Mauldsheugh Wood
Community Wildlife Project
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Mauldsheugh Wood
Mauldsheugh Wood is a community wildlife project run by Go Wild Scotland in Selkirk, at the heart of the Scottish Borders.
The project aims to improve the habitat for native wildlife and make it easier for visitors to the woodland to enjoy nature.
A 1km wheelchair accessible path network has been built on the lower part of the wood, funded by grants from Scottish Forestry and the Fallago Environment Fund.
The paths take in the wildlife pond, forest school and bird viewing area and form the basis of a demonstration physical and digital nature trail.
The 20 acre wood is home to badger, fox, roe deer, pine marten and a variety of small mammals including stoats, hedgehogs and voles. Red squirrel have previously been spotted in and around the wood, though are not yet resident – but we hope they will eventually move in.
Otter are present on the Ettrick Water, which runs along the northern edge of the wood, and have been spotted running along the paths and in the water.
Bird life includes sparrow hawks, buzzards, great spotted woodpeckers and tawny owls as well as smaller birds such as long-tailed tits, black caps and goldfinches. Osprey have been sighted overhead and the golden eagles reintroduction programme means sightings of these magnificent birds are also now a realistic possibility, with the birds having been seen near Selkirk this year.
Barn owls hunt in the adjoining field and we have put up two barn owl boxes to provide nesting space, along with a tawny owl box. There is a bird feeding station and more than 50 nest boxes dotted around the woodland, including specialist boxes for treecreepers, along with bat boxes.
To improve the habitat we have planted more than 1,200 trees, including oak, hornbeam, rowan, alder, bird cherry, wild cherry, crab apple and hawthorn.
Our first trees were oak saplings sourced from the Save The Oaks campaign and made available to us through a collaboration with the Sawday’s travel guide. A further 70 rowans grown from seed by a neighbour have also gone in and we now run a tree sponsorship scheme to help fund our work.
We have also created a wildlife pond and continue to plant up the area around it to make it a more attractive habitat for wildlife. Wildflower seeds and pond marginal seeds have been added. The pond has shallow edges to make it accessible for all wildlife.
An open bird hide allows easier viewing of some of the regular visitors to the bird feeding station, including great spotted woodpecker, nuthatch, goldfinch, great tit, coal tit, blue tit, chaffinch, robin and blackbird.
A small forest school area has been created in a clearing using wind-blown timber and this is where we host our nature clubs and other community activities.
Thanks to funding from the Arnold Clarke Community Fund we have installed an art display board in the wood, to show off some of the pictures created by our young visitors.
Nature trail
The innovative physical and digital nature trail was created with the help of funding from Scottish Borders Council’s Build Back a Better Borders fund.
The nature trail features both physical nature tables and digital content including trail camera videos, birdsong and nature quizzes, which can be accessed through the link below.
Visitors can open the pages just by tapping their phones on the nature tables, thanks to the magic of near field communication tags, or scan a QR code.
Visitors to the wood will see that the nature tables have been formed from timber cut from fallen trees. We’ve also fixed rubbing plaques in place to help younger visitors take away a memento of their favourite creatures.
Magnifying posts have also been installed so visitors can see some of the smaller creatures they find in the minibeast mansions we have created as homes to bugs and small woodland creatures.
Get yourself some lovely plants ... See MoreSee Less
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Today we had some little people visit Greig's cabin. It is lovely to see them come in and kick their shoes off. They played, they made some toilet roll bird feeders and they coloured some birds to add to the ones other kids made. They will be varnished and put on the outside of the building. 😁 Just little friends having fun.
If anyone is shopping and wouldn't mind buying a wee bag of bird seed or fat balls i am starting to collect now for winter as our stock is almost depleted. Little bags are easier for me to transport. Or if you would like to make a donation, i can message you the bank details ❤️❤️ ... See MoreSee Less
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This sounds like a really informative event. See post to book. ... See MoreSee Less
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A mention for Selkirk High School 😁 ... See MoreSee Less
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Great idea for kids who love ponies ❤️ ... See MoreSee Less
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Recently i took away the bird spotting book. I have replaced it with a new one. As we are feeding less, you might not see as many, but still let the kids draw what they do see 😁
31 different species of birds have been spotted including, bullfinches which have a vibrant orange colour, and tree creepers which are fun to watch. The feeders were most visited by Mr Robin and his gang at 91 spottings, and Mr Chaffinch beating him with 122!.
Some unusual sightings too which really puts Mauldsheugh on the map for visitors . .. 1 Millenium Falcon, 1 Godzilla, a giant panda and Lord Lucan 😂
Thank you for the lovely drawings and lovely messages from people staying for a visit in the area, it was lovely reading them ❤️ ... See MoreSee Less
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