Absolutely. In fact, not just children, all of us should have this right. Nature matters to the well-being of everyone. Ā Ā
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@inspiredbynaturejmh
Absolutely. In fact, not just children, all of us should have this right. Nature matters to the well-being of everyone. Ā Ā
Into the Autumn Woods: A carpet of orange leaves leads my way.
Some of the ancient ceremonial sites - cairns, graves, standing stones and stone circles - around Kilmartin in Argyll. A remarkable and very atmospheric area of Scotland - and the birthplace of kings!
Over the sea to ... the Isle of Mull
Wild Waterfall: Falls of Fannoch near Loch Lomond
A short leg stretch brought us to these 10 metre high falls on a misty autumn day.
The story of an Australian family who rescued a āa tiny, scruffy, injuredā chick ā who went on to rescue them
When we nurture nature, nature nurtures us right back.Ā
Leaves turning at Harcourt Arboretum
Wild Autumn Fruits
A slight hint of Autumn in the air at Warburg Nature Reserve today.
Seeing this beautiful young hedgehog (the first I have seen in 2016) quite made my day. Its got another month or so to put on the weight it needs to survive hibernation. Fingers-crossed it will be fine.
The Brochs of Glenelg
Hidden up a charming valley just the other side of Glenelg, are two ancient stone towers: Dun Telve and Dun Troddan. Constructed about 2,000 years ago, the fact that large parts of them are still standing (well mostly) is a testament to the skill with which they were built. They are thought to be pictish defensive towers each of which housed a large family. Their double skinned hollow walls gave them strength allowing them to stand up to 10 metres high.Ā
The valley they sit in is perfect: wooded and tranquil. A perfect spot to settle.Ā
VisitingĀ Sandaig
I have wanted to visit Sandaig for a very long time. Ever since first reading Gavin Maxwell's "Ring of Bright Water" decades ago, I have harboured a desire to see how the real place compares to the one in the book. Is it still as wild and remote as it was depicted nearly sixty years ago?
I love the book for two reasons. Firstly because it describes this part of Scotland so powerfully and, secondly, because it's all about one man's love for otters. While I could never feel comfortable about someone keeping an otter as a pet, if you are going to do that the west coast of Scotland has to be the perfect place. The International Otter Survival Fund thinks so too. It's based at Broadford on the Isle of Skye, a swim across the channel and climb over the hill away. They regularly rescue orphaned otters, their mothers usually casualties of being hit by a car. This is exactly what happened to one recently in Glenelg. Thankfully a local resident knew where to take the surviving otter cub.
When Maxwell moved here after the Second World War and his failed attempted at building a business based on hunting basking sharks on the island of Soay, Sandaig would have been even more remote than it is today. To get to the nearest village of Glenelg you have drive up a steep hill from Sheil Bridge to the top of Mam Ratagan (1116 feet).Ā
On the day we did it the weather was fine affording breathtaking views of the valley below and the Five Sisters of Kintail. From the top we were surrounded by the rock topped mountains, endless sky, the orange of dying bracken, the purple of flowering heather and the deep green of pine trees. These colours make up the typical late summer highland landscape. I could smell the heady aroma of bracken mixed with pine. On a fine day like this the road is a marvel but in winter it must be daunting. It does however reinforce a sense of entering another, wilder world.
The road drops down the other side of the mountain to the shore. If you carry on down the single track road you reach Upper Sandaig - a road that comes to an end in one of the last true wildernesses in Europe.
In Maxwell's time there was no convenient forestry track down to Sandaig as there is now. He had to hike down over very rough terrain (so bad that one winter he was forced to crawl on his hands and knees through snow and high winds) following the course of a river, that had carved its route through a deep gorge down to the shore below.Ā
Now there is a very good track that cuts through what was once a pine plantation and which a sign on a gate explains has recently been 'harvested' because 'we love trees'. It always seems brutal to see large areas denuded of trees even if this is a commercially grown forest where more will be planted in their place. It has however left the landscape probably much as it would have been after the war but with ghostly tree stumps littering the hillsides for miles.
The track wends and winds it way down the hillside and comes to a beautiful view point overlooking Sandaig bay with a hint of Rum and Eigg in the distance. From here you can see the beach with its small skerry of islands to one side, the tiny unmanned lighthouse on the furthest one and the grassy field upon which Maxwell's croft sat until it was burned to the ground in 1968. It's a tranquil but slightly eerie place that must be brutally exposed in a winter gale, the weather funnelled up the channel between the mountains on both the mainland and Skye. It feels very much a place that time has left behind.
There are few signs of habitation now. An old croft still stands at the foot of the hillside its windows and door in place, its roof rusted and white walls moss and lichen stained. A memorial to Maxwell's beloved and most well known otter, Edal sits beneath a fir tree where once a supposedly cursed Rowan stood. Another to Maxwell himself sits at what was one end of the croft in which he lived. His ashes are buried beneath the massive stone.
His house sat at the far end of this now lush grassy field, sheltered by a small hill from the worst of the weather. It faced away from the sea looking back up the hill hinting at how extreme the weather can be. It is a peaceful place from which you can hear a waterfall cascading down rock and the river bubbling its way to the shore.
Maxwell wrote: "It is the waterfall, rather than the house, that has always seemed to me to be the soul of Camusfearna, and if there is anywhere in the world to which some part of me may return when I am dead it will be here." Ā He came very near to getting that wish as his memorial lies within hearing distance of the tumbling waters.
Ā "The Ring of Bright Water" and its two sequels, "The Rocks Remain" and "Raven Seek Thy Brother" are beautifully written but melancholy books. Maxwell was clearly a complicated man and one who preferred animal - and especially otter - to human company. He is best known for writing about otters (and for resurrecting interest in them) but he also writes powerfully about many of the other creatures he encountered while at Sandaig - the seals, Dolphins, wild cats, deer, hares and birds he shared this corner with. Above all it is the description of landscape in this part of the world that echoes through his books, a landscape that is still much the same today despite better roads and new technology making it a little less remote.
We spent an hour or so wandering along the rough and pebbly shore, gazing along the cliff like rock walls and island skerries at either side. The river was high making the likelihood of getting across the rope bridge that still spans the bubbling water without getting wet impossible. So we headed back up the forestry road, at one point noticing the tracks a huge herd of deer had left in the mud.Ā
The walks ends by a delightful sheltered pond that I found myself hoping that local otters (perhaps the descendants of two of Maxwell's indigenous otters - Monday and Mossy) still use to clean the salt from their fur.
Magnificent Scottish Mountains
My Favourite Place: Along the coast of Wester Ross, Scotland
Surveying for signs of otters
I recently spent an afternoon at the RSPBās Ottmore Reserve in Oxfordshire learning all about otter ecology and surveying - including getting very up close and personal with samples of otter spraint!Ā
Led by Ellen Lee of Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre it was a brilliant introduction to the habitat, distribution, behaviour and ecology of these amazing creatures. Fortunately, after several decades under threat, they now appear to be flourishing.Ā
These are the new things that I learned about otters:
In England, Maleās tend to live along larger rivers and females in streams and reed beds (seems this is because itās easier to bring up young in more sheltered and protected locations like this).Ā
Dog otters are generally solitary, very territorial and take no part in the care of the young.Ā
Otters donāt tolerate disturbance well - hence they tend to be nocturnal in England and Wales. Fewer people in Scotland means they are out and about a bit more especially on the coasts.Ā
80% of their diet is fish - and crayfish are a popular snack which we know from the signs left behind in otter spraint (poo)! Crayfish legs and body parts can often be seen.Ā
They mark their territories by depositing spraints (droppings) on prominent places (bridges, rocks and boulders, concrete plinths, river islands) - this seems to simply to a way of saying I have been here and caught my lunch so donāt bother trying! A resource management strategy.
If you see a bare earth slide on a river bank it is more than likely signs of an otter - as well asĀ ārunsā through reed beds.Ā
Their spraint has a distinctive fishy smell and even a hint of jasmine. Its not unpleasant to sniff unlike mink which is very, very stinky (you have been warned).Ā
Wandering around Ottmore in the afternoon, we saw various signs that there was an otter about (mostly old spraints left at strategic points). Some of it we took back, cleaned using sterilising fluid, and peaked at through a microscope. From the looks of some of the fish scales, Perch had recently been on the menu.Ā
The following day I wandered down the banks of the Thames not far from where I live and found some spraint of my own - even if rather old. The willow it was resting on was a perfect otter snack spot - horizontal branches hanging low over the water from a river bank. Itās thrilling that there is an otter living so close to where I do.Ā
Ellen was quite right - if you want to spot signs of an otter you have to think like an otter. Now Iām hooked on surveying for them to see if there are more around in this part of the world. Much more up my street that playing Pokemon Go!
A lovely short animation by Will Rose to help kids identify birds. It's sweet, elegant and brings a smile to my lips. Beautifully drawn and woven together. More please!
Why do I prefer to walk alone?
A friend asked me the other day why I prefer to walk outside in the outdoors alone. Why did I not need or want company? Why didn't I invite them along? I struggled at the time to find an answer that wouldn't make me seem antisocial, mildly eccentric and on the not quite right side of acceptable. I can explain it better today standing on the lushly overgrown banks of Butterfly Lake. I am listening to a cluster of long tailed tits chittering in the pine trees and marvelling at the pale yellow water lilies covering sections of the lake's surface like scales on a fish and suddenly it all starts to make sense. Moments before I arrived, children were running wild in this idyllic place. The pond was being dipped, newts ogled, den's built and hidden corners explored. Hopefully the children were delighted by their discoveries, able to connect with the creatures they found and headed home with unforgettable memories. Why do I hope that? Because this is what happens to me each time I head out into the wild on my own. It's also the reason that I was glad that the children had gone by the time I got there. Is it selfish to want places like this to myself? I treasure the space but not the peace and quiet because when I listen carefully there is none. I am surrounded by a cacophony of bird song, my own personal feathered orchestra filling the space around the lake with a natural symphony. Trees thickly border the pool on all sides creating a outdoor amphitheatre within which wrens, chiff chaffs, robins, tits and black birds sing together following a instinctively concocted melody. Each has a part to play but none takes a lead. It's a performance that only happens once for a human audience of one. To experience nature like this - one to many, utterly immersed, is why I prefer to walk alone. I feel privileged to witness moments that no one else does. Watching a pond skater delicately and expertly navigate across the tension on water's skin; noticing the pattern of pale pink dog rose petals scattered by the breeze across the pathway; picking a leaf with veins inked out in a zesty lime green and watching a bumblebee searching for nectar in a fox glove's bell. All these things happen around me every day. By taking the time to stop and notice, unencumbered by commitments or distractions, I find myself part of something far bigger and more miraculous. So that's the answer I can now give my friend and anyone else who asks what now seems such a strange question.