Comrie Community Website

Natural Comrie

Comrie and its woodlands and mountains are home to an abundance of birds and other wildlife.

Birds

The area supports many varieties of habitat, from the mountains and moorland surrounding it through woodland and farms to rivers passing through the village. It is also one of the remaining refuges of the Red Squirrel.

In addition to the usual birds of prey such as kestrels and peregrine falcons there have been recent sightings of pairs of red kites as they steadily settle in areas northward of the bird sanctuary at Arcaty, where they have been re-introduced. Even ospreys can sometimes be seen. Summer days are punctuated by the cries of the buzzards lazily circling on the thermals created by the hilly surroundings.

Corncrakes, oystercatchers and cuckoos can be seen and heard in the surrounding fields. Sandmartins, swallows and swifts fill the air in the spring. Blackbirds, robins, thrushes sparrows, chaffinches and a wide range of tits throng to gardens. Both green and greater spotted woodpeckers can be seen in the area, sometimes coming down to the bird tables. Pied and grey wagtails play in the streams with the occasional visit from dippers not forgetting the almost ever present herons. Tawny and barn owls are visible around late afternoon and dusk, also Blackcock can still be found. On the hills out towards Braco the occasional capercaille can be sighted.

Wildlife

There are numerous opportunities to observe wild life, such as deer, mountain hare, feral goats and even red squirrels. The sighting of deer in the early morning moving gently through the mist in the roadside fields is common place whilst to view mature stags you may need to exert yourselves and head up onto the surrounding hills.

Three miles north of the village of Comrie before reaching the smaller village of St Fillans, is the north-east gateway to the recently formed "Loch Lomand and Trossachs National Park"(external link)

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