Highland Insider

Nosy Norris and I followed the Pack Leader up the Ullapool Hill paths this morning and as usual his choice of route didn’t disappoint. Nosy got the chance to bounce around in the heather and chase snowballs (puny wee things, but still fun) and I got my first view of bonny Loch Achall.

A great walk and great views but as I looked down on the gleaming water I thought the only thing missing was a bit of wildlife. We’d walked for about forty five minutes and seen nothing but a few crows and gulls mooching overhead. There were signs of critters – a pile of fur-filled poo, a young beech tree stripped of its bark – but nothing to stop and watch. Just as I was thinking this I became aware of a busy twittering noise coming from over the next hillock and getting nearer. We waited a minute or two and were rewarded when a gang of long-tailed tits flew past us and settled in the stand of birch trees below.

I always love seeing long-tailed tits. I don’t know who first described the bird as ‘a ball on a stick’ but they were spot on. The wee round body with the long straight tail makes an unmistakeable silhouette whether perching or in flight. These ones were specially welcome as they made a good walk complete.

A wee gang of wigeon have been gathering by the shore of the loch over the past few days. There were about a dozen when the PL first noticed them, increasing to thirty-one last time we were able to count them.

The reason we can’t always count them is that sometimes we walk past that spot in the evening, when we’re taking Nosy Norris for her late walk. Then all that can be seen is the reflection of moonlight or the flashing marker buoys on the dark water, but we can still hear the birds chuntering among themselves. It’s a lovely sound, the more gutteral calls punctuated with what sounds like a mini swanee-whistle, reminiscent of the whooOOo0 of the eider ducks.

I don’t know why I’m always surprised that ducks are so beautiful, but somehow I never expect it. Wigeon certainly are, especially the males with their golden foreheads and rosy breasts. I don’t know whether they’ll stay here for the winter or head somewhere further south. We’ll just watch and see, and that’s the pleasure of living among wild things and learning about them day by day. We got to know our local wildlife in Nairnshire so well, I thought I’d miss that familiarity when we moved. To some extent I do, but it’s quite exciting to have a whole new cast of regulars to become familiar with. Like making new friends.

The midges may have driven us indoors the other day but they brought the house martins out in force. A few have been swooping over the garden for a couple of weeks now, but when their favourite mobile snack arrived on the scene they brought some more pals along for the party.

There were at least thirty of them today, zipping around the sky like guided missiles, catching midges on the wing. We were down below, cheering them on.

Pied wagtail chicks in their nest on the shelf

I write a weekly nature column in the local paper and over the past three summers this has always featured the pied wagtails that have taken to nesting on a shelf in the old stone shed. They always get in there early, make a flattish nest (full of Nosy Norris’s hairs this year, of course), and are usually sitting on eggs by the time the swallows arrive. This has been bad news for the swallows, who still come looking for their old site just outside the shed and are chased off by the wagtails.

Good news for us though; we love having them there. This year, they moved to a shelf in a different corner of the shed and the PL was able to get a photo without disturbing them (this one’s zoomed in). That was last week, and today all four have fledged and are dashing around the shed and the covered walkway that joins it to the house, already wagging away whenever they stop for a rest. The PL had to rescue one that had stopped for a rest in a bucket of rainwater, but its ducking didn’t deter it one bit. That’s wagtails for you, they’re all wee daredevils, wandering about on roads and nosying into things. We once watched a pair attacking a bat that had come out of the roof during the day. They might look comical with their funny bobbing tails, but they’re not to be messed with.

We’ll keep an eye on the nest, as the parents have always got another brood off pretty quickly. All being well, we’ll have wagtails everywhere again in August.

I blame Chris Packham.

The Pack Leader has always been an interesting companion on country walks; he has the gift of noticing things that most people miss. So, over the years I’ve seen countless birds, tracks, squashed down bits of undergrowth where wild things have recently lurked… all things I would have missed on my own. I’ve also had the chance to examine close up an empty adder skin, the carcass of a hare hanging inexplicably from a tree branch, fossils on beaches and prehistoric bones in a cave. The PL always liked to get down and dirty – within limits – and this has been fine with me for years. His own favourite find was always an owl pellet to dissect. What a treat.

But now this is no longer enough. Over the past couple of years he has started to poke about, not only in pellets but in poo. Pass a bit of black pine marten poo on the path and he’s off finding a stick to prod it apart. No pile of otter spraint is passed without being sniffed and the cat-like offering by the forestry track (is it a wildcat?) is pondered over each time it appears. As I say, I blame that arch poo-prodder Chris Packham. It’s only since he joined Springwatch that this has started to be a habit.

Yesterday it was a rounded blob of black, grey and white on the forest floor. It looked very like the bigger of the parcels our old cockerel used to leave around the hen run. But bigger. ‘Definitely a big fowl,’ I diagnosed. ‘Big enough for a penalty,’ agreed the PL. He, of course, found a stick and had a good nosy at it but there was nothing obvious in the contents. We’re hoping it might have been left by a capercaillie. Neighbours tell us they have seen one in these woods, scoffing the bilberries, but so far we’ve never had the privelige. I saw one in Perthshire when I was a wee girl (it looked as big as a pony from my three foot tall vantage point) and I’d love to see another. But somehow I get the feeling that the PL would be just as happy with another bit of poo.

Nosy Norris is a very hairy dog indeed. You might think that the reason a very hairy dog has that much fluff is because it needs it all to keep it warm. Apparently not. The hair is designed to shed and Nosy Norris could shed for Britain in 2012. I’ve come to believe that she was sent to me by some vengeful Goddess of Housework who was seriously displeased at the paltry amount of time I used to spend worshipping at her shrine. (I spent even less time dusting it.)

I used to pride myself that the hoover only came out once a week in our house. (Mum, don’t panic if you read this – I did sweep the kitchen most days.) But since Nosy Norris came to live with us, I’ve had to swallow that pride and get the hated hoover out every day. It’s that or spend my life wading through giant dust bunnies that float around and disintegrate right over every dish of food I ever serve.

I’ve just about got on top of the hair in the house, but of course now the good weather is here, Nosy Norris is bestowing her black and white fluff cheerfully all over the garden too. And this is where the Goddess of the Garden differs from her horrible household sister. She has sent a helper – a wee female chaffinch who spent this morning hopping around the patio collecting beakfuls of soft Bernese Mountain Dog fibres to line her own wee nest, where they will be appreciated, not swept away. Isn’t nature wonderful?

Visitors to Nairn are drawn to the beaches like a seagull to a bag of chips. You can’t blame them. Nairn’s east and west beaches are glorious, golden stretches of fine sand with views across the Moray Firth to the Black Isle and the mountains beyond. But if you take a step back from the east beach and venture over the dunes, you find a quieter, less spectacular landscape that is, in its own way, just as lovely.

The sandy hillocks give way to a strip of wetland with reed beds which fill the gap between the beach and the Scots pines of Culbin forest. Paths wind through it with little bridges crossing the wettest parts. In summer the reeds are a magnet for butterflies and day flying moths; skylarks sing above them and the Minister’s Pool at King’s Steps is a great place to watch waders.

Even on a rather driech February day like we had at the weekend, it’s a great place for a walk. The expanse of flat wetland had a lonely sort of charm and the stillness was broken only by the distant swish of waves and the odd curlew calling. We went fairly early and met just a few fellow dog-walkers and the odd jogger, but by the time we got back to the car park it was full of more doggy types, families and a bunch of cyclists heading into the woods. Visitors to the beach might not realise there’s a hidden gem behind them, but the locals know it’s a great place to explore.

Get there either from the Forestry Commission car park at King’s Steps or by popping over the dunes on east beach. Check the tide first though - some parts will be under water at certain times. There’s more information on the Forestry Commission’s Culbin pages.

Sometimes I long for more variety in the woodlands around here. Most of the hillside is covered in regular, over-crowded pine plantations which, in their denser parts, seem almost dead with dry earth, little light and an eerie lack of noise.

It’s improving though. Four years ago the Estate sent the foresters in and great swathes have been cleared, letting in the light and opening up possibilities. They left wood to decay on the ground, providing homes and shelter for insects and burrowers. The ground was badly churned up by the lorries and tractors, but the damage was soon covered with new growth. The bigger cleared patches are already well covered in bracken and ferns, and some even had a miraculous flowering of foxgloves after the foresters left; the seeds must have been dormant in the ground, and the clearings were awash with purple the season after the trees were cut.

In the clearing nearest us, which I can see from the window as I write, the Estate replaced the pines with saplings of oak and cherry, which will eventually form a patch of the sort of woodland I crave. If they keep doing that as new patches are cleared, Nairnshire might eventually have some woods to be proud of again. The remnants of the old native flora cling on even now, round the edges of the plantations where bluebells and dog violets appear in spring. Given the right conditions they could re-establish themselves like the foxgloves.

In the meantime, we’re noticing more birdsong when we walk up to the loch, which is at the end of a track that used to go through a particularly dark, dense area. Five years ago you could pass through it and barely hear a squeak; just the occasional wren in the undergrowth or a chaffinch or great-tit right up in the treetops. We were there the other day and the difference was audible as well as visible. A flock of coal-tits, a pair of bull-finches, general chattering from the treetops. A nice bonus was a wee gathering of crossbills, although they always did favour the pinewoods.

So, hope springs. But it takes a long time to grow.