West Stormont Woodland Group

West Stormont
Woodland Group

Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) SC051682

Join us today to bring Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood into community ownership

So it’s April 2020. What has WSWG been doing this month?

West Stormont was the name used in medieval times to cover the parishes of Auchtergaven, Kinclaven, Logiealmond, Moneydie, Redgorton (Stanley) and the Murthly portion of Little Dunkeld. West Stormont has been chosen as the most suitably inclusive title for the many communities connected to Taymount and Five Mile Woods today. Working with local people to bring Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood into Community Ownership
West Stormont Woodland Group
  • Less than usual, it has to be said!! Our main focus has been working out how we are going to operate during the Covid19 crisis. Like so many people in the current lockdown, we have made a start by participating in some virtual meetings using Zoom to progress WSWG business. Our plans for the drop-in community consultation events are obviously on hold. We are therefore currently investigating how we might carry out the consultation by other means during the coming months. Please stay tuned as we work things out.
  • This past month saw the second monthly blog for WSWG by Margaret Lear, writer, gardener and green woman engaged with change, to help us follow our two woods through the coming seasons. Under the circumstances, this couldn’t have come at a better time. This month’s piece “Ambushed by Birdsong in Taymount Wood” can be read on the WSWG Facebook page and website. It is an absolute delight which will hopefully carry you and your senses through our springtime woods without even leaving home!

WSWG Word of the Month – April

  • Origins of names often cause debate. One theory is that April was named after Aphrodite, the goddess oflove, beauty and fertility. Another cites the Latin word “aperire”, meaning “to open”, referring to the opening of buds and flowers in the spring. Both are apt and plausible, and reflected throughout Taymount and Five Mile Woods at this time of year. Spring flowers like lesser celandine, pussy willow and gorse open up to provide nectar and pollen for queen bumble bees as they emerge from hibernation. Insects hatch. Frog and toad spawn too. Birds are raising their broods. You will see bats feeding most nights after their long hibernation. And with luck and a keen eye, there might be sightings of red squirrel kittens starting to venture out close to the breeding drey with their mothers.

What’s coming up next?

  • What we are looking for is help from you all to keep the connections going between our woods and our community.
  • Help us imagine April in the woods. Stanley Development Trust is promoting local walking routes for people to use during the Covid19 crisis. If any of you are managing to walk, run, cycle or ride through Taymount or Five Mile Woods in the course of your daily exercise allowance, please let us all know what you see and hear. Tell us what flora and fauna you see, what sounds you hear, any ideas you have for the woods in future and even any problems you come across. If you can, do send us photos or video clips, even a selfie with a seasonal woodland scene behind, which we can post on the Facebook page and website.

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Previous Articles

Community Monthly Update – November 2023

We are really thrilled to let you know that Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) has approved WSWG’s Revised Wildwood Proposal and Business Plan for Taymount Wood. This is the first big goal achieved in our Community Asset Transfer Process to bring Taymount and Five Mile Woods into community ownership!

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Community Monthly Update – October 2023

A highlight for the WSWG Project this month has been the timely teaming up of a group of employees from Aviva in Perth with some unexpectedly lovely autumn weather for a day of corporate volunteering. On 2 October, five enthusiastic Aviva colleagues spent the day with WSWG in the middle of Taymount Wood on a range of interesting and very useful tasks, quite a contrast to their usual office based working environment.

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Community Monthly Update – September 2023

Given the distinctly seasonal change in the weather of late, we thought we would bring our Word of the Month up to the top of our September update. Psithurism: (Noun) The sound of wind in the trees and rustling of leaves, from “psithuros”, the Greek word for whispering. Enjoy your woods this autumn!

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Community Monthly Update – August 2023

This month we really want to share with you a wonderful event we had – the joint woodland picnic on 22 July with Tayside Woodland Partnerships (TWP). We pitched our gazebos in a lovely grassy glade in Taymount Wood and set out a delicious picnic spread courtesy of Alison’s Kitchen in Blairgowrie – quiches, sausage rolls and cakes galore – on portable tables kindly lent to us by Stanley Village Hall. More food and home-baking was brought by the picnickers themselves. Despite weather forecasts to the contrary, it was a beautiful day with not a drop of rain or drizzle. After lots of great chat and good food, we heard a little about each of our organisations’ respective projects and then took a walk up the main track to King’s Myre Loch.

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Community Monthly Update – July 2023

First up this month is for us to say a big thank you to a lovely group of young people from Ochil Tower School in Auchterarder who had come on a mini-bus trip to visit Taymount Wood on 21 June … and just did a litter-pick whilst they were there!! What a great example of being good citizens – enjoying the environment and taking care of it together.

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Community Monthly Update – June 2023

We want to start with a big thank you to all WSWG volunteers who helped in the Wildflower and Mining Bee Rescue Mission this spring. Many times more wildflowers have come through along the various stretches of raked verge than would have been the case had they remained swamped by gorse mulch and, as seen in the photo here, mining bees have successfully emerged where the track surfaces were cleared to help them out too. And of course the cleared sections of track make for more comfortable going again for walkers and dogs. Lots more areas still need attention, and we will keep doing what we can when we can, but thank you again to everyone who helped make a difference for nature this spring.

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