Sarah Watts

Sorry to be that person to ask, but did you get permission from the National Trust for Scotland to use their annotated photographs on your own social media? These photos are from the Mar Lodge Estate Facebook page.

Book your #ScotBotanistsConf place now! Its going to be a fantastic day @thebotanics.bsky.social, with brilliant talks on restoring montane woodland, Tufted Saxifrage, urban flora and much much more!
@sarahwatts.bsky.social @plantlifeuk.bsky.social @botsocscot.bsky.social @naturescot.bsky.social

My best botanical day of the year! While hillwalking in the #Cairngorms we discovered a new, unrecorded population of the ultra rare Marsh Saxifrage (Saxifraga hirculus). This beautiful upland plant is a protected species & only found at a few sites in Scotland. #WildflowerHour #MountainFlowers

Making the most of flower power! This week at #Corrour we have been repeat #monitoring to determine if our tall herbs and upland calcareous grasslands are continuing to recover after a reduction in deer densities on the estate. It's wonderful to study these lovely plants in a dynamic landscape!

Volunteers from our Tree Seed Collection Project recently visited Ben Lawers NNR for their annual trip to learn more about montane tree species.

Montane scrub is a rare and fragmented #habitat found in mountainous regions, where dwarfed #trees and shrubs dominate. 🌿

Learn more 👉 bit.ly/3IfJ2wq

An interesting early morning start joining #forestry #PhD researcher Ben Wilson from @stir.ac.uk recording the #moths found in light traps set up at Loch Ossian woods on #Corrour. My favourite find of the day couldn't help but be the large & very charismatic Poplar Hawk-moth (Laothoe populi)!

🥰

Here's the delighted face of someone who has just said "This looks exactly like Carex rariflora habitat"...moments before finding Carex rariflora (Mountain Bog-sedge)! We've got our eye in on this Nationally Rare high-altitude plant & the special places it occurs. #WildflowerHour #MountainFlowers

Lovely time botanising in the #Cairngorms finding Alpine Speedwell (Veronica alpina), Alpine Cat's-tail (Phleum alpinum), Alpine Foxtail (Alopecurus magellanicus), & a new record of Scottish Pearlwort (Sagina x normaniana) last recorded at this site 24 years ago!
#WildflowerHour #MountainFlowers

You too! Thank you for showing us the Carex x limula 😁

Want to see a map of where mega-rare Alpine Catchfly grows in Britain?
Check out its #PlantAtlas2020 page:
plantatlas2020.org/atlas/2cd4p9...
Our online Plant Atlas has pages for 3,495 plants with maps, info on conservation status & trends plus galleries of photos: all free for you to use & enjoy!

How many #montane #scrub enthusiasts can you fit around a relict montane willow? We found out on a #Mountain #Woodland Action Group field trip to #Dalnacardoch Estate last week, while discussing exciting potential options for #regeneration & #restoration alongside landscape-scale deer management.

This is one of the two known Uk sites - with by far the largest population 😄

The ultra-mega-rare #Alpine Catchfly (Silene suecica) is only found in two sites in Britain! We were absolutely delighted to see it in full flower today while botanising in the #Cairngorms; growing on a very unusual high-altitude serpentine rock rich in magnesium. #mountainflowers #wildflowerhour

Here's a plant that only occurs at one single place in the ENTIRE WORLD!! How special to see the #endemic Scottish Mouse-ear (Cerastium fontanum subsp. scoticum) in the #Cairngorms showing off its lovely long petals today, also alongside Cyphel (Cherleria sedoides). #mountainflowers #wildflowerhour

Delighted to have completed Phase 3 of our multi-year #peatland #restoration project at #Corrour with Peatland ACTION! The 245ha at Loch na Lap brings our total for this particular project to 648ha, & our overall peatland restoration area on the estate up to 870ha. Works by Barker and Bland.

How wonderful to receive these photos from the @treesforlife.bsky.social Dundreggan tree nursery who have been growing montane willows for us. These precious plants are to become our future seed stand for Whortle-leaved Willow on #Corrour; a high-altitude specialist listed as Endangered in Britain.

One of my very favourite jobs of the year: #monitoring our #montane #willows at #Corrour! These Downy Willow saplings were planted two years ago & they're flourishing, all on the open hill without the use of fencing. I'm looking forward to surveying some of our other planting sites next week. 🤗 🤩

I had a fantastic #fieldwork day this week planting Downy Willow (Salix lapponum) saplings for an experiment designed by PhD student Rory Abernethy @stir.ac.uk. Their growth & survival will be assessed as part of #research on Sitka Spruce colonisation at the treeline in Scotland.

I had a very interesting, unique & fun day of sunny #fieldwork this week on Ben Ledi with our University of Stirling 1st year PhD student Rory Abernethy who is studying Sitka Spruce colonisation at the treeline in Scotland. We were tagging trees for a planned experiment @stir.ac.uk.

I had a very productive & enjoyable day of #fieldwork last week promoting #montane #willow #conservation! Great to join a team from @hutton.ac.uk & Catkin Ecology working in Glen Lochay to collect cuttings for creating new local provenance seed stands from five threatened willow species!

Fantastic weather this weekend for a round of the epic "Fisherfield 6" in the North-West Highlands, featuring plenty of sunshine, wind, deer, mountains, ridges, scrambling, bog, big river crossings, & some very remote Scots Pine indeed. 🔭🤩🥰💪🏔️☀️

We've begun a #riverwoods #restoration trial at #Corrour through the Loch Abar Mòr partnership. These small unfenced seed islands are intended to provide cover & nutrients along the river where seed sources are currently lacking. I'll be #monitoring their progress! #naturerichLochaber

Rainy day roadside botanical safari staring the stunning arctic-alpine Purple #Saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia) this weekend at Ben Lawers! #WildflowerHour #NTSBenLawers #botany #

We've planted more trees in our bespoke #montane #willow seed stand at #Corrour! These arctic-alpine Downy Willow are cuttings from wild plants on the estate. The stand has clones from 92 individuals to upscale seed production for the local area. It's the largest stand for this species in Britain!

It was fun to take part in the panel discussion on nature restoration at #SNSC2025 this week with Professor Colin Galbraith, Nikki Yoxall, Ashleigh Kitchiner & Clive Mitchell. My advice to my early career peers to "embrace nerdiness, as much as possible" certainly got quite the reaction! 💪🤓

It was fantastic to be invited as a #keynote speaker at Scotland's Nature Student Conference #SNSC2025 this week & share my enthusiasm for mountain woodland #restoration! I really enjoyed hearing about lots of exciting ongoing research & joining the afternoon panel discussion @scotnsconf.bsky.social

Prof Mat Williams, Chief Scientific Advisor for Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture to Scottish Government, laying out some harsh truths about the state of nature in Scotland right now: 15% average decrease in Scottish wildlife since 1994; 47% of our flowering plants have decreased in distribution since 1970; 11% (1 in 9) of Scottish species are threatened with extinction; 49% decline in Scotland's seabirds between 1986 and 2019. Find out more about Mat and his role here: https://www.gov.scot/about/how-government-is-run/directorates/environment-and-forestry/chief-scientific-adviser-environment-nat-resources-agriculture/

Sarah Watts, PhD student at University of Stirling, Conservation Manager at Corrour Estate, BSBI Committee for Scotland member and all round force of (and for) nature, speaking about the fantastic work she is doing to understand and restore Scotland's highly threatened arctic-alpine mountain woodland. A fantastic demonstration of research and conservation action coming together for the betterment of Scotland's wildlife and habitats and opening the door for nature-based solutions to environmental problems such as flooding and erosion

Two key messages from #SNSC2025: we have a big problem, but we can do something about it.
@scottishgov.bsky.social CSA Mat Williams laying out reality - 47% native plants in decline, 1 in 9 Scottish species threatened with extinction, & @sarahwatts.bsky.social sharing hope for mountain woodlands

Great to get along to @scotnsconf.bsky.social this week - two great days at RBGE talking to student naturalists about wild plants and their interests. We talked skill levels, training, data, recording, Sticky Catchfly and arctic alpines (obviously inspired by @sarahwatts.bsky.social!)

Time for our exciting panel discussion on “Nature Restoration and the role of people” in both Scotland and globally! #SNSC2025 @naturescot.bsky.social