Culbin Sands, Forest and Findhorn Bay is a large area of coast and countryside and an

SSSI A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

(site of special scientific interest) in

Moray Moray ( ; or ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with a coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland. Its council is based in Elgin, the area' ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, stretching from just east of the town of

Nairn Nairn (; ) is a town and former royal burgh in the Highland (council area), Highland Council council areas of Scotland, area of Scotland. It is an ancient fishing port and market town around east of Inverness, at the point where the River Nair ...

eastwards to the village of

Findhorn Findhorn ( or ''Inbhir Èireann'') is a village in Moray, Scotland. It is located on the eastern shore of Findhorn Bay and immediately south of the Moray Firth. Findhorn is 3 miles (5 km) northwest of Kinloss, Scotland, Kinloss, and abou ...

and its bay. All of the areas are very important for wildlife in general and are strongly protected by law. The Culbin Sands are known in Gaelic as Bar Inbhir Èireann.

Culbin Forest

This huge forest is almost completely owned by the

Forestry and Land Scotland Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) () is an executive agency responsible for managing and promoting Scotland's national forest estate: land, predominantly covered in forest, owned by the Scottish Government on behalf of the nation. It was formed o ...

. It is split by several large paths and smaller tracks in between. The densely covered areas off these paths are difficult to traverse. Most walks are taken beginning at the south of the forest at Wellhill Car Park and ending at the beach. Among the trees there are several strange monoliths bearing messages, and at one tree there is a small plaque commemorating its planting by

Prince Charles Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. Charles was born at Buckingham Palace during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, and ...

. Although mostly made up of tall

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

s and coarse ground cover, Culbin also has many more open, sandy patches in the forest, where small younger trees have recently been planted. The grassland areas are very suitable for

butterflies Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

. There are several ponds which act as

oases In ecology, an oasis (; : oases ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environmentcrested tits. The forest is also an important site for the Kentish glory moth (Endromis versicolora), which exploits the forestry activity carried out by

. The timber

felling Felling is the process of cutting down trees,"Feller" def. 2. and "Felling", def. 1. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' 2nd ed. via CD-ROM (v. 4.0) © Oxford University Press. 2009. an element of the task of logging. The person cutting the trees is ...

generates spaces for

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 3 ...

saplings to take root, the larval food plant of the moths, which prefer saplings under three metres tall. The moths follow the timber felling around the forest, and the adults can be seen in April and May.

Culbin Sands

Nowadays the name "Culbin Sands" means a beach, but formerly the name meant a large area of loose dune sand desert which is now the Culbin Forest. In its heyday, the dune system was the largest in Britain. This long strip of pristine beach is owned by the

RSPB The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a Charitable_organization#United_Kingdom, charitable organisation registered in Charity Commission for England and Wales, England and Wales and in Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, ...

, due to its excellent bird habitat, home to

Eurasian oystercatcher The Eurasian oystercatcher (''Haematopus ostralegus'') also known as the common pied oystercatcher, or (in Europe) just oystercatcher, is a wader in the oystercatcher bird family Haematopodidae. It has striking black and white plumage, a long st ...

Eurasian curlew The Eurasian curlew or common curlew (''Numenius arquata'') is a very large wader in the family Scolopacidae. It is one of the most widespread of the curlews, breeding across temperate Europe and Asia. In Europe, this species is often referred ...

common redshank The common redshank or simply redshank (''Tringa totanus'') is a Eurasian wader in the large family Scolopacidae. Taxonomy The common redshank was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of hi ...

s and other birds. It is made up of a curious mixture of sand and long grass, but gets muddier further westwards. Much natural driftwood ends up on the sands. Three sand spits enclose a large

salt marsh A salt marsh, saltmarsh or salting, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. I ...

known as 'The Gut'. The largest, known as 'The Bar', is the largest spit in Scotland. Towards

, the beach is home to a wintering population of pale-bellied brant geese, one of only two in Scotland. The birds belong to the

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of continental Europe, mainland Europe, it lies about midway be ...

population. In 1888 and 1889, the dunes hosted breeding pairs of Pallas's sandgrouse, the only time this has ever been recorded in Scotland. The sands had a reputation for shifting, engulfing homesteads. This was due to removal of marram from the dunes for thatching, as the roots helped to hold the soil together. The

Forestry Commission The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the management of publicly owned forests and the regulation of both public and private forestry in England. The Forestry Commission was previously also respons ...

(now Forestry and Land Scotland) sought to stabilise the dune in much a similar method by planting scrub, before giving the land over to forestry.

Findhorn Bay

The 'Bay' is not a true bay at all, but a large tidal basin. It is enclosed by the villages of Kinloss and

to the east, and Culbin Forest to the west. It drains the river Findhorn and the Muckle Burn. Opposite Findhorn Village, the beach is home to a mixed colony of

grey Grey (more frequent in British English) or gray (more frequent in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning that it has no chroma. It is the color of a cloud-covered s ...

and

common seals The harbor (or harbour) seal (''Phoca vitulina''), also known as the common seal, is a true seal found along temperate and Arctic marine coastlines of the Northern Hemisphere. The most widely distributed species of pinniped (walruses, eared sea ...

Common eider The common eider (pronounced ) (''Somateria mollissima''), also called St. Cuthbert's duck or Cuddy's duck, is a large ( in body length) sea-duck that is distributed over the northern coasts of Europe, North America and eastern Siberia. It breed ...

s can be seen offshore and

European herring gull The European herring gull (''Larus argentatus'') is a large gull, up to long. It breeds throughout the northern and western coasts of Europe. Some European herring gulls, especially those resident in colder areas, bird migration, migrate furthe ...

s fly around the general area. On the southern side of the bay, there is a brackish pool frequented by waders such as the

greenshank The common greenshank (''Tringa nebularia'') is a wader in the large family Scolopacidae, the typical waders. The genus name ''Tringa'' is the Neo-Latin name given to the green sandpiper by Aldrovandus in 1599 based on Ancient Greek ''trungas'' ...

in migrant season. In the winter, the bay is home to a roost of at least 10,000

pink-footed geese The pink-footed goose (''Anser brachyrhynchus'') is a goose which breeds in eastern Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard, and recently Novaya Zemlya. It is migratory, wintering in northwest Europe, especially Ireland, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and ...

. The flock is exploited by fowlers, leading to some tensions locally with animal lovers. The bay is deepest in the channel leading out to the

Moray Firth The Moray Firth (; , or ) is a roughly triangular inlet (or firth) of the North Sea, north and east of Inverness, which is in the Highland council area of the north of Scotland. It is the largest firth in Scotland, stretching from Duncans ...

, reaching up to 10 metres. Other than that, the bay is predominantly shallow, the average depth being circa 2 metres. Due this safety, and lack of strong swell, the bay is popular with amateur sailors and windsurfers.

History

There was a village situated to the North East of the Culbin Forest, although the exact location is not known. Reports of the village and land around it being buried in sandstorms of 1694, as reported by several major channels, was not captured in the news records of the time. Stories of the village being buried by sandstorm are based in folklore. However, recordings of this time (still stored by the Local Heritage Centre in Elgin, Moray) mention the town and its deforestation of the Culbin Forest, which resulted in destabilizing the land between the village and the mainland. This allowed the sea to corrode the land and, eventually, sink the town. This was the same scenario also impacted the village Findhorn, which used to extend further north into the Sea. Due to the extent of the Culbin deforestation by the Village of Culbin, the Culbin Sands sat empty until the 1920s when the Forestry Commission planted the area with pine trees over a period of 40 years.http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w163m BBC Radio Scotland radio feature "Walking Through Landscape", Episode 5, on Culbin Forest and Sands

Notes

References

External links

Abandoned Communities ... Culbin and Findhorn
{{DEFAULTSORT:Culbin Sands, Forest And Findhorn Bay Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Moray and Nairn Estuaries of Scotland Landforms of Moray