Item6Appendix3EcologicalReport20190347DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 Appendix 3 13/12/2019

AGENDA ITEM 6

APPENDIX 3

2019/0347/DET

ECO­LO­GIC­AL REPORT

BAL­AVIL ESTATE

ENVIRO Centre

Croft­car­noch Forestry Track Upgrade Eco­lo­gic­al Report

Octo­ber 2019

Croft­car­noch Forestry Track Upgrade Eco­lo­gic­al Report

Cli­ent: Bal­avil Estate Doc­u­ment num­ber: 8893 Pro­ject num­ber: 673065 Status: Final Author: Mike Cole­man Review­er: Kathy Dale Date of issue: 2 Octo­ber 2019

Glas­gow Craighall Busi­ness Park 8 Eagle Street Glas­gow G4 9XA 0141 341 5040 info@​envirocentre.​co.​uk www​.enviro​centre​.co​.uk

Aber­deen Ban­chory Busi­ness Centre Burn O’Bennie Road Ban­chory AB31 5ZU 01330 826 596

Inverness Alder House Cradle­hall Busi­ness Park Inverness IV2 5GH 01463 794 212

Edin­burgh Suite 114 Gyleview House 3 Red­heughs Rigg Edin­burgh EH12 9DQ 0131 516 9530

This report has been pre­pared by Enviro­Centre Lim­ited with all reas­on­able skill and care, with­in the terms of the Con­tract with Bal­avil Estate (“the Cli­ent”). The report is con­fid­en­tial to the Cli­ent, and Enviro­Centre Lim­ited accepts no respons­ib­il­ity of whatever nature to third parties to whom this report may be made known.

No part of this doc­u­ment may be repro­duced or altered without the pri­or writ­ten approv­al of Enviro­Centre Limited.

Bal­avil Estate Croft­car­noch Forestry Track Upgrade; Eco­lo­gic­al Report Octo­ber 2019

Con­tents 1 Intro­duc­tion 1 1.1 Terms of Ref­er­ence 1 1.2 Scope of Report 1 1.3 Site Over­view 1 1.4 Devel­op­ment Over­view 2 1.5 Report Usage 2 2 Meth­ods 3 2.1 Desk Study 3 2.2 Field Sur­vey 3 3 Res­ults 9 3.1 Desk Study 9 3.2 Field Sur­vey 10 4 Track Impact on Eco­logy 14 4.1 Dis­cus­sion of Impacts/​Potential Impacts 14 4.2 Recom­mend­a­tions 15 5 Sum­mary 16

Appen­dices A Loc­a­tion Plan & Sur­vey Res­ults B Pho­to­graph­ic Record

Tables Table 2 – 1: Sur­vey Areas 3 Table 2 – 2: Suit­ab­il­ity Clas­si­fic­a­tion of Roost­ing, Com­mut­ing and For­aging Hab­it­ats for Bats 4 Table 2 – 3: PRFs in Trees and Struc­tures Fre­quently Used by Bats for Roost­ing 5 Table 2 – 4: Guid­ance for Assign­ing Status of Otter Rest­ing Sites 8 Table 3 – 1: Stat­utory Des­ig­nated Sites 9

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Bal­avil Estate Croft­car­noch Forestry Track Upgrade; Eco­lo­gic­al Report Octo­ber 2019

1 INTRO­DUC­TION 1.1 Terms of Reference

Enviro­Centre was com­mis­sioned to under­take an eco­lo­gic­al sur­vey and qual­it­at­ive impact assess­ment of a forestry track on the Bal­avil Estate, near Kin­gussie, Inverness-shire.

Bal­avil Estate has pro­posed a net­work of track upgrades across its land to facil­it­ate their future land man­age­ment object­ives, which include thin­ning the dense, nat­ive-spe­cies plant­a­tion wood­land, des­ig­nat­ing vast tracts of man­aged moor­land for nat­ive tree plant­ing, leav­ing areas fal­low to rewild and regen­er­ate nat­ur­ally, and increas­ing deer man­age­ment in these areas to elim­in­ate brows­ing in order to encour­age nat­ive flora to flourish.

Work on one of these par­tially-con­struc­ted track upgrades, known as Croft­car­noch, was com­menced pri­or to plan­ning con­sent being granted.

The eco­lo­gic­al sur­vey and qual­it­at­ive impact assess­ment was under­taken to inform the plan­ning pro­cess of any poten­tial eco­lo­gic­al con­straints with­in both the com­pleted and pro­posed future sec­tions of the track.

1.2 Scope of Report

The scope of this report includes:

• A desk based review of eco­lo­gic­al inform­a­tion relat­ing to the site; • A field sur­vey of the com­pleted sec­tion of track plus appro­pri­ate buf­fers; • A field sur­vey of the pro­posed future sec­tion of track plus appro­pri­ate buf­fers; • An eval­u­ation of the eco­lo­gic­al fea­tures present (or pre­vi­ously present); • Con­sid­er­a­tion of the impact of the track con­struc­tion on eco­logy; • An opin­ion on the track from an eco­lo­gic­al per­spect­ive in the con­text of the long-term land man­age­ment aims at Bal­avil Estate; and • Require­ments for future sur­vey and monitoring.

1.3 Site Overview

Bal­avil Estate lies approx­im­ately 3km north-east of Kin­gussie to the west of the Ag trunk road, imme­di­ately south of the High­land Wild­life Park and over­look­ing Insh Marshes Nation­al Nature Reserve (NNR) to the east. The Estate con­sists of mixed land-use, includ­ing areas of mixed agri­cul­ture, vast tracts of moun­tains and man­aged moor­land to the west stretch­ing into the Mon­adh­liath Moun­tains which are used for sport­ing interests, and areas of com­mer­cial and non-com­mer­cial forestry, includ­ing Craigbui Wood and Cre­ag Bheag.

The Estate has a long-term object­ive of expand­ing the nat­ur­ally regen­er­at­ing wood­land of Cre­ag Bheag with a nat­ive spe­cies plant­ing régime around Cre­ag Bhalg (in asso­ci­ation with Trees for Life). Anoth­er phase of forest expan­sion involves thin­ning out the dense Scot’s pine plant­a­tion wood­land along the Croft­car­noch track and, fol­low­ing a peri­od of increased deer man­age­ment on Cre­ag Bhuidhe and across the lower reaches of the Estate, allow­ing the open areas of moor­land on Cre­ag Bhuidhe (Craigbui Wood) to rewild and regen­er­ate naturally.

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Bal­avil Estate Croft­car­noch Forestry Track Upgrade; Eco­lo­gic­al Report Octo­ber 2019

1.4 Devel­op­ment Overview

The Croft­car­noch forestry track runs from Ord­nance Sur­vey Grid Ref­er­ence (OSGR) NH 79818 03434, north- west of Gen­er­al Wade’s Mil­it­ary Road, through an area of com­mer­cial plant­a­tion to the south-east of Cre­ag Bhuidhe. It then fol­lows the ori­gin­al track along the north­ern bound­ary of the plant­a­tion to the south-west, before join­ing an exist­ing grassy forestry track at OSGR NH 78708 03147, and run­ning south to its con­clu­sion at OSGR NH 78739 02857, where it meets the main Estate track onto the moorland.

The approx­im­ate length of the Croft­car­noch track is 1400m plus the ini­tial 250m through the plant­a­tion which doesn’t form part of the track upgrade network.

A plan of the area of works, the sur­vey area and the sur­vey res­ults can be found in Appendix A.

1.5 Report Usage

The inform­a­tion and recom­mend­a­tions con­tained with­in this report have been pre­pared in the spe­cif­ic con­text stated above and should not be util­ised in any oth­er con­text without pri­or writ­ten per­mis­sion from Enviro Centre.

If this report is to be sub­mit­ted for reg­u­lat­ory approv­al more than 12 months fol­low­ing the report date, it is recom­men­ded that it is referred to Enviro­Centre for review to ensure that any rel­ev­ant changes in data, best prac­tice, guid­ance or legis­la­tion in the inter­ven­ing peri­od are integ­rated into an updated ver­sion of the report.

Whilst the Cli­ent has a right to use the inform­a­tion as appro­pri­ate, Enviro­Centre Ltd retains own­er­ship of the copy­right and intel­lec­tu­al con­tent of this report. Any dis­tri­bu­tion of this report should be con­trolled to avoid com­prom­ising the valid­ity of the inform­a­tion or leg­al respons­ib­il­it­ies held by both the Cli­ent and Enviro­Centre Ltd (includ­ing those of third party copy­right). Enviro­Centre does not accept liab­il­ity to any third party for the con­tents of this report unless writ­ten agree­ment is secured in advance, stat­ing the inten­ded use of the information.

Enviro­Centre accepts no liab­il­ity for use of the report for pur­poses oth­er than those for which it was ori­gin­ally provided, or where Enviro­Centre has con­firmed it is appro­pri­ate for the new context.

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Bal­avil Estate Croft­car­noch Forestry Track Upgrade; Eco­lo­gic­al Report Octo­ber 2019

2 METH­ODS 2.1 Desk Study

In order to anti­cip­ate the poten­tial eco­lo­gic­al sens­it­iv­it­ies at the site, a desk study was con­duc­ted in advance of the field sur­vey. The fol­low­ing sources were checked:

• Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age (SNH) Sitelink¹ for inform­a­tion on stat­utory des­ig­nated sites with­in 5km of the site; • Records of ancient wood­land and Scot­tish nat­ive wood­land avail­able through Scotland’s Envir­on­ment Web² up to 1km from the site; and • Nation­al Biod­iversity Net­work (NBN) Atlas³ for records (avail­able for com­mer­cial use and less than 15yrs old) of pro­tec­ted or not­able spe­cies with­in 2km of the site.

2.2 Field Survey

The field sur­vey was under­taken by Mike Cole­man, a highly exper­i­enced eco­lo­gist and a Full Mem­ber of the Chartered Insti­tute of Eco­logy and Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment (CIEEM). The sur­veys were designed using guidelines endorsed by CIEEM4. The sur­veys focussed on plants and hab­it­ats on the site and those faun­al spe­cies that are most likely to be found in the hab­it­ats which make up the land­scape in and around the site. The sur­vey was under­taken on 24^th Septem­ber 2019 when lat­er­al vis­ib­il­ity was excel­lent, the weath­er was cloudy (cloud base of approx­im­ately 100m, and an okta cov­er­age of 8/8) with a light breeze (Beaufort Scale 2). It was dry, although there had been rain with­in the pre­vi­ous 48 hours, and the ambi­ent air tem­per­at­ure was 14°C.

The area covered the con­struc­ted sec­tions of the Croft­car­noch track, and the unbuilt, pro­posed sec­tions of the track, with a buf­fer along the entire route to increase the pos­sib­il­ity of find­ing any field evid­ence of pro­tec­ted spe­cies. The buf­fer could also help assess poten­tial dis­turb­ance of pro­tec­ted spe­cies along the pro­posed sec­tion dur­ing the con­struc­tion period.

This sec­tion provides details of the meth­ods adop­ted in the sur­vey areas described in Table 2 – 1.

Table 2 – 1: Sur­vey Areas Habitat/​Species/​Species Group Sur­vey Area Phase 1 Hab­it­at Ground­wa­ter Depend­ent Ter­restri­al Eco­sys­tems Invas­ive Non-Nat­ive Spe­cies Bats Red squir­rel (Sciur­us vul­gar­is) Badger (Meles meles) Pine marten (Martes martes) Wild­cat (Fel­is sil­vestris) Otter (Lut­ra lut­ra) Birds With­in 50m of the centre line of the track (the site) and a 50m buf­fer (the sur­vey area)

1 SNH (2009). SiteLink, avail­able from: https://sitelink.nature.scot/map (last accessed 23/09/2019) 2 Inter­act­ive map avail­able at: https://map.environment.gov.scot/sewebmap/ (Accessed 23/09/2019) 3 Inter­act­ive map avail­able at: https://​nbn​at​las​.org/ (Accessed 23/09/2019) 4 CIEEM (n.d.). Gen­er­al advice on sur­veys and meth­ods. Retrieved from https://​cieem​.net/​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​/​c​o​m​p​e​t​e​n​c​i​e​s​-​f​o​r​-​s​p​e​c​i​e​s​-​s​u​r​v​e​y​-css/ (Accessed 30/09/2019)

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Bal­avil Estate Croft­car­noch Forestry Track Upgrade; Eco­lo­gic­al Report Octo­ber 2019

2.2.1 Phase 1 Hab­it­at Survey

A Phase 1 Hab­it­at Sur­vey is a meth­od that rap­idly records veget­a­tion and wild­life hab­it­at over large areas. The inform­a­tion is used to identi­fy eco­lo­gic­ally sens­it­ive fea­tures, inform addi­tion­al spe­cies sur­veys and, ulti­mately, recom­mend mit­ig­a­tion and enhance­ment meas­ures in con­nec­tion with a pro­posed development.

The Phase 1 Hab­it­at Sur­vey was under­taken accord­ing to the stand­ard Joint Nature Con­ser­va­tion Com­mit­tee (JNCC) meth­od. It was used to inform the require­ments for fur­ther sur­vey to determ­ine the pres­ence of any pro­tec­ted or rare habitats.

2.2.2 Ground­wa­ter Depend­ent Ter­restri­al Ecosystems

The Func­tion­al Wet­land Typo­logy was used to aid the iden­ti­fic­a­tion of wet­land hab­it­ats that derive their water from ground­wa­ter and sur­face water. This inform­a­tion is use­ful in identi­fy­ing if and where fur­ther sur­veys are required to identi­fy the pres­ence and poten­tial sens­it­iv­ity of Ground­wa­ter Depend­ent Ter­restri­al Eco­sys­tems (GWDTES). To help assess ground water depend­ency, obser­va­tions of the loc­al topo­graphy, under­ly­ing geo­logy, and fea­tures such as springs, dif­fuse ground water emer­gence and flor­ist­ic indic­at­ors of base enrich­ment were made.

2.2.3 Invas­ive Non-Nat­ive Species

A check for the pres­ence of invas­ive non-nat­ive spe­cies (INNS) was under­taken, includ­ing but not lim­ited to the following:

• Japan­ese knot­weed (Reyn­outria japon­ica); • Giant hog­weed (Her­acleum mantegazzi­an­um); and • Him­alay­an bal­sam (Impa­tiens glandulifera).

2.2.4 Bats

A brief assess­ment was under­taken in accord­ance with the cri­ter­ia set out by the Bat Con­ser­va­tion Trust (BCT)7. The suit­ab­il­ity of roost­ing, com­mut­ing and for­aging hab­it­at was clas­si­fied accord­ing to the cri­ter­ia in Table 2 – 2 below.

Table 2 – 2: Suit­ab­il­ity Clas­si­fic­a­tion of Roost­ing, Com­mut­ing and For­aging Hab­it­ats for Bats Suit­ab­il­ity Roost­ing Fea­tures Com­mut­ing and For­aging Hab­it­ats High A struc­ture or tree with one or more poten­tial roost sites that are obvi­ously suit­able for use by lar­ger num­bers of bats on a more reg­u­lar basis and poten­tially for longer peri­ods of time due to their size, shel­ter, pro­tec­tion, con­di­tions and sur­round­ing hab­it­at. Con­tinu­ous high-qual­ity hab­it­at that is well con­nec­ted to the wider land­scape that is likely to be used reg­u­larly by com­mut­ing bats such as river val­leys, streams, hedgerows, lines of trees and wood­land edges.

High-qual­ity hab­it­at that is well con­nec­ted to the wider land­scape that is likely to be used reg­u­larly by for­aging bats such as broadleaved wood­land, tree-lined water­courses and grazed parkland.

5 JNCC (2010). Hand­book for Phase 1 Hab­it­at Sur­vey; a tech­nique for envir­on­ment­al audit. Peter­bor­ough: Joint Nature Con­ser­va­tion Com­mit­tee. 6 SNIFFER (2009). WFD95: A Func­tion­al Wet­land Typo­logy for Scot­land; Pro­ject Report. Edin­burgh: SNIFFER. 7 Collins, J. (2016). Bat Sur­veys for Pro­fes­sion­al Eco­lo­gists: Good Prac­tice Guidelines. Lon­don: The Bat Con­ser­va­tion Trust, Ed. (3^rd ed.).

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Bal­avil Estate Croft­car­noch Forestry Track Upgrade; Eco­lo­gic­al Report Octo­ber 2019

Suit­ab­il­ity Roost­ing Fea­tures Com­mut­ing and For­aging Hab­it­ats Mod­er­ate A struc­ture or tree with one or more poten­tial roost sites that could be used by bats due their size, shel­ter, pro­tec­tion, con­di­tions and/​or sur­round­ing hab­it­at but unlikely to sup­port a roost of high con­ser­va­tion status. The site is close to and con­nec­ted to known roosts.

Con­tinu­ous hab­it­at con­nec­ted to the wider land­scape that could be used by bats for com­mut­ing such as lines of trees and scrub or linked back gar­dens. Low A struc­ture with one or more poten­tial roost sites that could be used by indi­vidu­al bats oppor­tun­ist­ic­ally. How­ever, these poten­tial roost sites do not provide enough space, shel­ter, pro­tec­tion, appro­pri­ate con­di­tions and/​or suit­able sur­round­ing hab­it­at to be used on a reg­u­lar basis; or A tree of suf­fi­cient size and age to con­tain poten­tial roost fea­tures but with none seen from the ground; or fea­tures seen with only very lim­ited roost­ing poten­tial. Hab­it­at that is con­nec­ted to the wider land­scape that could be used by bats for for­aging such as trees, scrub, grass­land or water.

Hab­it­at that could be used by small num­bers of com­mut­ing bats such as a gappy hedgerow or unve­get­ated stream, but isolated.

Suit­able but isol­ated hab­it­at that could be used by small num­bers of for­aging bats such as a lone tree or a patch of scrub. Neg­li­gible A struc­ture or a tree with neg­li­gible fea­tures likely to be used by roost­ing bats. Neg­li­gible hab­it­at fea­tures likely to be used by for­aging or com­mut­ing bats.

Poten­tial Roost­ing Fea­tures (PRFs) in trees and struc­tures were iden­ti­fied, as lis­ted in Table 2 – 3 below.

Table 2 – 3: PRFs in Trees and Struc­tures Fre­quently Used by Bats for Roost­ing PRFs in trees fre­quently used as bat roosts Access points in struc­tures fre­quently used as bat roosts Fre­quently used roost­ing loc­a­tions in struc­tures Hol­lows and cav­it­ies from wood­peck­er, rot and knot holes Haz­ard beams and oth­er ver­tic­al or hori­zont­al cracks and splits in stems or branches Gaps in win­dowsills and win­dow panes Top of chim­ney breasts, gable ends and divid­ing walls

Under­neath peel­ing paint­work or lif­ted ren­der­ing All beams and roof beams (ridge, hip etc.) Par­tially detached plated bark Behind hanging tiles, weather­board­ing, eaves, sof­fit boxes, fas­cias and lead flash­ing Junc­tion of tim­ber joints, mor­tise and ten­on joints Cankers, included bark and com­pres­sion forks with poten­tial cav­it­ies Under tiles and slates Behind pur­lins Par­tially detached ivy with stem dia­met­ers in excess of 50mm Gaps in brick­work and stone­work Between tiles/​slates and the roof lin­ing Bat or bird boxes Gaps in ren­der­ing behind gut­ters Under flat roof materials

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Bal­avil Estate Croft­car­noch Forestry Track Upgrade; Eco­lo­gic­al Report Octo­ber 2019

2.2.5 Red Squirrel

A check for squir­rel activ­ity was under­taken based on best prac­tice guid­ance, which involves a search of suit­able hab­it­at (primar­ily con­i­fer­ous wood­land) for two dis­tinct field signs:

• Drey count — dreys are the nests made by both spe­cies of squir­rel in trees. Dreys are dis­tin­guish­able from birds’ nests as they are nor­mally 50cm in dia­met­er and 30cm deep, com­prise a ball shape and are usu­ally densely con­struc­ted. The dreys are nor­mally loc­ated close to the main stem of the tree at a height of 3m or more; and • Feed­ing evid­ence — where cone pro­du­cing trees (con­ifers) are evid­ent evid­ence of squir­rel feed­ing is searched for. Although the two spe­cies of squir­rel can­not be dis­tin­guished from feed­ing remains, the man­ner in which squir­rels break open seeds and nuts, which are then left on the forest floor, is diagnostic.

2.2.6 Badger

A check for badger activ­ity was under­taken in suit­able and access­ible hab­it­at, with ref­er­ence to the meth­od­o­logy described by Scot­tish Badgers (2018)º, which aimed to identi­fy the fol­low­ing field evidence:

• Setts (any struc­ture or place, which dis­plays signs indic­at­ing cur­rent use by badger/​located with­in an act­ive badger ter­rit­ory as defined by the stand­ard guid­ance); • Day beds (above ground areas where badgers sleep, char­ac­ter­ised by flattened veget­a­tion or bundles of grass); • Dung pits (single fae­ces depos­it placed in a small excav­a­tion); and • Lat­rines (col­lec­tion of faecal depos­its often used by badger clans to mark home range bound­ar­ies); • For­aging signs such as dig­gings or snuffle holes (badgers use their snout to turn over veget­a­tion or soft soil to for­age for bulbs and inver­teb­rates); • Paths (net­work of paths gen­er­ally link­ing setts to for­aging hab­it­at); • Breach points (gaps in fences or cross­ing points over roads); • Scratch­ing posts (marks on tree trunks/​fallen trees where badgers have left claw marks); • Guard hair; and • Footprints.

Setts were cat­egor­ised as follows:

Main setts Nor­mally each group of badgers has only one main sett. Main setts usu­ally have sev­er­al holes with large spoil heaps, and the sett gen­er­ally looks well used. There are obvi­ous paths to and from the sett and between sett entrances. Although nor­mally the breed­ing sett and in con­tinu­ous use, it is pos­sible to find a main sett that has some dis­used or dormant entrances. Annexe setts These are often close to a main sett, nor­mally less than 150 metres away, and are con­nec­ted to the main sett by one or more well-worn paths. Usu­ally there are sev­er­al holes but the sett may not be in use all the time, even if the main sett is very act­ive. Note the large spoil heaps at entrance holes. Sub­si­di­ary setts These are usu­ally at least 50 metres from a main sett, and do not have an obvi­ous path con­nect­ing with anoth­er sett. They are not con­tinu­ously active.

8 Avail­able at: http://​www​.forestry​.gov​.uk/​P​D​F​/​f​c​p​n​0​1​1​.​p​d​f​/​$​F​I​L​E​/​f​c​p​n​0​1​1.pdf (Accessed 23/09/2019) 9 Scot­tish Badgers (2018) Sur­vey­ing for Badgers Good Prac­tice Guidelines. Avail­able at: https://​www​.scot​tish​badgers​.org​.uk/​p​l​a​n​n​i​n​g.asp (Accessed 23/09/2019)

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Bal­avil Estate Croft­car­noch Forestry Track Upgrade; Eco­lo­gic­al Report Octo­ber 2019

Out­lier setts These often have little spoil out­side the holes, have no obvi­ous path con­nect­ing them with anoth­er sett, and are only used sporad­ic­ally. When not in use by badgers, they are often taken over by foxes or even rab­bits. How­ever, they can still be recog­nised as badger setts by the shape of the tun­nel (not the actu­al entrance hole), which is at least 25 cen­ti­metres in dia­met­er, and roun­ded or a flattened oval shape (i.e. broad­er than high). Fox and rab­bit tun­nels are smal­ler and often taller than they are broad.

Suit­able for­aging hab­it­at with­in the sur­vey area was cat­egor­ised with ref­er­ence to SNH approved guidance10:

• Primary for­aging hab­it­at (short grazed or mown grass­land and broadleaved wood­lands); and • Sec­ond­ary for­aging hab­it­at (arable land, rough grass­land, scrub and mixed woodland).

2.2.7 Pine Marten

A non-invas­ive check for any suit­able pine marten hab­it­at and any field signs was under­taken. This included:

• Apprais­ing the hab­it­at appro­pri­ately, includ­ing dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing blocks of wood­land of high and low qual­ity in terms of for­aging and den­ning oppor­tun­it­ies; • Search­ing for pine marten field signs (scats and foot­prints) on the track, wood­land paths, or on prom­in­ent fea­tures such as large rocks; and • Identi­fy­ing field signs, includ­ing the vari­ation in the mor­pho­logy of scats and sep­ar­at­ing them from scats of oth­er car­ni­vores where pos­sible (e.g. foxes).

2.2.8 Wild­cat

The site is close to the Aviemore Con­ser­va­tion Area (Wild­cat Action), there­fore a sur­vey for evid­ence of wild­cat was under­taken. This included a search of suit­able hab­it­at for poten­tial den sites such as large log piles, tree roots, rock piles or dis­used mam­mal holes such as badger setts and rab­bit war­rens. The sur­vey also searched for evid­ence of wild­cat pres­ence such as scats (e.g. on prom­in­ent fea­tures such as tree stumps, dead logs or stones), urine spray, prey remains, scratch marks and foot­prints. It is impossible to dis­tin­guish between wild­cat, hybrid, and domest­ic cat from field evid­ence alone, there­fore any poten­tial den sites were mapped for future obser­va­tion usu­ally by cam­era trapping11.

2.2.9 Otter

A brief check was con­duc­ted along the water­courses down­stream and upstream, where access­ible. The sur­vey fol­lowed best prac­tice guidelines¹², and searched for suit­able hab­it­at along with field signs, including:

• Spraints (otter faeces/​droppings used as ter­rit­ori­al sign­posts. Often loc­ated in prom­in­ent pos­i­tions and placed on delib­er­ate piles of soil or sand); Three cat­egor­ies are used for describ­ing otter spraint: Dried frag­men­ted (Df); Dried intact (Di); and Not fully dry (Nd); • Foot­prints; • Feed­ing remains (can often be a use­ful indic­a­tion of otter pres­ence); • Paths/​slides (otter can often leave a dis­tinct­ive path from and into the watercourse);

10 SNH approved guid­ance avail­able at: https://​www​.high​land​.gov​.uk/​d​o​w​n​l​o​a​d​/​d​o​w​n​l​o​a​d​s​/​i​d​/​2​6​3​7​/​b​adger best prac­tice guid­ance badger sur­veys septem­ber 2006.pdf (Accessed 23/09/2019) 11 The Mam­mal Soci­ety (2012). UK BAP Mam­mals. Inter­im Guid­ance for Sur­vey Meth­od­o­lo­gies, Impact Assess­ment and Mit­ig­a­tion. The Mam­mal Soci­ety, Southamp­ton. 12 Chan­in P (2003). Mon­it­or­ing the Otter Lut­ra lut­ra. Con­serving Natura 2000 Rivers Mon­it­or­ing Series No. 10, Eng­lish Nature, Peterborough.

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• Holts (under­ground shel­ter) are gen­er­ally found: Ο With­in trees roots at the edge of the bank of a river; Ο With­in hol­lowed out trees; Ο In nat­ur­ally formed holes in the river banks that can be eas­ily exten­ded; Ο Or prefer­ably in ready-made holes cre­ated by oth­er large mam­mals or humans such as badger setts, rab­bit bur­rows or out­let pipes; and • Couches/lay-ups (couches or lay-ups are places for lying up above ground are usu­ally loc­ated near a water­course, between rocks or boulders, under dense vegetation).

In order to assess their import­ance, the status of otter rest­ing sites are assigned from Low to High accord­ing to Table 2 – 4 below 13:

Table 2 – 4: Guid­ance for Assign­ing Status of Otter Rest­ing Sites Rest­ing Defin­i­tion Site Status Low Fea­ture with lim­ited evid­ence of otter activ­ity – low num­ber of spraints, not all age classes present. Insuf­fi­cient seclu­sion to be a breed­ing site or key rest­ing site, unlikely to have links to the key otter require­ments. Most likely to provide a tem­por­ary ​‘stop off’ for otters when mov­ing through their ter­rit­ory. Loss/​disturbance of such a fea­ture is unlikely to be sig­ni­fic­ant in terms of the indi­vidu­al or pop­u­la­tion. Mod­er­ate Fea­ture con­tain­ing spraint­ing with a range of age classes, but not in sig­ni­fic­ant quant­it­ies. Avail­ab­il­ity may be lim­ited by sea­son, tides or flow. Unlikely to be suit­able as a breeding/​natal site but will be a key rest­ing site and may be linked to oth­er import­ant fea­tures with­in the ter­rit­ory. The impact arising from a loss or dis­turb­ance of such a fea­ture will be determ­ined by the avail­ab­il­ity of more suit­able or well used sites with­in an otter ter­rit­ory. High Fea­ture has a high level of otter activ­ity, includ­ing an abund­ance of spraint­ing of all age classes, large spraint mounds, well used groom­ing hol­lows, paths and slides. Affords a high degree of cov­er and is linked to key fea­tures such as fresh water and abund­ance of prey. May be suit­able as a breed­ing area (spraints may be absent from nat­al holts). The site is usu­ally avail­able at all times of year and at high and low tide/​flow. The loss/​dis­turb­ance of such as fea­ture will often be con­sidered sig­ni­fic­ant in terms of the indi­vidu­al or population.

2.2.10 Birds

Hab­it­ats with­in the sur­vey area were assessed for their suit­ab­il­ity to sup­port breed­ing and over­win­ter­ing birds. Obser­va­tions of bird spe­cies were recor­ded dur­ing the survey.

13 Bas­sett, S., & Wynn, J. (2010). Otters in Scot­land: How Vul­ner­able Are They to Dis­turb­ance? CIEEM In Prac­tice, (70), 19 – 22.

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3 RES­ULTS 3.1 Desk Study

No stat­utory des­ig­nated sites are present with­in the site bound­ary. The stat­utory des­ig­nated sites in Table 3 – 1, below, are present with­in a 5km radi­us of the site bound­ary. They are con­sidered to have a lim­ited phys­ic­al or eco­lo­gic­al con­nec­tion to the site.

Table 3 – 1: Stat­utory Des­ig­nated Sites Site Name Des­ig­na­tion¹⁴ Dis­tance and Ori­ent­a­tion River Spey — SSSI Approx. 500m Insh Marshes south-east SPA Ram­sar River Spey SAC Approx. 500m south-east Insh Marshes SAC Approx. 500m south-east Des­ig­nated Fea­tures Eco­lo­gic­al Con­nectiv­ity Arc­tic charr (Salvelinus alpinus); Flood-plain fen; Breed­ing bird assemblage; Inver­teb­rate assemblage; Meso­troph­ic loch; Osprey (Pan­di­on hali­aetus); Otter; Vas­cu­lar plant assemblage; Whoop­er Swan (Cygnus Cygnus) (non-breed­ing). Limited

Osprey (for­aging and breed­ing); Hen Har­ri­er (Cir­cus cyan­eus) (non-breed­ing); Spot­ted Crake (Porz­ana porz­ana) (breed­ing); Whoop­er Swan (non-breed­ing); Wigeon (Anas penelope) (breed­ing); Wood Sand­piper (Tringa glare­ola) (breed­ing).

Flood-plain fen; Breed­ing bird assemblage; Meso­troph­ic loch; Troph­ic range river/​stream; Whoop­er Swan (non- breeding).

Atlantic sal­mon (Salmo salar); Otter; Sea lamprey Lim­ited (Pet­romyzon marinus); Fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel (Mar­gar­i­ti­fera mar­gar­i­ti­fera). Alder wood­land on flood­plains; Clear-water lakes or Lim­ited lochs with aquat­ic veget­a­tion and poor to mod­er­ate nutri­ent levels; Otter; Very wet mires often iden­ti­fied by an unstable ​‘quak­ing’ surface.

All wood­land in and with­in 1km of the site is con­sidered to be Ancient Wood­land (of semi-nat­ur­al ori­gin), which sug­gests that there has been an ele­ment of forest cov­er in these areas since before 1750, irre­spect­ive of the ori­gin­al proven­ance, plant­ing regimes, or sub­sequent man­age­ment of those woods.

Bio­lo­gic­al records of pro­tec­ted spe­cies and spe­cies of con­ser­va­tion con­cern which may be present with­in suit­able hab­it­ats on site from the NBN Atlas show the fol­low­ing as being present his­tor­ic­ally with­in 2km:

• Otter; • Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos); • Less­er Red­poll (Acanthis cab­aret); • Dun­nock (Prunella mod­u­lar­is); • Wil­low Warbler (Phyl­lo­scopus trochilus); • Spot­ted Flycatch­er (Mus­ci­capa stri­ata); • Cuckoo (Cuc­u­lus canor­us); and

14 SAC (Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion), SPA (Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area), Ram­sar wet­lands of inter­na­tion­al import­ance, SSSI (Site of Spe­cial Sci­entif­ic Interest).

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• Mistle Thrush (Turdus viscivorus).

3.2 Field Survey

3.2.1 Phase 1 Hab­it­at Survey

The fol­low­ing sec­tion should be read in con­junc­tion with Appendix A: Loc­a­tion Plan and Sur­vey Res­ults, and Appendix B: Pho­to­graph­ic Record.

Five Phase 1 hab­it­at types were iden­ti­fied in the sur­vey area as follows:

• A1.2.2 Con­i­fer­ous plant­a­tion wood­land • A1.3.1 Mixed semi-nat­ur­al wood­land • C1.2 Scattered brack­en • D1 Dry dwarf shrub heath • G2 Run­ning water

A1.2.2 Con­i­fer­ous Plant­a­tion Woodland

Wood­land is defined as veget­a­tion dom­in­ated by trees more than 5m high when mature, form­ing a dis­tinct, although some­times open can­opy. Con­i­fer­ous wood­lands are those where there is 10% or less broadleaved in the can­opy. All obvi­ously planted wood­land of any age is included as plant­a­tion, unless it is more than 120 years old, con­sists of nat­ive trees, and has a semi-nat­ur­al wood­land ground flora and shrub communities.

Des­pite being mapped as an Ancient Wood­land of semi-nat­ur­al ori­gin, the main area of wood­land which stands imme­di­ately to the south and east of the Croft­car­noch track is a com­mer­cial plant­a­tion, pre­dom­in­antly con­sist­ing of Scot’s pine (Pinus sylvestris), although there are broadleaved trees present, mainly birch (Betula spp.) and row­an (Sor­bus aucuparia).

Much of the wood­land is extremely dense and con­sists of tall, spindly trees which have a closed can­opy, encour­aging little or no under­storey or ground flora to flourish.

In the south­ern and east­ern parts of the plant­a­tion there is a typ­ic­al Cale­do­ni­an forest ground flora com­pris­ing blae­berry (Vac­cini­um myr­til­lus), cow­berry (Vac­cini­um vit­is-idaea) and heath­er (Cal­luna vul­gar­is). Grass spe­cies, brack­en (Pter­idi­um aquilin­um) and mosses are also present and these become more com­mon as the alti­tude rises and the wood­land floor becomes damper. The most abund­ant mosses are Rhytidiadel­phus squar­rosus, Hylo­co­mi­um splendens, Mni­um hornum, Poly­trichum com­mune, Dicran­ella het­eromalla and sev­er­al Sphag­num species.

In the drier west­ern area of the plant­a­tion, white clover (Tri­fo­li­um repens), cow-wheat (Melampyr­um pratense) and hare­bell (Cam­pan­ula rotun­di­fo­lia) are also present in and imme­di­ately adja­cent to the wood­land along the exist­ing grass track.

A1.3.1 Mixed Semi-nat­ur­al Woodland

Mixed wood­lands are those where there is 10 – 90% of either con­i­fer­ous or broadleaved tree spe­cies in the can­opy. Semi-nat­ur­al wood­land com­prises all stands which do not obvi­ously ori­gin­ate from planting.

This hab­it­at is present to the west of the track and on the east­ern slopes of Cre­ag Bhuidhe above the track.

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The more mature trees (both Scot’s pine and birch) are scattered on the craggy moun­tain­side, with an open can­opy, and a flour­ish­ing ground flora of blae­berry, cow­berry, bear­berry (Arctosta­phylos uva-ursi), heath­er, bell heath­er (Erica cinerea), cross-leaved heath (Erica tet­ralix), sev­er­al mosses, tor­mentil (Poten­tilla erecta), and milk­wort (Poly­gala vul­gar­is). Over this there is an under­storey lay­er dom­in­ated by fre­quent juni­per (Juni­per­us com­munis) in the more open areas, and brack­en at lower alti­tudes, beneath the nat­ur­ally regen­er­at­ing birch trees which are abund­ant over much of the hill.

Juni­per on heaths is an Annex 1 hab­it­at under the EU Hab­it­ats Dir­ect­ive. The sur­vey area falls in Zone 1 accord­ing to the Juni­per Con­ser­va­tion Zones in Scotland15: Self-sus­tain­ing juni­per populations.

C1.2 Scattered Bracken

Brack­en dom­in­ates to the north of the track on the east­ern slopes of Cre­ag Bhuidhe, and is found occa­sion­ally with­in the plant­a­tion. It is present, but rarely, across much of the sur­vey area. Fox­glove (Digital­is pur­purea) is also present along the plant­a­tion edges and with­in the brack­en stands.

D1 Dry Dwarf Shrub Heath

This heath­land con­tains great­er than 25% cov­er of eric­oids or small gorse spe­cies in rel­at­ively dry situations.

The open, west­ern slopes of Cre­ag Bhuidhe con­tain the same ground flora as the mixed semi-nat­ur­al wood­land to the east, but there is no tree cov­er. The flora is dom­in­ated by heath­er, bell heath­er, cross-leaved heath, blue­berry and cow­berry, although there are damper areas which have Sphag­num spp. or oth­er mosses present.

Dry dwarf shrub heath is a UK Biod­iversity Action Plan (UK BAP) Pri­or­ity Habitat.

G2 Run­ning Water

There is one un-named and un-mapped water­course which runs off the east­ern slope of Cre­ag Bhuidhe into the plant­a­tion. A cul­vert has been built under the Croft­car­noch track to allow the water to drain, although the flow was low on the day of the survey.

Run­ning water is a UK BAP Pri­or­ity Habitat.

3.2.2 Ground­wa­ter Depend­ent Ter­restri­al Ecosystems

No wet­lands or poten­tial GWDTEs were iden­ti­fied dur­ing the survey.

3.2.3 Invas­ive Non-Nat­ive Species

No INNS were recor­ded dur­ing the survey.

3.2.4 Bats

The wood­land edges across the sur­vey area and the ripari­an hab­it­at to the west offer suit­able for­aging and com­mut­ing resources for bat spe­cies present in the loc­ale. The hab­it­ats in the sur­vey area link to the adjoining

15 Plant­life — The State of Scotland’s Juni­per in 2015. Plant­life Scot­land, Stirling.

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wood­land, ripari­an and lin­ear veget­ated fea­tures in the wider land­scape. The hab­it­ats in the sur­vey area are there­fore con­sidered to offer Mod­er­ate poten­tial for com­mut­ing and for­aging bats in the loc­ale with ref­er­ence to Table 2 – 2 ​‘Hab­it­at that is con­nec­ted to the wider land­scape that could be used by bats for for­aging such as trees, scrub, grass­land or water’.

No build­ings are present with­in the sur­vey area and no trees on or adja­cent to the site are iden­ti­fied as offer­ing PRFs.

Bats are European Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies (EPS).

3.2.5 Red Squirrel

There was no evid­ence of red squir­rel recor­ded dur­ing the survey.

The area of semi-nat­ur­al mixed wood­land in the sur­vey area is not optim­al red squir­rel hab­it­at due to the high per­cent­age of broadleaved trees and the scattered pos­i­tion­ing of the most suit­able pines.

The plant­a­tion wood­land is suit­able hab­it­at, and there are suit­able con­i­fer­ous hab­it­ats in the wider land­scape, with many of the forestry blocks inter­linked and provid­ing optim­al con­nec­ted for­aging and breed­ing con­di­tions over a wide area. The sur­vey area and its adja­cent environs are there­fore con­sidered highly likely to sup­port a pop­u­la­tion of red squirrel.

The red squir­rel is pro­tec­ted under the Wild­life and Coun­tryside Act 1981.

3.2.6 Badger

No evid­ence of badger was found dur­ing the survey.

The wood­land on and adja­cent to the site is on free drain­ing ground and offers poten­tial hab­it­at suit­able for sett cre­ation, as well as provid­ing con­nectiv­ity to setts in the wider land­scape, although much of the ground is rocky and hum­mocky, and is con­sidered suboptimal.

The sur­round­ing areas, with less rocky ground and easi­er access to agri­cul­tur­al grass­land with a more valu­able food resource, are likely to be prefer­able, and so the sur­vey area is con­sidered unlikely to sup­port any badger population.

The badger