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.

It’s official – our move west was Worth While. I knew that already, but the PL proved it today by stepping outside at lunch time, sniffing the air and deciding to go kayaking. He was loaded up by ten to one and on the water at Ardmair Bay by ten past. A couple of hours paddling around Rhue and Isle Martin and he’s home again, all glowing and at one with the world.

I was left at home working, of course, but he assures me that he enjoyed it enough for both of us.

He didn’t take the camera but here’s a pic of Isle Martin from a previous visit.

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.

I used to believe that my husband and I had our relationship on a thoroughly modern, equal footing. Decisions shared, household tasks divvied out, a perfectly balanced partnership. (See this post for proof.) That was until we got a dog. They say you can’t fool a dog and after eighteen months, I have to concede (not without a bit of a grump) that we have a definite Pack Leader, and it’s not me. 

Take yesterday’s traditional New Year’s day walk up to the loch. There we both were, striding out, both interacting with the dog in the calm, assertive manner they taught us in the obedience classes. But does the hairy hound listen to me? Not while he’s around. If it’s just me and the dog  (Nosy Norris), then we get along fine. As soon as the Pack Leader appears, I’m relegated. 

I was thinking about this as we tramped up the hill, past the Wall of Death where Nosy Norris does a vertical run if she’s in one of her dafter moods, past the pebble love heart on the side of the path, left by our romantic neighbour for his wife last summer, past the old hare carcass hanging inexplicably in a tree, all the way up the loch. I realised that I do tend to defer to the Pack Leader quite often. He nearly always decides where we’re going to walk, for example. That seems a bit pathetic now I think about it. Although it is partly to do with my tendency to choose paths that end in thorny thickets or knee-deep bog. I let him decide when we can have an extra boost on the central heating. That seems a bit much, does it not? Mind you, it’s in the interests of keeping the carbon footprint of the Nairnshire below that of the whole of Scandinavia – I’m a right cold tattie. 

So as we skimmed pebbles on the frozen loch, seeing who could make the loudest ping, I decided I’m quite happy with being second in line, up to a point. After fifteen years we’re still laughing so we must be doing something right. I reckon we’ve settled into the natural order of things, and as long as Nosy Norris stays below me in the pecking order, I won’t be challenging for the position of Pack Leader. You can’t fool a dog after all.