I’m walking through the woods to a huge old granny pine that’s gnarled and twisted, its lower branches thicker than the old plantation pines around it. It’s a beautiful, steady presence. The woods feel lush and full of birdsong. Thick strands of new-growth heather poke up. In the afternoon sunshine the mosses glow and creep up and along the trees. There’s a lovely old Scots phrase, moss fa’en, to describe a fallen tree that’s now shrouded in green.
Near the granny lies a deep chocolatey-brown peaty mire that often has hoof prints in it, and I’ve had a camera on it just to see what is there when I am not. It’s clear that deer visit this place quite regularly, sometimes singly but often in groups, and use it as a wallow. At night, they’re sometimes reduced to the vaguest of shadows, and mostly they’re quietly passing by and the camera captures the bright dots of their eyes as they cross the frame. Occasionally their eyes gleam like headlights as they face the camera. They might be in groups of seven or eight, perhaps more, and they’ll linger and tussle, hoof and splash around.
Sometimes it looks like just hinds, at other times, perhaps at certain times of year, mixed groups, and the camera’s caught a huge stag wading into the middle of the mire and rolling around. More than once a badger has snuffled in the mosses and heather at the base of the pine where the camera was mounted, and I’ve caught a beady eye and the blurry stripe of its snout. The last time I was here I moved the camera to a new spot. When I check, I find that it’s caught a pine marten scrambling down a broken branch that hangs from tree to ground.
I walk on, coming across a massive ants’ nest next to another granny pine. Ants are streaming up and down, making light work of navigating the thick scales, fissures and flecks of the bark. Somewhere above I hear a crestie (crested tit) with its soft call, almost a giggle. It’s always the way, I come for one thing, then am distracted by everything else going on. I swap the SD card and leave my camera there, wondering what it will capture next.
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