Verge conservation

Orkney's verges - a habitat highway

Under the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004, we have a duty to further the conservation of biodiversity.

In 2025, we adopted a "one conservation cut per year" approach to roadside verges, with the exception of around 5% of verges that are cut more often for road safety, for example near bends and junctions.

This change supports work by Species on the Edge and others to protect the endangered Great Yellow Bumblebee against further habitat loss. It also supports wildlife more widely, including pollinators that matter to farmers and gardeners alike.

Isn't this just a budget cut dressed up as conservation?

No. While it's true that one cut a year costs less than two or more, the decision to move to a single autumn cut, rather than a cut in the height of May or June, is based on giving a wider variety of wildflowers time to become available as food and refuge for pollinators and wildlife across more of their breeding season. This particularly benefits the endangered Great Yellow Bumblebee, which emerges in summer looking for food and company.

Flowers and wildlife in our verges

Put together with help from the Orkney Field Club and former colleagues Sydney Gauld and Eileen Summers.

Primrose With clusters of pale yellow blooms above soft, wrinkled leaves, the primrose is one of the first wildflowers to appear in spring. Flowering between March and June, it's a welcome sight after the dark days of winter.

Red clover An important food source for many insect species, attracting butterflies, moths and other long-tongued insects, particularly bumblebees. Its leaves also feed some micro moths. Like bird's-foot trefoil, it's sweet-smelling and has a long flowering season, from May to September.

Ragged robin A medium to tall perennial flowering from May to August. Its narrow, "ragged" red petals give the plant its name. Ragged robin has barbed stems with downward-pointing hairs, helping it resist crawling insects such as ants.

Orkney vole Unique to Orkney, the Orkney vole's closest relative is the common vole, found throughout continental Europe. Measuring 10 to 13cm and weighing 30 to 70g, it's twice the size of the field vole found on mainland Britain. Orkney voles eat leaves, stems and roots from a wide variety of plants, and need areas of semi-natural vegetation, such as rough grassland, to survive. They also favour surprisingly wet habitats, and can be found in ditches along roadside verges.

Butterflies Meadow brown, green-veined white and common blue butterflies can regularly be seen along conservation verges. Meadow brown larvae feed on fescues, bents and meadow-grasses. Green-veined white larvae feed on cuckooflower. Common blue larvae feed on bird's-foot trefoil.

These butterflies fly throughout summer: green-veined white has two main flight periods, April to May and late July to early September; meadow brown flies from late June to early September; and common blue flies in July and August.

Great Yellow Bumblebee Increasingly rare, likely due to habitat loss from modern agricultural practices, the Great Yellow Bumblebee is found only in Orkney, Shetland, the Hebrides, and a small population on Scotland's northern mainland coast. It feeds on red clover, knapweed, kidney vetch and other wildflowers found on roadside verges and lightly grazed areas such as coastal machair.

Road verges are home to far more species than these, including hoverflies, spiders, flies and beetles.