassland (6.8%), and 1.3 million hectares of heather and other dwarf-shrub moorland (5.8%). Smaller areas are covered with Bracken (260,000 ha, 1.1%) or montane vegetation and rock above the original tree-line (628,000 ha, 2.7%) (Thompson & Brown 1992). These various open habitats together constitute by far the largest total expanse of natural and semi-natural vegetation types remaining in Britain. There are in addition about 1.5 million hectares of forest and woodland (6.0%) in the uplands, forming about half the total in Britain. Much of the forest consists of non-native conifer species, planted mainly over the last century.

As hill vegetation extends to ever lower elevation towards the northwest, so do some upland birds, such as the Ptarmigan and Golden Plover, emphasising that, over the length and breadth of Britain, altitude alone is of limited use in defining ‘the uplands’, as marked by their plant or bird communities. Another geographical trend, which follows rainfall, is the increasing development of deep peat bogs towards the north and west¹. They include the raised bogs of some lowland plains and the upland blanket bogs which reach their greatest European extent in northern Scotland (including the Outer Hebrides), along with western Ireland. Lowland raised bogs (mosses) have similar vegetation to upland blanket bogs, and many of the same bird species, so in the context of this book they could also be classed as ‘upland’ habitats. In the nineteenth century, several lowland bogs around the Solway estuary held Red and Black Grouse and others, all of which are now found chiefly at higher altitudes.

CURRENT HABITATS AND VEGETATION

After the last ice age, most of Britain became covered with trees. It remained under forest for several thousand years, until the start of the Neolithic period, about 6,000 years ago. At this time, people began to clear forest, plant crops and tend domesticated animals, dramatically transforming the landscape. Most of the open habitats now prevailing in the uplands were derived by forest clearance, and maintained in an open state mainly by domestic livestock. Pollen records indicate that some areas have been free of forest since the initial clearance, while others were cleared and then regenerated, perhaps up to several times over the ensuing millennia. Yet other areas were only sparsely covered with trees, and many extensive bogs in wetter places have not carried significant tree cover since their formation. Many of these bog-land areas were drained and ‘reclaimed’, mainly in the twentieth century, to give various types of ‘improved’ moorland or tree plantations.

By eating young trees, grazing animals can totally prevent the regeneration of forest, and by selectively grazing the other vegetation, they influence the composition and structure of the remaining plant communities (Fig. 4). Topography and soil fertility vary widely across the uplands, and the botanically richest communities are mainly on the localised areas of calcareous and other base-rich rocks or springs. Many of the widespread types of hill vegetation have thus developed under specific combinations of climate, rock type and land use (Averis et al. 2004).

Within the open uplands, vegetation now falls into the three broad categories mentioned above – various types of wet moorland and bog, grasslands, and dwarf-shrub heaths (including heather moors) – but within these categories no fewer than 111 different plant communities have been described (Averis et al. 2004). These communities tend to grade from one to another, depending on such factors as soil type, wetness, altitude, slope, exposure, history and management. The most natural parts of the uplands, least affected by human activities, include the alpine tundra of the high mountaintops, the hill lochans and tarns, and the great blanket mires, as in the Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland. These are the habitats that could be regarded as closest to natural in inland Britain. Rough grassland and heather moorland could be classed as semi-natural, in that the plants are self-sown and indigenous, but the communities themselves result from centuries of grazing, burning and other activities largely controlled by people. Often now called ‘cultural habitats’, they represent artificial climax vegetation types, maintained in their present treeless state by grazing and burning. In addition to these various open-land plant communities, eleven types of indigenous woodland have been described (Averis et al. 2004)

FIG 4. Rough totally treeless and largely heather- and sedge-covered hills on Arran (Richard & Barbara Mearns).

MAIN BIRD GROUPS OF THE UPLANDS

Although the vegetation of the British uplands is mostly an artificial climax arrested by fire and grazing, it has been in this state for a long time. Over hundreds or thousands of years, depending on area, the uplands have come to hold interesting and characteristic bird communities, varying geographically according to natural features. On my reckoning, at least 140 bird species breed regularly in the uplands of Britain, including about 51 species in woodlands and forests, and 89 species on open land of one type or another (including wetlands). Ornithologists particularly value raptors, grouse and waders among the land-birds, and the divers and wildfowl among water-birds. The moorland bird assemblage comprises a variety of species, including southern subspecies of Golden Plover and Dunlin, and the Red Grouse (an endemic form of Willow Ptarmigan). The British uplands also support significant populations of Golden Eagles, despite their having been eliminated from about half their potential range here (Fig. 5). The bogs of the Flow Country in northern Scotland support in the breeding season a rich community of uncommon waders and waterfowl. The pine forests of northeast Scotland hold an endemic form of crossbill (the Scottish Crossbill), together with Crested Tit and Capercaillie, which are found nowhere else in Britain.

Most upland species also breed in lowland habitats, but about a dozen species now breed only in the uplands as defined in this book, for only here does suitable habitat remain. Such species include the Red Grouse, Black Grouse, Ptarmigan, Golden Eagle, Hen Harrier, Merlin, Dotterel, Golden Plover, Greenshank, Wood Sandpiper, Ring Ouzel and Snow Bunting. Some of these species, notably the Hen Harrier and Black Grouse, bred in the lowlands until into the nineteenth or twentieth centuries, but disappeared as their habitats there were destroyed or degraded. The figures given here differ from those of earlier authors (notably Ratcliffe 1990), chiefly because of differences in the way that upland habitats were defined, and in the inclusion of woodland species.

FIG 5. Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos, now an iconic bird of the Scottish Highlands, once occurred throughout the British uplands, south to Dartmoor (Des Thompson).

Most information on the abundance and distribution of birds in Britain is collected by volunteers, working under the auspices of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). But for obvious reasons the uplands have been much less well covered than the lowlands where most people live and work. Very few ornithologists live in the hills, and for most of the others, long car journeys are needed to get them there. In addition, the British uplands cover an enormous area, and many interesting places lie far from public roads. Most professional ornithologists working in the hills have been concerned with identifying specific areas of high quality for birds, in order to designate these areas as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) or nature reserves, while others have undertaken detailed studies of particular species or communities.

One of the best-monitored groups of birds in upland Britain is the large raptors, surveyed every year by groups of dedicated volunteers who between them now cover most of upland Britain. Sporting estates also keep records of the numbers of game species shot each year, and the numbers of predators killed as part of their management (excluding illegally killed raptors). One of the best-studied species of all British birds is the Red Grouse, which was investigated scientifically in the early twentieth century, and which has been under continuous research since the 1950s. Other species subject to detailed study over many years in the uplands include the Raven, Stonechat, Golden Eagle, Peregrine, Sparrowhawk, Hen Harrier, Kestrel, Merlin, Ptarmigan, Golden Plover, Dotterel, Greenshank and Arctic Skua, for most of which details are given in later chapters.

MAIN CURRENT USES OF THE UPLANDS

The main uses to which the British uplands have been put in recent centuries include: (1) sheep grazing, with or without cattle, mostly on grassland and especially on the more base-rich soils; (2) grouse management on heather moors, and especially in drier eastern districts; (3) deer management in other open upland (called deer forest²), as the primary land use mostly on high rugged terrain in northwest Scotland; and (4) crofting – low-intensity farming now largely restricted to the lower parts of western Scotland and its islands. Other recent land uses include: (5) forestry, chiefly through the planting of conifers on former open land; (6) water catchment for electricity generation and urban water supplies, usually involving the damming of rivers; (7) electricity generation through use of wind turbines; (8) wildlife conservation, mainly in nature reserves; and (9) tourist recreation, as on ski slopes and walking tracks. Not all these uses are mutually exclusive, and many areas of grouse moor, deer forest and energy production also hold sheep at low density. Forestry is incompatible with the sward burning that is associated with grouse and sheep, and in its early growth stages with livestock and deer (which browse young trees). In view of these conflicts, areas of commercial forest often have to be fenced to exclude large herbivores, at least in their early stages of growth.

Until the eighteenth century, the uplands were used almost entirely for livestock grazing. But as the uses have diversified over the years, the uplands are no longer as ‘unenclosed’ as they once were. Additional fences have been erected not only to keep livestock and deer out of tree plantations, but also in many areas to mark estate boundaries. Nevertheless, sheep production is still the principal use of much hill ground, whether alone or in conjunction with other enterprises, including game shooting. Overall, the uplands of Britain provide society with a range of benefits: not only food, wool and wood products, but also carbon storage and climate regulation, water supply and flood management, homes for many rare plant and animal species, and inspirational landscapes for walking and other recreation.

The pattern of land use has varied across upland Britain, mainly in association with variations in climate and underlying geology. For example, intensive sheep grazing has led to the development of extensive grasslands through much of the hill ground in Wales, the Lake District and parts of the Southern Uplands, while the light grazing and patchy sward burning associated with grouse shooting have maintained extensive areas of heather in the Pennines, North York Moors, eastern Highlands and parts of the Southern Uplands.

Land use in the uplands has long been driven by what was politically, practically and financially possible, rather than by what was ecologically sustainable. Many people are surprised to learn that most activities in the uplands other than tourism are no longer economically profitable, but exist chiefly because they are subsidised by the taxpayer. This is particularly true of hill farming, forestry, power generation, and also some aspects of deer and grouse-moor management which have benefited in recent decades from certain kinds of agricultural grants. The same is true for those nature reserves which are owned or managed by government conservation bodies (Scottish Natural Heritage, Natural England and the Countryside Council for Wales). Much private money is put into the uplands by landowners keen on the recreational hunting of grouse or deer. On most upland estates, hunting activities involving wild game do not always yield a profit, so without input from the landowner whose main income is derived from other sources, they could not persist. They bring money and employment to some remote areas where other job prospects are few and far between.

HISTORY, LAND OWNERSHIP AND CROFTING

The hills of Britain have clearly been occupied and used by pastoralists for a long time. Signs of Neolithic, Bronze Age and later habitations are evident in most upland regions of Britain, usually on areas of flattish ground with better soils. The most southern upland region, Dartmoor, probably holds the largest number of well-preserved remains, with more than 5,000 ancient dwellings, almost all above 400 m elevation. Three main periods of building have been recognised in the uplands, first in the Neolithic, then in the Bronze Age and again in medieval times, the remains of old buildings being dated mainly from their associated artefacts (Fig. 6). They may have been occupied year-round or in summer only. Nowadays in the uplands most people live in scattered farms or small villages, perhaps getting their provisions from small market towns on lower ground.

FIG 6. Remains of Bronze Age hut circle at Grimspound on Dartmoor, Devon. The whole area consists of a set of 24 hut circles all surrounded by a stone wall, interrupted by a large paved entrance facing south. The circular piles of stones represent the collapsed walls of round houses, assumed to have originally supported a roof of wood and turf. The surrounding area yields scant evidence of crop-growing at this altitude until warmer medieval times, as reflected in the remains of earth terraces lying within the 400–500 m altitude zone (Ian Newton).

In recent centuries, one of the most significant events involving upland people was the Highland Clearances of the mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries. They involved the forced displacement of large numbers of people from long-standing land tenancies in the Scottish Highlands where they had practised small-scale mixed agriculture. This was done by hereditary landowners to make way for extensive sheep farming, which became especially profitable at that time. It led to extensive depopulation of wide areas, but is remembered now largely through the brutality of some of the evictions, with many of the displaced people emigrating to North America or Australia.

The process is likely to have had major effects on bird populations. First, the removal of so many people from large parts of the uplands would inevitably have greatly reduced the levels of disturbance and bird killing, which could have enabled many species to settle and breed in areas formerly closed to them. Second, it put an end to crop-growing in the higher glens, affecting birds such as Twite and Redpoll which largely depended on the weeds of meadows and cultivated land, at least in the breeding season. Overall, it led to reduced diversity of habitat over large parts of the open uplands.

In recent centuries, patterns of land ownership have had a major influence on upland landscapes and the habitats available to birds. Apart from crofting (discussed below), small land-holdings tend to lead to specialisation, as in hill farming centred on livestock grazing. In contrast, large estates are better able to diversify, and typically include areas devoted to farming, forestry, game hunting and sometimes fishing, which together provide several sources of income. The resulting diversification of habitats leads to diversification in bird populations. Large estates occupy a much greater proportion of the uplands than of the lowlands, especially in Scotland. Some have been owned by the same titled families for generations, and almost always include areas devoted to grouse shooting or deer stalking (Chapter 7). While most parts of the uplands are privately owned by individuals, some parts are owned by the state (mostly for forestry), other parts by corporations (such as water authorities) or private companies (again mainly for forestry), and yet others by local communities. In general, the less fertile the land, the bigger the estate. In the Scottish Highlands, for example, estates range from around 5,000 ha on the best hill ground to more than 20,000 ha on the poorest, these areas being necessary to build a paying business, whether based on livestock, grouse, deer, trees or some combination of these. Atholl in Perthshire is one of the largest upland estates in Britain, covering more than 60,000 ha. As a result of the predominance of large estates, relatively few people or organisations now ‘own’ the uplands, compared to similar-sized areas of lowland.

In past centuries, mining provided an alternative living for thousands of people in the uplands, as they dug for various building materials, metal ores or coal, and small-scale industries developed on the strength of these resources (Chapter 2). Quarries still operate, but over the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries most of the mining came to an end, and people moved elsewhere.

Despite their current sparse human populations, the uplands remain as working landscapes with local people engaged in farming, forestry and gamekeeping, the products from which also provide downstream employment for others, including those involved in tourism. On many upland estates, especially in Scotland, the landlord does not live on site year-round, only for a few weeks each year; any shooting tenants may appear during August–September for grouse, and into October for deer. For the remainder of the year, local management is left in the hands of a factor on the spot who is mainly concerned with details of farms and buildings, while gamekeepers, deer stalkers and farm workers do the bulk of the outside work.

Livestock farming

Most hill farms span a wide range of altitude, and consist of two parts (Fig. 7). The lower part, on the valley floor or lower slopes, is divided into fields which are used to grow grass and sometimes arable crops needed to feed livestock in winter (September to May on the higher ground). The upper part consists of open hill land, used for grazing sheep (and sometimes cattle) through the summer. After harvest on low ground, the stock are brought down and housed there over winter, eating any grass available in the fields but fed mainly on grass products and other foods, stored from the summer. Surplus young stock are sold in the autumn for immediate slaughter or for fattening elsewhere for slaughter later. In some regions, some animals may be kept on the open hills year-round, provided with supplementary food when necessary. Since the eighteenth century, the numbers of cattle kept on the hills have fallen progressively, while sheep have largely taken over (Fig. 8).

In all, about 41,000 farm holdings in Britain now keep sheep, but more than half of all breeding ewes are kept on hill farms. Several regions of Britain, including Snowdonia, the Pennines, the Lake District and the Western and Northern Isles of Scotland, are still dominated by sheep farming, with little of the upland used for other purposes. The number of sheep kept in the UK peaked in June 1998 at more than 44 million, as a result of a relatively generous EU support initiative. Numbers declined following the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, when the UK lost its place as Europe’s largest producer of lamb, although this was recovered later. Nevertheless, through a change in farm payments, UK sheep numbers are now lower, at less than 35,000 in June 2017. One major effect during the twentieth century of intensive sheep grazing was the conversion of extensive areas of heather moor to grass and Bracken (Chapter 6).

FIG 7. Nithsdale, Dumfriesshire, showing pastoral farms on the low ground, and open sheep-walk on the hills beyond (Richard & Barbara Mearns).

FIG 8. Sheep-grazed open grassland in the Earncraig area of the Lowther Hills in Dumfriesshire (Richard & Barbara Mearns).

Although for centuries the dominant land use in the British uplands, sheep farming is currently in decline, despite the subsidies. This is due largely to the poor living that hill farming provides, the hard work involved, and the shortage of new recruits to the industry. This does not augur well for the future of sheep farming on the hills, and means that many areas currently under sheep are likely to convert to forestry or some other use in the foreseeable future unless steps are taken politically to prevent this from happening.

Recreational shooting

From the mid-nineteenth century, when most of the uplands were used chiefly for grazing livestock, sport hunting developed as an additional form of land use, giving rise to grouse moors and deer forests, as sporting interests became fashionable among the new class of wealthy industrialists. At this time, many upland areas were parcelled into estates whose primary purpose was the pursuit of game, coupled with fishing for salmon and sea trout. Three main developments made these changes possible. One was the new railway network which from 1863 enabled well-to-do ‘sporting gentlemen’ to travel easily from city to upland (including from London to Inverness overnight). The second was improved weaponry, especially light breech-loading guns and the cartridges to charge them, which made rapid repeat firing possible. The third was a ready availability of upland real estate, which enabled anyone of wealth to buy or rent land for sporting purposes. Land came on the market mainly because of a decline in the profitability of sheep, caused by increasing imports of cheaper meat and wool from Australia and New Zealand. The purchase of Balmoral Estate by Queen Victoria in 1852, combined with husband Albert’s love of hunting, set the seal of social approval on grouse hunting and deer stalking. ‘Balmorality’ was born, and the heyday of the upland sporting estate followed. This process transformed the nature, character and pattern of land-holding in much of upland Britain, but especially in the Scottish Highlands (Fig. 9).

Over most of the British uplands, the sporting emphasis was on Red Grouse, and in much of northwest Highland Scotland on Red Deer (which at that time had gone from most of the rest of Britain). Land devoted to Red Deer took the old name of ‘deer forest’, even though most of it was treeless. But whether under grouse or deer, much of this open upland also supported sheep, so there was still an agricultural interest. Moreover, the management of both grouse and deer over the years came increasingly to resemble livestock farming in its intensity, and diseases previously known only from livestock began to affect grouse and deer, some of them spread by ticks. To this day, these three species – sheep, grouse and deer – still largely dominate the ecology and economy of Britain’s open uplands. Game hunting is one of the few forms of land use that is not subsidised by government, yet still attracts a continual flow of cash into some remote areas.

FIG 9. A former typical hunting estate at Glenfeshie, off the Spey Valley, Inverness-shire, based mainly on the shooting of grouse and deer. Note the range of habitats from the river, pine plantations, and scattered old pines on the hillside to heather moorland beyond (Ian Newton).

Sporting estates for grouse typically range in size from 5,000 to 8,000 ha, whereas those specialising in deer are mostly larger, around 20,000 ha or more. The new buyers, with their business roots in the cities, emerged as the nouveau riche of emergent landed proprietors. They built grand lodges and houses, pushed roads into the glens, constructed paths for the passage of stalkers and ponies (to extract deer carcasses), built boundary walls, devised and implemented new game management methods, and argued successfully for new laws to imbue the new regime with hunting rights. From then on, the sporting estate formed the centrepiece of the social calendar for the British upper classes, who would head to the hills each year on the new railways to shoot grouse, stalk deer and fish for salmon. Only in the Scottish Highlands could individual estates offer all three, and it became fashionable to take the ‘Macnab Challenge’ and bag a salmon, a stag and a brace of grouse on the same day.

In less than 50 years in the nineteenth century, control of land became concentrated in the hands of a wealthy elite whose social and economic roots lay largely outside the region (in the cities) and whose principal motivation for holding land was the social status it afforded, together with the private enjoyment of exclusive hunting. On current estimates, there are about 340 privately owned hunting estates in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland alone, covering some 2.2 million hectares, some 27% of the total area of Scotland. They therefore play a significant role in the way that land is used in the region, and the habitats available to birds and other wildlife (Wightman et al. 2002).

The rise of the sporting estate further altered the character of the uplands. For one thing, the switch to sport hunting led to reduced sheep numbers (Devine 1988), which helped to preserve the heather and other valued vegetation (Fig. 10). Burning continued, but on grouse moors this was done in much smaller patches and on a longer rotation (Chapter 2). The main downside of grouse-moor management was the wholesale destruction of predatory birds and mammals (not just those potentially dangerous to sheep). None of these predators was protected by law, and some species were soon eliminated from grouse moors by use of guns, traps and poisons. Intense predator control was also applied widely across the lowlands at that time, where the interest was mainly in Grey Partridges and Pheasants. By the early twentieth century, the Osprey, White-tailed Eagle, Marsh Harrier and Goshawk had become extinct in Britain, the Golden Eagle was much reduced, the Buzzard was confined to some western districts, the Hen Harrier to some northern and western islands, and the Red Kite to a very small area in central Wales. Other species were also reduced and restricted in distribution, but to a lesser extent.

FIG 10. Heather moorland near Stanage Edge, Derbyshire, with the heather in flower, now managed for grouse shooting (Paul Bingham).

Carnivorous mammals received the same treatment. One species, the Beech Marten, was eliminated totally (Burton et al. 2018), the Wildcat survived only in parts of the Scottish Highlands, the Polecat in central and eastern Wales, and the Pine Marten in these and a few other remote areas. All these predatory birds and mammals were widespread in earlier times, and most expanded again during the latter half of the twentieth century with the creation of large plantation forests free of gamekeeping, and with a growing general concern for wildlife conservation. Some of the extinguished raptors recolonised and spread naturally, while Goshawks and White-tailed Eagles were reintroduced from the 1960s and 1970s respectively, the former mainly through falconry escapes. Translocations were also used from the 1990s to hasten the recovery of Red Kites and Ospreys. However, the Beech Marten has not been reintroduced, and the Wildcat remains highly restricted in range, a major threat being hybridisation with domestic cats.

Most of these predators were persecuted in earlier centuries, when they were regarded as threats to farm animals, especially poultry. Some had been eradicated from parts of the country long before the start of sport hunting with guns. However, it was with the onset of intensive game management, and the employment of gamekeepers on every sporting estate, that species were eliminated from most or all of their range in Britain. This process is presumed to have had major impacts on many prey species, allowing some to increase while causing others to decline, and producing a general reduction in the overall species composition of the uplands. One major change of the mid-twentieth century was the introduction of the American Mink through escapes and deliberate releases from fur farms. This new predator is held responsible for declines in Water Voles and many wetland birds, despite being controlled by gamekeepers and others.

Crofting

Crofting in the Scottish Highlands and Islands is a form of mixed farming based on small land-holdings (mostly less than 5 ha) plus some common grazing land. Crofts are mostly worked part-time by crofters living on site, and whose family incomes are often supplemented by other means (such as forestry, fishing or council work). The pattern of mixed livestock rearing practised by crofters (including enclosed fields of cultivated land, meadow and pasture and a larger expanse of communal grazing land) is still widespread in western Scotland and the Outer Hebrides. Crofters usually live in communities (crofting townships) and share certain jobs, such as gathering in sheep from common land. The rearing of livestock, mainly regional breeds, is central to the system. Cattle are raised by natural suckling and sold in autumn as ‘stores’ to be fattened on better land elsewhere before being slaughtered. A traditional cropping pattern in the enclosed area produces root crops, cereals and hay (or more recently silage) to be fed to livestock in winter.

This system is generally good for birds because it is ‘mixed’ and not intensive, and involves the late cutting of grass and cereals, so that birds can nest within the crops without their nests being destroyed. It can therefore support a range of bird species at relatively high densities, including some that are rare elsewhere. The recent trend from hay and cereal grain to silage, however, has brought a loss of habitat suitable for Corncrakes, and of food for seed-eating birds such as Corn Bunting and Twite. Silage crops are harvested in June, while birds are still nesting within the crops, and before the crops can form seeds suitable as winter bird food. Reduction of cattle keeping has also led to other changes, notably the loss from many crofts of Swallows, which were dependent on the flies associated with cattle and the barns for nesting sites. As a way of life, crofting is at best economically marginal, again being sustained by subsidies (including agri-environmental). The risks to wildlife often stem more from agricultural abandonment than from intensification, as people leave to seek a better life elsewhere (Bignal & McCracken 1996). Abandonment leads buildings to collapse, former fields to revert to rough grassland, scrub, and eventually woodland, removing the habitat that once supported some open-land birds with restricted distributions (Fig. 11A–C).

FIG 11. Indications of past land use and recent change. fig 11a. The remains of old hill crofting township, Ulva, Mull, reflecting the abandonment of upland settlements (Richard & Barbara Mearns).

FIG 11b. An abandoned shepherd’s cottage in the midst of a growing forest plantation, Loch Urr, Kirkcudbrightshire, reflecting the afforestation of former sheep-walk (Richard & Barbara Mearns).

FIG 11c. An old grouse shooting butt in pine plantation, Mochrum, Wigtownshire, reflecting the afforestation of former heather-covered grouse moor (Richard & Barbara Mearns).

Break-up of estates

During the twentieth century, inheritance tax caused some upland landowners to sell off some or all of their estates, much of this land being bought by tenant families who concentrated on livestock farming. This happened particularly in Wales, and less in England and Scotland, and partly in consequence, a smaller proportion of upland Wales than of England and Scotland remains in large estates. After the Second World War, with the 1947 Agriculture Act and the 1948 Agricultural Holdings Act, any tenant farmers who continued to rent their land gained security for life. As a result, much more of the upland than previously, especially in Wales, came again to be controlled by farmers, most of whom raised sheep and cattle, but over time came to concentrate on sheep. Now, under economic pressures, many of these small family farms are consolidating again into larger holdings. In Scotland, some estates or part-estates that have come on the market in recent years have been bought by local communities, helped by government funding, or have been gifted to local communities by the previous owners. Such ‘community buy-outs’ enable local people to manage the land in their own interests, chiefly by livestock grazing.

Forestry

Another major change in land use occurred from 1919 with the setting up of the Forestry Commission. Its remit was to promote and implement the afforestation of large areas of land of low agricultural value. Most such land was in the uplands, formerly used for sheep, grouse or deer. The need for more tree-planting resulted from the First World War when the timber reserves of the country were greatly depleted. The Commission bought most of the land for this purpose, but also provided grants to private landowners to plant trees. In addition, after 1945, new companies were established to create and manage forests as investments for private clients, benefiting from favourable tax arrangements. The result of all this activity was a rapid expansion of forest cover, especially in the uplands, and mainly with introduced fast-growing conifers, including Sitka and Norway Spruce, European, Japanese and hybrid Larch and Lodgepole Pine (Fig. 12). By 1940, with the start of the Second World War, some 6% of Britain was tree-covered, but by the year 2000 this had risen to about 12%, and by 2015 to 14%, comprising more than 3 million hectares. Conifer plantations now cover nearly one-fifth of the total upland area, and there are plans for further tree-planting in the years ahead, with the bulk in Scotland. In addition, patches of modified indigenous woodland still occur in the uplands, the largest blocks involving Scots Pine, and in recent decades fencing – by excluding livestock and deer – has allowed other areas to develop or expand.

FIG 12. Modern forestry plantation in Galloway, a uniform block of spruce trees (Richard & Barbara Mearns).

This tree-planting brought major changes to upland landscapes and, as shown by the pollen record, some of the areas planted had been largely free of trees for several thousand years. As expected, the planting of former open land soon eliminated the open-land wildlife that occurred there, but provided much new habitat for woodland species, many of which expanded accordingly (Chapter 15). The main adverse impacts in many areas were (1) soil erosion and peat destruction caused by the physical processes of ploughing, planting and harvesting, (2) the acidification of many upland river systems and resulting decline in aquatic life, and (3) the loss of some open areas deemed of high conservation value.

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES

The concept of ‘ecosystem services’ has grown to prominence in recent years. In 2011 an assessment of ‘what nature does for us’ was published by the UK government, highlighting the importance of the uplands in a new light (UK National Ecosystem Assessment). The collections of species that comprise habitats or ecosystems provide ‘services’ as incidental consequences of the way they live and eventually die. We can thus view the production of oxygen by living plants as an ‘ecosystem service’ provided free but essential to almost all life on earth.

The most distinctive ecosystem service provided in the uplands results from the death of plants (especially mosses), which, in certain conditions, can accumulate as peat. This process can continue over thousands of years, forming on the underlying bedrock a layer of incompletely decomposed plant material up to several metres thick (Chapter 2). As one important service, this peat locks in the carbon in dead plant tissues, and prevents it from escaping to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a ‘greenhouse gas’ which is contributing to climate warming (Fig. 13). A second ‘service’ provided by peat results from its ability to absorb great quantities of water, filter and clean it, and release it slowly into the streams and rivers which flow from the hills through the lowlands to the sea. This ability to hold and slowly release water helps to prevent flash flooding on lower ground following heavy downpours (Purseglove 2015). Once the peat is totally saturated, any additional water flows off the surface, as it would from a road, although this level of saturation is rare. With their high rainfall, the uplands provide around 70% of our drinking water.

FIG 13. Peat bog with white flowers of cottongrass Eriophorum vaginatum/angustifolium in Wigtownshire: a habitat now valued for its ability to store carbon and water (Richard & Barbara Mearns).

Peat bogs in the uplands also hold unique plant and animal communities of biological interest, including the insects on which many birds depend, including grouse chicks. They also preserve remnants of earlier plant communities, layered according to the date of their formation, and thus provide a unique history of vegetation back to post-glacial times (Chapter 2).

Overall, the ecosystem services provided by the natural world for human need fall into four main categories:

Provisioning services – for example: oxygen, drinking water, timber, energy, food, fibre, plant-derived medicines, or any other commodified goods of economic value.

Regulating services – for example: filtration of pollutants, air and water quality, flood mitigation, and climate regulation through carbon storage. These are all non-marketable attributes, currently of no monetary value.

Cultural services – for example: field sports, nature conservation, education, recreation, spiritual and health benefits, forming a mixture of marketable and non-marketable products.

Supporting services – for example: soil formation, photosynthesis, nutrient and water cycling. These services are essential in underpinning the other categories, but currently have no market value.

These various services underpin our wellbeing and economic prosperity. In the past, they were largely taken for granted, requiring no particular input, and given no monetary value. But they are increasingly taken into account in the development of land-use policy, especially for the uplands. For the most part, they do not have to be created, just not destroyed. However, because landowners are not paid for these services, most put no particular value on them and would rather change habitats such as peat bogs into something that could deliver in cash terms. One way round this quandary is for government to pay for these societal benefits, as already occurs in agri-environment schemes: ‘public goods for public money’. Recent appreciation of these ‘services’ has highlighted some destructive aspects of land management, and has generated political pressure to modify some practices, especially those that lead to soil erosion, peat destruction and carbon release or water pollution. All these activities have direct and indirect effects on birds and other wildlife, as discussed in later chapters.

CONSERVATION AND ACCESS

For the most part, nature conservation is concerned with parts of the natural world that have no immediate monetary value. It is based on the notion that flora and fauna have a value beyond their direct usefulness or market worth. Nature conservation can normally be achieved only by the deliberate protection of species and their habitats, often under opposition from other stakeholders with more economic interests. Since the mid-twentieth century, with growing public support, nature conservation has become an increasingly important objective of land management in the uplands, and birds have given particular impetus to the movement. As in the lowlands, activities have centred on five main aspects:

Legislation against the deliberate killing or disturbance of particular species. All wild birds in Britain are now protected by law, but some (such as game birds) have open seasons and others (such as crows) can be killed at any time (under a ‘general licence’). The main underpinning legislation includes the EU Birds Directive of 1979 (full title: Council Directive 79/409/EEC on the Conservation of Wild Birds) and the Habitats Directive of 1992 (full title: Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Flora and Fauna). These laws have brought stricter species protection across Europe, together with the prohibition of activities that damage priority species and habitats in key areas. Other legislation impinging on wildlife conservation includes the Deer Act 1992, the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, and the Hill Farming Act 1946, the latter mostly as it relates to sward burning (in connection with sheep production). In addition to the general licence, which allows certain species to be killed at any time, individuals can apply for licences to kill other species that they perceive as impinging on their interests. In recent years, licences have been given, for example, to kill Ravens in lambing areas and Buzzards around Pheasant pens (but not for protecting Pheasants once they have been released from the pens). Many mammal species are also protected by law, but deer can be legally hunted for part of each year, while others such as Rats, Grey Squirrels, Foxes, Stoats and feral cats can be killed at any time.

Protection of representative areas of natural and semi-natural habitats as nature reserves. By the late 1950s, several National Nature Reserves (NNRs) had been designated in upland areas, and by the 1980s further areas of moorland, blanket bog and indigenous woodland had been protected as nature reserves or designated under the Birds and Habitats Directives, chiefly to protect them from commercial conifer forestry. Such protected areas included Craig Meagaidh, Abernethy Forest and the Flows of Caithness and Sutherland (Smout 2000). Today, state conservation agencies and non-governmental conservation bodies own and manage many upland areas primarily for nature conservation, with objectives ranging from the protection of individual species to the safeguarding of semi-natural habitats. The National Trust is also becoming increasingly involved with nature conservation as part of its remit.

Restoration of populations. Another conservation activity aimed at species restoration is reintroduction, in which lost species are brought from areas where they still persist for release in areas from which they were eliminated in the past but in which conditions still seem suitable. Successful examples of reintroduction projects in Britain involve the White-tailed Eagle and Red Kite among birds, and the Beaver and Wild Boar among mammals. Current projects involve Golden Eagles in southern Scotland and White-tailed Eagles on the Isle of Wight.

Modification of management on areas used primarily for some commercial purpose. Examples include adjustments to the management of commercial forests in North Yorkshire to sustain populations of Nightjars, and to the management of pine forests in Speyside to sustain Capercaillies. Both these projects involve the Forestry Commission, a public-funded body.

Diversification of monoculture habitats to increase the variety of vegetation and animal species they can support. Intensive management for any purpose often leads to monoculture, at least as the target state, so one aim of conservation is to encourage the diversification of some widespread upland habitats, so that they can sustain a greater abundance and variety of wildlife. Examples include the diversification of some forests managed by the Forestry Commission (Chapter 14), and the reduction of sheep densities in upland pastures to facilitate the recovery of suppressed plant and animal species (Chapter 6).

To help achieve these various objectives, large parts of the open uplands are now designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), Special Protection Areas (SPAs) or Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) (Box 1). Many areas have more than one designation, awarded for different attributes. These designations do not interfere with normal land-use practices, providing they do not damage the conservation value of the site. Some designations bring regulatory requirements and financial incentives for conservation management over areas owned privately for agriculture, forestry or sport shooting (Warren 2002).

BOX 1. Designations for areas of high conservation value

Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) are designated for their biological or geological interest. Several thousand biological SSSIs help to safeguard representative examples of the main habitats in Britain and the main types of plants and animals. In the uplands, SSSIs cover 12% of the total area. They are normally managed along prescribed lines by individual landowners, who may be paid. Protection is not absolute, but for any proposed change of use, the SSSI interest is weighed against other factors.

Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs) arose from an EU scheme (1986) designed to protect the distinctive landscapes and biodiversity produced by traditional farming practices that were under threat from agricultural change. The aim was to protect landscapes in total rather than as a patchy collection of individual land-holdings. Twenty-four such areas were designated in the uplands of Britain, and others in the lowlands. The scheme had limited success because membership was voluntary and many farmers in ESAs opted not to participate.

Special Protection Areas (SPAs) were designated under an EU Directive to safeguard specific sites important for migratory birds and other vulnerable species, forming across the EU as a whole the Natura 2000 series. Currently more than 250 sites are listed for Britain, uplands and lowlands together, and more are under consideration.

Special Areas for Conservation (SACs) are strictly protected sites designated under the EU Habitats Directive. Some 591 upland, lowland and offshore sites are listed for Britain.

Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) are designated for protection because of their landscape value. They enjoy levels of protection from development similar to those of National Parks, but are generally smaller and less ‘wild’. There are currently 38 such areas in Britain, varying in size from 16 km² (Isles of Scilly) to 2,038 km² (the Cotswolds), and comprising about 18% of the total land area.

Wild Land Areas, as listed by Scottish Natural Heritage in 2014, include 42 spectacular scenic areas, mostly in northwest Scotland, where human influence appears minimal. The aim is to safeguard particular areas against potentially damaging developments. Areas vary in size from 41 km² (Ronas Hill and North Roe) to 1,570 km² (Cairngorm Mountains).

National Scenic Areas (NSAs) are the Scottish equivalent of AONBs. There are currently 40 such areas, covering 13% of the total land area of Scotland.

Ramsar Sites are wetlands of international importance for water-birds. Britain currently lists 158 such wetlands, but only the Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland, the peatlands of Lewis and Ronas Hill in Shetland could be classed as upland as defined in this book.

Nature Reserves are areas of interesting habitat owned or leased with nature conservation as the primary objective. Many also have other designations, and they may be owned and managed by statutory conservation bodies (as National Nature Reserves), non-governmental conservation charities such as the RSPB and Woodland Trust, local Wildlife Trusts, local councils, other interest groups or private individuals.

These categories are not mutually exclusive, and some valued areas have more than one designation.

Eleven out of 15 National Parks in Britain are largely upland in character, embracing special areas from Dartmoor in the south (Fig. 14) to the Cairngorm Mountains in the north (Box 2). But unlike National Parks abroad, those in Britain are not based on areas of natural habitat with limited human occupancy. None is concerned with nature conservation as the primary use, and none is state-owned. In every one, land is cropped for economic gain. Records reveal that Scottish estate owners in the House of Lords negotiated Scotland out of the initial National Parks legislation (1949). This situation persisted until the establishment of the Scottish Parliament which, as one of its first legislative actions, passed the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000. This corrected the earlier omission, and led to the designation of the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park in 2002 and the Cairngorms National Park in 2003 (Fig. 15). So far, Scotland has only these two National Parks, but it now also has 42 ‘Wild Land Areas’, as listed by Scottish Natural Heritage in 2014.

The assumption into the 1950s was that nature conservation was compatible with agriculture and forestry, which were allowed to develop unshackled by regulating legislation. The main threat to conservation was perceived to be built development. As the adverse impacts of intensive agriculture and forestry became increasingly apparent, however, public pressure mounted, and controls were introduced on both activities by the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act, and thereafter they were progressively strengthened by other measures.

FIG 14. Haytor, Dartmoor, showing heavily grazed grassland, with gorse clumps and granite tor beyond, on a gentle Red Sandstone landscape of long smooth ridges with jagged tors that escaped the Pleistocene glaciations (Ian Newton).

FIG 15. The tops of the Cairngorm range, an area of alpine tundra in the Cairngorms National Park that is much more readily accessible to people today than in the past, leading to various adverse impacts on vegetation and wildlife (Keith Cowieson). The photograph was taken in early June, with the Lairig Ghru valley in the centre running southeast towards Deeside.

BOX 2. National Parks in the uplands of Britain

Of 15 National Parks in Britain, 11 are largely upland in character. From south to north, they include Dartmoor (956 km²), Exmoor (693 km²), Brecon Beacons (1,351 km²), Snowdonia (2,142 km²), Peak District (1,438 km²), Yorkshire Dales (2,179 km²), North York Moors (1,436 km²), Lake District (2,292 km²), Northumberland (1,049 km²), Loch Lomond and the Trossachs (1,865 km²) and the largest of all, the Cairngorms (4,528 km²). Their purpose is ‘to conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage’, while providing footpaths and other facilities for visitors seeking outdoor recreation. Normal land use and ownership are maintained, as are the social and economic wellbeing of local communities. National Park authorities have legal powers to prevent unsympathetic developments, such as particularly destructive land-use practices or jarring building developments, but they have limited control over agriculture and forestry. The English National Parks encompass 52 NNRs, 62 SACs and 15 SPAs, while more than 25% of land within the parks is designated as SSSIs. Nevertheless, National Park status has not prevented the illegal killing of birds of prey, the degradation of peat bogs, or the declines of many bird species, which have generally mirrored those in the wider countryside. In parts of the uplands, habitats and species are faring worse in National Parks than outside them (Cox et al. 2018). Natural England’s official monitoring data indicate that only 26% of SSSIs by area within National Parks are in favourable condition, compared with 44% of those elsewhere.

Nature conservation presents rather different challenges in the uplands from those in the lowlands. For one thing, the uplands are so generally unproductive that all activities there depend on large scale for their viability, whether sheep farming, grouse and deer management, or timber production. Similarly, many birds in the open uplands live at such low densities that huge areas are required to maintain viable populations: most nature reserves on low ground are smaller than even a single Golden Eagle territory in the uplands. In the lowlands, most habitat patches – whether woods, heaths or wetlands – have clearly defined boundaries, and their high-density bird populations can be conserved simply by protecting particular habitat patches from adverse development. Such clear boundaries rarely exist in the open uplands, and where they do, the patches of habitat they enclose are usually too small to maintain viable populations of any bird species. This means that conservation measures based on specific sites do not operate as well in the uplands as they do in the lowlands, and that for really effective conservation, reserves have to be large and varied. Even then, they cannot hold viable populations of some species, whose requirements can only be met if they are provided on land managed primarily for other purposes. Not surprisingly, this requirement has at times brought bird conservation in the uplands into conflict with all other major land uses there. But in the uplands we are concerned with the future of Nature’s last major refuge in Britain.

Access to upland

The year 2000 saw the introduction of the Countryside and Rights of Way (CROW) Act for England and Wales, after a major campaign for unlimited access for all. This Act established a right to roam in open country such as heathland, moorland and registered common land. Upland landowners were unenthusiastic about a right to roam being given to the public at large (Box 3). There was also concern that, with open access, the wildlife interest of large areas would be destroyed. The RSPB argued that access should be given by linear rights of way rather than by completely open access. However, the eventual Act freed up access to unenclosed land as a whole.

The other main change introduced by the CROW Act concerned the management of SSSIs that had been designated for their wildlife value. Regular assessments of these sites had shown that many were deteriorating either because they were not receiving