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Interesting news · Tuesday 28 July
Two Scottish trees make the UK Tree of the Year shortlist
Dumfries and Galloway · from woodlandtrust.org.uk
Photograph · woodlandtrust.org.uk
Two Scottish trees are on the Woodland Trust's ten-strong shortlist for UK Tree of the Year, announced on 22 July. The theme this time is against the odds, and both Scottish entries have taken a lightning strike.
The Balloch Castle Ash stands on the lawn in front of the disused castle on Loch Lomond's southern shore, 150-odd years old and 4.3m round. It has come through a hurricane, ash dieback and the boots of millions of visitors. On 4 August 1996 it also found itself in the audience at an Oasis concert. The other, the Earlstoun Lightning Oak in Dumfries and Galloway, is 475 years or more and carries the scar of a lost limb all the way down to the ground.
Voting closes at 5pm on 29 September. Scottish wildcard entries have taken the title two years running. Maps from the 1850s already marked the Earlstoun tree as the Big Oak of Earlstoun, when it was reckoned to be 300 years old.
Robert Burns's favourite inn, founded in 1610 on a close off Dumfries High Street, with his chair, his bedroom window verse, a whisky bar and a fine restaurant.
A four‑year habitat restoration project at NatureScot’s Caerlaverock National Nature Reserve has successfully encouraged the return of marsh harriers, a rare raptor in Scotland, to the site.
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