The top of Gallowhill, just after the felling of the spruce, left these wisps of birch - and, 13 years later, despite their buffeting in the exposed postion on the hilltop, they are still there.
A stumped photographer
This page is an addition to the collection on Gallowhill - the hill which lies immediately to the north of Moffat in southern Scotland. This addition is largely of photos taken after the felling of the Sitka spruce woods in 2014. These covered the northern part of the hill, a section of the wood which received little coverage before as the
photographic opportunities
were rare. Felling leaves a scene of desolation, but the shock soon passes, and the local vegetation resumes its normal dynamism. Some shots of the beautiful grasses, that took over on the hilltop, are shown below. This page offers space to another form of regeneration: the lambs that are born around the hill each spring.
When harvesting the spruce, contractors often do not cut the broad leafed trees, these can then regenerate. However, they have grown up contending with the evergreens, and although surviving, appear somewhat skeletal on first being exposed to full light
And then there are the broadleaves at the edge of the wood like this beech which had no possibility of growing towards the right-hand side and is now rather lop-sided
This was the
oldest beech
on the hill. Deemed by the foresters to be unable to stand on its own once the woods around it were gone, it was accordingly cut down, much to many locals' dismay
Felling left the hill feeling rather desolate
A (shaky) panorama taken at the north end of Gallowhill
A sunset from the now clear hilltop; just the birch remain
The birch with the grasses that soon sprang up
The debris of felling from before it was covered by grasses
This video lets you feel something of the wind in the grass, that the still photos fail to catch - and the forces the birch must withstand now they have no surrounding pines for protection
The grasses at sunset
Harvesting of the trees, worked its way through the woods, leaving 'about to be felled trees' exposed. A rainbow frames them - with the hint of a second bow
...more grass shots
Squeezing in a couple...
One just for that rainbow
A 360 degree panorama from the top of the hill
The view from the hilltop, after the felling,
looking towards Queensberry.
A group of local people organised themselves to consider the potential for a local buy-out of Gallowhill (not Queensberry, he added hastily!)
The group walk around the hill on the paths...
...that previously had been tunnels through trees
Here the group is at the head of the
strip-wood path
in the deciduous trees that were not touched in the felling
The local community did indeed buy the hill with Scottish Government help. Here the group poses for the record
Ewes, and their lambs in spring, normally abound in the fields that flank Gallowhill. They have...
...not received due attention in the other Gallowhill pages; so they appear on this page as regeneration
Hunterheck Farm
giving context to lambs and a ewe on a field by
Gallowhill to its south-east
Lambs seem naturally to meet and gambol with unrelated fellows
Big Wide World
Trailers...
The next Picture Posting
page is to take you to the Holehouse area of Upper Annandale.
The next page
of the Mosaic Section is to be headed 'Waiting'.
Or go to the contents Go to the contents of the Mosaic Section. of the Mosaic Section.
The last page celebrated the 10th Anniversary of
Some goats (well they are nearly sheep) from Cairo
A different denudation, vast areas of southern Vietnam lost their trees in the American War - some now regenerate 
...guide to this site