Welcome to the Corunna Moor, our local nature treasure


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List of species


This is an unofficial website devoted the area I call the Corunna Moor, and to promoting its beauty among local residents. It is the stretch of land bounded by Corunna Road and Corunna Grove from the North, and Royal Aberdeen Golf Club and Don Mouth Crescent from the South. The picture on the left shows an image from google maps (click on the picture to see a bigger version).

Several years ago there used to be buildings here belonging to Aberdeen College or Gordon Barracks (I don't know). They were demolished in 2018. Since then the nature has been reclaiming the land and it is now a home to many species of plants, insects, birds and rodents. Occasionally visited by foxes (mostly in winter) and deer that sometimes stay for a few days and popular with some dog owners.


Let's take a walk...

The entrance to the moor is on the Corunna Road edge almost opposite to the entrance to Gordon Barracks. It is blocked with three rocks. The panorama picture on the top of this website is taken form that place. On your right you see a rowan tree and a Tatar maple. The latter has beautiful red samara in the summer.


On the southern edges there is group of 166 Douglas firs forming a small forest. Some of them, like the one on the right, are more than 40m high. The forest is very pleasant to walk in the spring and winter, while in the summer the grass and weed take over and, at least in the summer of 2022, there are a lot of ticks. On its border with the Royal Aberdeen Golf Course, is a line of whitebeams. They are the same trees that make the beautiful alley on Corunna Road.


While walking along the forest you will see or hear crows, jackdaws, magpies (photo on the left), oystercatchers, pigeons, robins, rooks and other birds. When there is no one walking the magpies often feed on the ground next to the forest. When you approach they disappear in the forest essentially without a trace. On the one hand, they seem to be everywhere, on the other, I found it very hard to take a photo of one. Even when present they are constantly on the move. In the southern corner, the crows and magpies can become very noisy. Half way through the main part of the forest there is a rock where you can sit and look at the moor from the other perspective.


When you sit on the rock the view just in front of you is not very pretty. Just an old concrete floor and, on the right, the ground covered in crushed concrete and stones slowly taken over by grass and even new trees which gives a hope for an expansion of the forest. Looking further we see that most of the area is covered by gorse. It is amazing how quickly the gorse too over the area after the buildings were demolished. Although green for most of the year, it gives a few weeks spectacle of yellow flowers in the spring.


Going further we can continue along the forest and turn left and go along the fence on the Corunna Grove border. However, recently the gorse overgrew the path and it is not straight- forward to get through.

Alternatively, we can go across the concrete floor to the remains of a small road. After the rain, there are ponds of water forming there. We are now next to a group of bushes comprised mostly of cotoneaster and buddleia. In the summer this place is full of bumblebees and you can hear their noise from a distance as they feed on the cotoneaster flowers. Sparrows nest there and possibly some other small birds, like common whitethroat or goldfinch which I saw there and managed to take pictures.


Next to the shrubs is a narrow path through the gorse that leads to the hedges around the gardens of the houses on Corunna Road. Next to the south-west edge of the hedge is a bench with yet another view on the moor and forest. Apart from the gorse, this part of the moor is covered in the summer by beautiful grass (probably alpine reedgrass) and by creeping thistle. By continuing along the Corunna Road edge we pass by several buddleia trees and finish at the entrance where we started.


More animals...

Apart from swarms of bumblebees in the cotoneaster bush, the last part of the walk is good for spotting insects like bees, butterflies or moths. The picture on the left shows a garden tiger moth and on the right are a pair of meadow browns and dark green fritillary on a thistle.


When you walk on the moor you never see mice but they are nearly everywhere. There are several species of them ranging from very small brown with long noses to large grey ones. On the other hand, it is not uncommon to see a hedgehog in the evening. The easiest place to see it is the L-shaped concrete pavement going along the southern edges of the grass and gorse part. Relatively frequently I can see birds of prey, like sparrowhawks and kestrels. When you sit on the bench mentioned above you will see that it is covered with tiny scratches. Essentially, the whole layer of wood has been removed. It turns out that wasps did it. They mix the wood with their saliva and use the substance to build a nest (right).

Of course, there are many more animals living or visiting the moor and countlessly many more species of plants. I will try to provide more information as I learn.


The moor rangers...

There are at least four cats regularly patrolling the moor. Mortka and Małysz (right) are my cats and they often walk around the moor with me or with my wife. That is why I discovered the beauty of this place. Raskolnikov (not a real name; left) is another frequent visitor and (s)he probably lives in the last house on Links Road. Behemoth, a large and aggressive male visits occasionally and I suspect that it may be a feral cat. I saw a few more cats but they are not as frequent visitors as the four ones mentioned above.


Future...

In Aberdeen Local Development Plan 2017 Written Statement, Appendix 2 - Opportunity Sites on page 101 the area is known Aberdeen College Gordon Centre, has the code OP7 and it is classified as mixed use. In addition the document says:

Location suitable for residential or mixed use development. The woodland on site, particularly along the site’s boundaries, should be retained.

I haven't found more recent documents that mention the area. The sentence about retaining the woodland is reassuring. However, it would be nice to keep the unique and natural character of the moor as a whole.










Created out of curiosity and for fun by Jarek Kędra.
Comments and corrections welcome:
kedra☠abdn.ac.uk