The five area types of the Cairngorms National Park.
Mountain
The mountains are unique to the Park – and they’re the place
with the rarest
habitats too. The high plateaux are more like parts of
Greenland than anywhere
else in Scotland. With so much land above 600 metres, the
Park is an important
place for species that need such a cold place to live. It’s
the most southerly site in
Europe for snow buntings, and for many other species the
Cairngorms National Park
is a last outpost.
Forest
Magical places of dappled sunlight
and the scent of heather, imposing cathedrals of
silent pines, or thin scrub on the
mountainside, the great forests of the Park have
evolved from woodland that’s been
here for thousands of years. Together, they
make up the largest area of native
woodland in Britain and are a key part of the
Park’s character. They’re also home
to core populations of wildlife that’s scarce in
the rest of Britain, like red squirrels, crossbills and capercaillie.
Farmland
If there had been better roads to the hungry towns and
cities, the farmland in
the Park might look very different today. But the straths
were too far away from
the markets, and the soil was too poor, for them ever to be
farmed intensively.
That makes them rare survivors, and vital places for birds
such as waders.
Moorland
From the kaleidoscope of landscapes that turns outside the
window of a visitor’s
car, moors are probably the one that makes the biggest
impression. They also
provoke what may be visitors’ commonest question: ‘What are
those funny
patterns in the heather?’ Understanding muirburn (burning
heather), and how moorland is managed
for red grouse, can be a key to understanding many other
aspects of the Park.
Water
Water, frozen and liquid, has moulded the Park. Thinking of
it as one habitat doesn’t
do it justice: it is many. World famous fishing rivers so
clean and natural they are
used as benchmarks for UK water quality standards,
internationally important
wetlands, high arctic lochans and popular places to paddle –
the Park has them all.
Check our www.cairngorms-park.com free to use copy and print map of the Cairngorms National Park.