#highland

[tuncsblog]

two beautiful horses grazing in the field

[cowboypo8]

Highland Longhorn Cross Calf

[maltrunners]

Banff 24 Year (1976) Blackadder

Review by: The Muskox Banff had the unfortunate distinction of being the unluckiest distillery in Scotland. After setting up in 1863, the distillery was nearly completely destroyed by a fire in 1877, though it was rebuilt and reopened later that same year. In 1941, while the distillery was closed for the war, it was bombed by a German aircraft and destroyed again. It was said that casks…

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[fireofdestiny]

#highland

[littlesunbeann]

Golden Scotland

[dry-valleys]

The dun deer troop over the hill, They are many, the hill is one, The dun deer vanish, The hill remains.

Back from a rewilding week in the Highlands of Scotland, beginning in (1,2) Gleann na Ciche, near the Last Ent of Affric.

(3) in Glen Affric; self, Erika, Paul, Lawrence, Koen, Wendy & Carolin.

(4) my once and future home, Athnamulloch Bothy.

(5) One of the many rainbows (after the many rains!) at Loch Affric.

6 Loch Salach a' Ghiubhais.

The rest are of Loch Beinn a’ Mheadhain, where I went canoeing; (10) being a picture of Alan, Lawrence, Koen, Erika, Shidrati, Paul, Carolin, Wendy, Josie and self.

The biggest change since my last visit, in 2025 (please see here), is that in a mere year, the landscape has been transformed by the beaver release of October 2025.

I hope that this becomes so normalised that beavers become taken for granted, just like the regenerated pine forest (though this itself, which you can see glowing in these pictures, was not here a century ago and is only standing today because the pioneering forester Finlay Macrae knitted together the few remnants and save them from the sitka monoculture in the 1950s, and there has been restoration work ever since, of which I’m proud to take my part.

The week was summed up by something that happened at the beaver habitat in (9). Seeing a sitka spruce, the removal of which is a sad necessity in what was otherwise an enchanted birch forest, I tried to pull it out but couldn’t.

Before I could even finish asking for help, a pair of gloves and a pocket knife were handed to me; this was a good microcosm of a week living and working together, and I was thus able to help restore the natural wood in a way that I couldn’t have imagined when I first came here in 2016.

As we canoed past, we saw the stumps of pine trees that had been cut own for the hydroelectric scheme in 1952, but in these anoxic conditions had not rotted and no lasting damage was done to the forest, so that the old trees led us to the new.

[cowboypo8]

Longhorn Highland Cross Calf

[cowboypo8]

Highland Longhorn Cross Calf