It’s time for a commentator’s curse: spring has definitely arrived! Which means that outside birds are returning, moths and butterflies are appearing and everything is starting to grow again. All good news, especially at Portmoak Moss. Except the bit about everything starting to grow.

Most of it we like, but we’re not keen on birch saplings sprouting on the raised bog. They suck water out and prevent sphagnum moss from growing. If we didn’t do anything about it, in a few years the whole of the Moss would be covered with birch scrub. We’d lose our open views and even worse, we’d lose the unique raised bog eco-system which we’ve been patiently restoring for almost 20 years.

Time for action. For quite a while birch regen has been controlled using chemicals - weedkillers - which is an easy way to do it, but needs doing every year. We’d like to find a more sustainable method so we’re experimenting with birch popping and pulling. Pulling is easy to understand. The smallest saplings can be yanked out by hand, but bigger ones have bigger roots and that’s where the poppers come in. They have jaws to grip the trunk and a long lever to pop the tree out, roots and all. We bought 2 poppers last winter and we’ve been experimenting with them. Then in March a team from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) joined us to put in a concentrated day of popping and pulling. SEPA employees are allowed to spend a workday taking part as volunteers on a suitable scheme. Popping and pulling on the Moss was a great opportunity to get out of the office for a day and get on with some practical work in the environment. It turned out to be good fun too and we cleared an area of about 150 square metres.