Almost



Fortunately, the camcorder is coping better than my DSLR in the fog of grass. Here's some footage that I've taken on recent walks Firstly, a vixen "browsing" - shuffling back and forth across the meadow searching for food. I love her body language as she does this: head low, ears tightly back, concentration intense. I've also included some footage of a roe deer. At least, I thought I was filming only a deer. As you'll see, someone else gatecrashed the scene!



Elsewhere, the birds are active, even if often almost invisible in the treetops. This is, of course, a long-tailed tit:



Out on the golf course, a family of pied wagtails are feeding caterpillars to their fledglings.

Emperor moth



Small tortoiseshell



Early purple orchid (?)



Sleepy slow worm



Female orange-tip butterfly



Sea slater



Border collies trying to join the party



And one rather bigger thing to recall - I seem to end all my trips musing over wolves so I will say little this time, except that ten years of travelling around North America have, obviously, granted me many opportunities to see the ecological impact of the wolf's absence. The worst of problems in the Rockies are arguably exceeded by those in the Cairngorms. Here, it is not elk but red deer which are literally eating everything smaller than themselves out of house and home. The red deer population is far higher than the carrying capacity of the land, and deer fences, everywhere, try to keep them off the roads.



In Yellowstone, aspen saplings disappeared altogether during the 70 years of the wolf's extinction because elk no longer had a natural predator to deter them from grazing in river valleys. The knock-on effect of the habitat damage has harmed everything from beavers to migratory birds. Deciduous trees in the Cairngorms are exhibiting similar problems. I am deeply skeptical of the idea of reintroducing wolves to Scotland because we do not have sufficient publicly-owned land where they could roam safely, but there is no doubt that killing them off was one of the worst ecological mistakes that we've ever made. Maybe one day, things will change...

And maybe then the mountains will seem even richer than they do today.

High latitude brings a dawn that breaks early and a dusk that comes late, but both loiter with long twilight as day and night slowly replace each other. Even once the sun rises, the mountains throw huge shadows across the valleys, but the light, when it can be found, is crisp and clean. And the open countryside is certainly not empty of life

Grey wagtail



Wheatear



Barn swallow



Twite



Siskin (left) and chaffinch



I can usually afford to choose the best light when birds are my targets. But even in the long days of northern Scotland, darkness will eventually come, and it is then, truth be told, that the glens and lakes become much more my element - when the most elusive mammals of all take possession of the land.

May 11 / 12

It is so quiet on the slopes of this broad flat-bottomed valley, smothered and smoothed by the ancient glaciers and now a patchwork of forest and stone walls and meadows that hold ewes that bleat impatiently to playful wandering lambs. The lane is empty. It is rare back home in southern England to find any corner that is free from the constant rumbling of distant traffic and whining of motorbikes. Noise pollution is the blight of our era, but here in Glenelg, silence finds rich sanctuary.

The sun is warm; curiously, it seems hotter at first light than towards midday, and only a few scraps of cloud dot the hard blue sky; but there is an eerie, almost premeditative stillness in the air. Nothing is moving. Everything is waiting. I know that there is more wildlife in this valley than a casual glance would attest - indeed, on our arrival at 11:30pm on the 9th, we chanced to see a pine marten scramble over a low rocky wall and vanish into the gathering night. It was an extraordinarily improbable encounter with this rare and beautiful mustelid, but there is one place in the Cairngorms which promises more.

Now, long journey to the east; wind has remained still, and the lochs hold whole mountains in their gaze.


__

I have often wanted to visit the Speyside Valley, but when I made plans for this trip, I did not foresee for an instant what drama was fated to happen that night. Nobody did

The Cairngorms National Park is Britain's largest, covering a vast swathe of sub-Arctic plateau, rolling mountain chains and heavy pine forests. It is not a pure park in the North American or African sense, and much of the land is exploited by the 16,000 or so people who live in the villages and hamlets scattered across the landscape. It is also suffering extremely heavy damage from red deer overgrazing, the inevitable consequence of the wolf's extinction in Scotland. But while the land will always be incomplete without wolves, there is, obviously, still much that can be found. That afternoon, we caught a brief glimpse of an osprey at Loch Garten and wandered slowly about the mountains, ignoring the gnats buzzing overhead as darkness slowly, so slowly, began to fall



The Speyside hide is owned by a private wildlife watching company, and lies in the forest well away from the main route through the Cairngorms to Avimore. Fees are not cheap, but it is the only place in Britain where pine marten sightings can be considered regular. The hide has outside lights and a certain amount of food is put out to encourage the local nocturnal wildlife to visit. Once in the hide, quietness is encouraged.

And then you wait

I can only imagine that guardsmen in remote forest outposts must feel like this, staring into the darkening skies, waiting, wondering, not daring to glance away for a second. Small movements occupy the attention - wood mice scurrying by the hide windows, tawny owls noiselessly passing back and forth overhead. I need no lectures on how unpredictable wildlife is and yet...these pine martens are to the guide what my foxes in the North Downs are to me, and he knows that they have been deeply unsettled, which is why they are so late in appearing. He also knows that only one of Scotland's wild creatures is a threat to them, and that it must doubtless be close at hand. But how can this even be possible? Even many of the highlanders view their native wildcat as little more than a myth, a ethereal ghost of the old wilderness that died with the last wolf. Nobody sees these cats, except hardened film-makers who spend months in hides like this.

But he is out there, somewhere, in the night.

A shout from the far side of the hide from another guest startles all our attention. He saw a shadow, just for an instant - I suppress a jolting shiver of adrenaline. The guide nods; that is the trail which the local male wildcat is known to use

An hour passes before three martens and two badgers dare to wander by.

It's late. Very, very late.

(I apologise for how dark these photos are but night in the Cairngorms is night indeed...)

Badger





Pine marten



The sky is bespeckled with glistering jewellery when we finally leave the hide. It is well past midnight, far later than anyone had predicted; the cat had reset our schedules, of little practical consequence to most of the guests, perhaps, but my friend and I still have a four hour journey ahead of us back to the west coast. The little crowd disperses. They take their way; we head off on ours, down silent mountain roads in uttermost night.

But the Cairngorms are suddenly brimming with life, as if the animals are thrilling to the almost-complete dispersal of humanity to the places where it lodges for sleep. Red deer, roe deer, owls, rabbits...so many rabbits Rabbits. A prey species. Ought to know what prey attracts...

The clock reads just after 1am. We round a corner on a deserted park lane - and break the car, transfixed, rendered immobile by a sudden gleam of green fire from the road verge like the eyeshine thrown by an emerald lynx.

I recover myself from the shock and reach for the torch and camcorder; but there is little purpose in that. The wildcat flattens itself down in the grass and melts away into the darkness within seconds, allowing us to glimpse enough of its face and tail to be sure of its identity, but certainly not the time to obtain a photographic record. It does not matter.

The slow dawn is rising over the mountains when we finally reach the west. The night has been surreal - it feels almost like a dream.