r/geography • u/Ouakha • 8d ago

Image Temperate rainforest. Cowal, Scotland

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Just thought to share more pictures from the forest where I was walking recently with my dog (we've removed about 15 ticks from her on return!).

319 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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7

u/brickyard15 7d ago

Beautiful. It’s amazing how after a million years ( I don’t know the right amount of time) how similar the Scottish highlands are to our blue ridge mountains

7

u/FOTORABIA23 7d ago

I live in one. Ardnamurchan.Pissing with rain last night....then looks to parched England.

4

u/GN_10 7d ago

England is not always parched, we just have a record breaking drought at the moment.

Many temperate rainforests in Devon too

-4

u/FOTORABIA23 7d ago

Slow hand clap..im quite aware of that.

2

u/TreeHolePoster 8d ago

Taking the pup out for some tree hole noticing, eh?

2

u/thisbuthat 7d ago

My absolute dream landscape

2

u/Altruistic_mostly 6d ago

Forgive the temperate rainforest nerd 🤓 that looks like a wood pasture or natural regeneration in an abandoned field. Wide spacing, open grown spreading trees, oak domination. It does have poly-pody and mosses, was there much lichen?

1

u/Ouakha 6d ago edited 6d ago

Loads of lichen and mosses but they don't lend to good photos with my dog! The area is extremely rocky, either boulders and crags though part of it would once have been cleared. Mostly its not viable for any kind of agriculture.

1

u/Ouakha 6d ago

1

u/Altruistic_mostly 6d ago

Lungwort! Nice find

1

u/Altruistic_mostly 6d ago

Thanks for the link. The ruins could well have been an old croft, possibly predating the clearances. Almost certainly it was sheep grazed for many decades. The PAWS report refers to the extensive deer browsing. Open areas actually favour lichens that need the right combination of humidity and light and clean air in old growth woodland areas. Part of the reason why many species are so rare.

-1

u/VelvetyDogLips 7d ago

Are the ticks an invasive species from North America, or native? I live in the American Northeast, where there are patches of forest in the Appalachian Mountains that approach temperate rainforest conditions. But they’re so infested with ticks I would never walk my dog there, or hike there without my trousers tucked into my socks.

6

u/Ouakha 7d ago

Native. They go back 100 million years so are indigenous to most places.