KNAPDALE'S WILDLIFE & WILD PLACES
A landscape alive with extraordinary diversity
KNAPDALE - FROM THE GAELIC CNAPADAL, MEANING ‘A LAND OF HILLOCKS AND VALLEYS’
A profoundly evocative, ancient place with ever-changing patterns of colour, sound and smell.
Knapdale is a landscape of skylines clothed in oakwoods. Views of the sea; remoteness, isolation and seclusion, this is a place to stay and soak in one of the most biodiverse pockets of Scotland.
A PROTECTED LANDSCAPE
Nestled in the heart of Knapdale, the Argyll Beaver Centre sits within the Knapdale Woods Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), a National Scenic Area (NSA) and a Special Area of Conservation (SAC). Nearby are two National Nature Reserves (NNR) and the Loch Sween Marine Protected Area (MPA). A short walk to our viewpoint looks out on Dunadd Fort and Kilmartin Glen, one of the richest areas in the UK for prehistoric monuments.
A FOREST TEEMING WITH LIFE
One of the most diverse places in Scotland, Knapdale is as unique as any of our offshore islands, and it’s accessible to all.
Home to some of the finest remnants of Atlantic temperate rainforest - these woodlands allow you to enter a world teeming with ferns, fungi, lichens and liverworts with forms as strange as their names: Norwegian specklebelly, stinky sticta, octopus suckers and many more.
ICONIC SCOTTISH WILDLIFE
Many iconic Scottish species call Knapdale home: red squirrels, pine martens, osprey, otters, roe and red deer are found here, along with the rare marsh fritillary butterfly. Not forgetting a recent returnee: back after 400 years, the Eurasian beaver can be spotted in Knapdale’s lochs and wetlands, making this watery world its own again.
TO THE COAST
Emerge from the forest onto awesome views of our rugged coastline; scattered islands, winding peninsulas and tidal races make up a marine habitat dominated by white-tailed sea eagles, basking sharks, otters, minke whales, harbour seals, dolphins and noisy seabird colonies. Deep beneath the sea cruise flapper skates, the largest of their kind worldwide, below a world of sea fans and flame shells, maerl beds, oysters and spiny starfish.
HEAD FOR THE HILLS
Head into our hills, misty and remote, to spot golden eagles and the rare red and black-throated divers on the moorland lochans.
Late in the year you may hear the roaring of red deer stags as they gather for the autumn rut.
Moine Mhor National Nature Reserve
MOSS, MARSH & ESTUARY
Where the ocean and the land are blurred by the tides lies Moine Mhor, a raised bog that rises from the salt marsh.
Moving in waves of summer cotton grass, the ‘Great Moss’ is home to adders, dragonflies, lizards, frogs and newts, hen harriers and short-eared owls and the blur of a speeding merlin. In spring, the air is filled with the sound of warblers, skylarks, stonechats, blackcaps and curlew. Where the moss meets the sea at the Add Estuary watch for ospreys in summer, and waves of migrant birds in the autumn, attracted by the rich stew of invertebrates.
