The end of the year is in sight, and so our year ‘o da bog’ is drawing to a close.
In October, for our third and final field trip, RSPB Shetland’s Jake Phillips took us out to the SSI blanket-bog site at Lumbister in Yell.
The sphagnum lawns at Lumbister provide nesting habitat for a nationally important range of moorland birds – including Red Throated Divers, Dunlins and Golden Plovers. As well as being home to the biggest sundews we’ve ever seen, rare bog violets, moths and wooly bear caterpillars!
We captured footage of the deepening hues of the landscape at this time of year and heard about the camouflaged, dappled eggs of the ground nesting Whaaps (Curlews) and Bonxies (Great Skuas) - which have inspired Jenny’s bog-nesting-bird apple pies.
Breaking our good-weather luck of the year, our Lumbister visit was cut short due to thunder and lighting that had us running for the cars!
From the safety of our desks, we chatted to Dr Michael Muir Lecturer in Environmental Science and Sustainability at the University of Glasgow about their ‘cup o carbon’ citizen science technique -which will be featured at our Bog Teas event. Michael has prepared ‘cup o carbon’ placemats – so you can match your cup of tea to the different levels of dissolved organic carbon in peatland water. This new technique is an accessible way to gather more data on carbon content in peatland water courses - using tea-cups and your mobile phone!
As we head towards the end of November, we are busy pulling together the results of our year’s learning and field trips: unearthing our experimental bog butter after its three months below ground at Girlsta to see if the results are edible (and maybe even delectable); heading to collect specially distilled bog-bean oil for our installation created by artist Ùna Maria Blyth, practitioner of peat-bog folk magic; finishing the editing of our spring, summer and autumn short films; and testing out the underground bog sounds captured this summer in the space at Hymhus. Not to mention baking frantically to make sure we’ve enough bog-inspired cakes for a Sunday teas!
Want to find out more about Shetland’s peatland and how to get involved in helping protect these amazing environments? RSPB Shetland and Shetland Amenity Trust will be holding stalls and games at our Sunday teas - or you can visit Peatland Actions website.
We’ve been amazed by everything we’ve discovered this year and we’re looking forward to sharing a glimpse o da bog with you over this weekend! Join us for our 'O Da Bog' Installation at Hymhus (Friday 28th - Sunday 30th November, 10-2pm each day) and our O Da Bog: Sunday Teas at Bigton Hall (Sunday 30th November 2-4pm).
This project was funded through Shetland Arts' Creative Shetland Commissioning Fund.
