Tufts & tributaries

I drove up Glenshellach this morning, trying to follow the course of the Black Lynn, the burn which flows through Oban and out into the harbour. 

Unfortunately it's been treated largely as a drain since the town was built, flowing out between buildings, and there are few places where it's really attractive. We in 'Keep Oban Beautiful' want to treat it as our major project, and that means finding a considerable sum of money to eliminate the Japanese Knotweed which lines the banks where it flows between Tesco and Lidl's car parks. The long term idea is to turn it into a wildlife corridor, once we've found out who owns it all.

This morning I traced it further upstream to make sure that there is no knotweed in the tributaries, and after getting permission to rummage along the edges of Travis Perkins' yard - at your own risk mate - and through a couple of building sites I saw most of it and saw no sign of knotweed, though I did see plasterboard, old timber and concrete blocks here and there! Next job is to trace a tributary called the Allt an Tartach, which flows in from the golf course. I'm not sure if there's knotweed up there, but there's apparently Himalayan Balsam! Another job, another day.

I almost forgot - my Blip today is of a lot of grassy tufts in a very wet field up at the end of Glenshellach, just beyond the farthest reaches of Oban suburbia. The slopes around this boggy area are the original source of the Black Lynn. The farmer saw me and had a go at me for climbing over the fence. I apologised and said I couldn't find a gate and was very careful not to damage the fence, but he asked what right I had to be in his f*****g field. I was going to ask about his grassy tufts but changed my mind! They are scattered all over the field and are very striking; I think they might be the Greater Pond Sedge, Carex riparia and are at least two feet high. Any confirmation of their identity would be good!