Mosses, stiles and long Scotch miles

I  climbed up the long hill to the moor to see if the local council had cleared the old route to what was once common land.  The Moss Road is at least medieval and  probably much older.  It allowed the villagers to take their stock, their cattle sheep and goats, up to the moor for summer grazing.   It also provided access to the high bog land where they could cut peat.  Many of the farms around the area still have the right to cut peat.    
The old road was as overgrown as ever but I circumnavigated the whins and rank undergrowth and reached the moor.  Eventually, I arrived at the Long Moss now designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest. An SSSI.

Alder carr

It is a raised bog, home to a variety of plants and mosses; alder and willow carrs like small islands in a sea of heather; snipe who spring up from their watery rests with that characteristic zig-zag flight that tempts the shooters and, in the summer, adders and  small copper butterflies.

The beauty of the moss

Our coast has quite a low rainfall and the survival of the bog, its not drying out in the summer, is apparently due to the sea haars, the dense mists that encroach on to the land in July and August just when the sun is at its warmest.  It is true that a few miles inland, folk will be basking in blazing sunshine while we shiver in swirling wet clouds.    Given the continued existence of the Long Moss or a summer free from mists, I  suspect locals would happily do without their SSSI.
Since it persists, we might as well get some benefit from it. In the past it would have been extensively dug for peat for fuel hence its name.
The old Scots word for a peat bank is a moss.  

 Today, it lies alongside giant wind turbines. Where once cows and sheep grazed, the wind is farmed for energy.   Where people dug their peat for fuel, they now capture the wind to provide their heat and light and at a much greater profit.
Ancient cairns and quern stones amid the heather suggest that the bog is at least partially due to the activities of humans.

Quern

 The felling of trees, the subsequent working for peat, and, recently, the legislative preservation of its current state have all contributed to what is there today. What it was like two thousand or four thousand years ago might have been very different.   The lack of grazing means the establishment of scrub trees and heather. The moss will change as it always has in response to the activity or lack of activity from mankind.