walkhighlands

Nature

Brown Hares – My Companion Animals

I’ve had my trail camera out at home recently. Now it’s getting colder, I’ve been investigating what creatures are milling about outside the house, in search of warmth or food. Last winter there were various rodents and shrews sneaking under the porch door, so I rather expected to see something similar this time. Maybe a red squirrel foraging nearby. Tawny owls on the fence posts. Or, given they have left conspicuous scat on the road, pine martens. But no. After the first night, I looked through the new videos and they all showed one of two brown hares, nibbling grass

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Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

Conservation and community groups demand review of phone mast programme

A coalition of community, conservation and outdoor recreation groups has written to the UK Government asking it to review its rollout of the Shared Rural Network programme to prevent causing unnecessary damage to communities and wild places. Applications for telecom masts are flooding into Local Planning Authorities across Scotland with little justification as to their specific siting and design. Many of the applications lack meaningful knowledge of the sites they are proposed on with blatant disregard for whether communities will actually benefit. The rushed approach is being driven by a geographical target, set by the UK Government, to bring 4G

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Posted in Magazine, Nature

The Cuckoo: a wonderful summer madness

Have you ever tried to creep up on a cuckoo? I’ve tried repeatedly over the years but it’s nigh on impossible. I suspect even the SAS would struggle. Cuckoos are impossibly flighty, and somehow also evade being precisely pinpointed by your ear. A vague direction can be discerned, but when you think you’re getting close, the call suddenly seems to come from another direction entirely. It could be another cuckoo of course, but more often than not, your target cuckoo has simply taken flight and moved to a new location. You didn’t see it move because….well….what would that even look

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Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

Before and after photos show Ryvoan recovery from deer damage

Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) has recreated a 1984 photo of the Ryvoan Pass overlooking the Green Lochan to document the impact of deer management over the past 30 years.  The 1984 image was taken by George Dey, a forester who donated his collection of photos to the University of Aberdeen.  The caption on the photo states: “Lovely high view of the Green Loch at Glenmore Forest. George Dey has made the remark – no regeneration and it would be interesting to see a present-day view from the same place.” The Ryvoan Pass in the Cairngorms National Park is a

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Posted in Magazine, Nature, News

What lies beneath…

Keen hill walker Maja Staerke takes a peek below the waves as she explains why she now loves to combine snorkeling off the Scottish coast with exploring on foot. Snorkeling probably does not come to mind when you think about Scotland. Even though the country is blessed with some of the world’s most beautiful beaches, the water temperature is anything but balmy. From around 5C during the coldest winter months to about 15C in the height of summer, it’s a test of endurance to stay in the water for any length of time. Which makes the commonly asked question ‘Isn’t

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Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

I’m recruiting for Team Toad

Frogs or toads? A simple choice, one that I put to Twitter last week to gauge people’s feelings towards these two amphibians. I was motivated partly by the fact that the spring amphibian emergence is underway and I very much welcome their return, but mainly I was motivated by a desire to see to what proportion of people shared my preference. Just for the record, I do of course acknowledge that this is an absurdly reductionist way of looking at these two wonderful creatures. But yes, I hereby declare I am a fully paid up member of Team Toad. I

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Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

First-ever Scottish wildcat release approved

NatureScot has approved a licence application from the Saving Wildcats partnership to release wildcats in the Cairngorms National Park later this year. The decision marks the first-ever conservation translocation of wildcats in Britain, with the first in a series of trial releases being planned to help restore Scotland’s critically endangered wildcat population. Led by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), the application from Saving Wildcats was submitted in September 2022 and assessed by NatureScot in line with the Scottish Code for Conservation Translocations. The process considers a range of issues including animal welfare, site suitability and potential impacts on

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Posted in Magazine, Nature, News

Walks showcasing the BBC’s Wild Isles locations

In the new BBC’s Wild Isles series Sir David Attenborough celebrates the natural wonders of the islands that we call home, revealing the surprising and dramatic habitats that exist right on our doorstep. The series features stunning footage, much of it shot on location in Scotland – here we highlight some Walkhighlands routes that may reveal the wildlife and landscapes seen in the first episode. Killer whales- Hermaness, Shetland Some of the most stunning scenes featured orca – killer whales. Although they can be seen in many places around the coast of northern Scotland, Shetland is their only UK breeding

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Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature, Our picks

The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd

Badenoch writer and wanderer, Merryn Glover’s new book, The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd, is an exploration of both The Living Mountain text and the iconic range that inspired it. In this extract, she recounts her first time on Braeriach – the mountain that can be equally divine or devilish – with Shepherd and other legendary Cairngorms authors as invisible guides. The next time we could return to the plateau was 1 June and a day at the opposite end of the weather spectrum, one that Shepherd would call ‘delectable as honey’. This time we were on

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Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

A Gaelic celebration of the Winter Solstice

As Scotland marks its longest night and shortest day – the Winter Solstice – acclaimed Gaelic writer, broadcaster and storyteller Roddy (Ruairidh) Maclean has compiled a unique Gaelic compendium for NatureScot which celebrates the nature, land and heritage of Scotland in the winter season. 1. Winter Solstice: Oidhche nan Seachd Suipearan (The Night of the Seven Suppers) The 21st of December is the longest night and shortest day of the year. It is so named because it can feel – for good or for bad – like a night so long that you could sit down to supper seven times before the

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Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature


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