If you have been down by the Mire Loch over the last few months, you will have noticed that there has been a lot of work taking place on the Mire Dam. This is because a we have been trying to locate the source of a leak in the dam (which has been getting worse over the last couple of years), and plug it. The dam is of a pretty basic construction - a core of "puddled" or compacted clay, with stone armouring on the side nearest the loch and all buried in an earth structure. ...You would think with such a simple construction it would be easy to find and plug a leak, but it has proved to be somewhat illusive. We have dug several large holes, punched through the concrete spillway and one of its walls, puddled in tonnes of clay, rebuilt the wall and recast the concrete spillway, and we have definitely slowed the leak down, but not stopped it completely. All somewhat frustrating! 


However, now that the breeding season is approaching fast, we have had to put an end to our work down there so that there is time for the water level to come back up ready for the wildfowl to start building their nests (we've been keeping the water level down with a siphon whilst we have been doing our excavations).

So apologies for the noise, and the mess and the disruption. The contractors have tidied themselves off site pretty well, but it still looks pretty scarred at the moment. But once the grass starts growing it will soon heal over. What do they say about eggs and omelettes? Thank you for bearing with us!


Liza.