While Loch Lomond rangers are asking visitors to avoid nesting ospreys, further north in the Cairngorms the national park has issued similar warnings about capercaillies, Scotland’s largest ground-nesting bird, whose breeding season has just begun.
With the area’s pine forests home to about 80% of the UK’s depleted and fragile population of capercaillies, which are sensitive to disturbance, the Cairngorms National Park Authority has asked visitors to stick to waymarked paths and keep dogs on leads.
A common lizard is seen at the Muir of Dinnet nature reserve. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian
David Pickett, a national reserve manager for NatureScot, will be watching the adders and lizards at Flanders Moss, in west Stirlingshire. “They’re not long out of hibernation and need to sunbathe to build up their resources,” he said. This is the time of year when male adders “dance”, entwining together as they compete to mate with females, and they can be very sensitive to disturbance.