Grantown on Spey – walk in Anagach Woods

This walk was a follow-up to the earlier one on 12 May with a view to comparing Anagach Woods at different seasons, and also of contrasting a single-conifer species Scots pine wood with the kind of richly diverse and formally planted woodlands which have been regularly visited in our September walks with John Miller. The route followed that of the Speyside Way through the woods, that is taking following northerly rather than southerly paths. The day was wet but not unpleasantly so, which enabled concentration initially on the switchbacking landforms created by a multitude of eskers and moraines laid down when the glaciers melted at the end of the last ice age. These have resulted in the formation of an interesting variety of habitats, from dry heath and pinewood to bogs which were originally lochs or small lochans, some now populated with bog pine. An area formerly grazed by cattle but now taken over by soft rush to the exclusion of almost all other vegetation is notable as is a pond representing the most extreme effects of glacier melt in the area.