A lone Scots pine casts a long winter shadow over the grass, elongating the distinctive kinks of a tree that has not had to compete with others for light. We are making our way down to the coast of Loch Torridon, an area once occupied by trees and people but now only sparsely populated. Ruins of old croft houses nestle the umber bracken that has grown up in the relative fertility of abandoned middens.
The few trees left are a “geriatric forest” grown old and twisted in the northerlies blowing off the loch. Generations have been destroyed by hungry deer and the only fresh growth is young birch, sessile oak, hawthorn and rowan planted by humans in protective plastic mesh shields.
A year ago we planted these native trees and now we are returning to check on their health. In such poor soil they are expected to grow slowly, yet some are already poking out of the 1.2m tubes – and vulnerable once again to their worst enemy. In spring, when the green shoots begin to emerge, red deer, ravenous from a winter on the hill, will strip the tender leaves, killing the tree or at least stunting growth.
To try to give the saplings a chance we are wrapping the taller specimens in Hebridean lamb’s wool. We tease it out, like a spinster at her wheel. The thick tangled threads cling easily to the young buds, and the bare stems topped in fluff look like half-eaten sticks of candy floss, though hopefully less tasty. The wool has not been washed and the musky scent of lanolin soon weaves its way around our hands and the branches. For now, the wreathing of the saplings in wool is an experiment. The idea is that the smell will keep the deer away.
The dark wool glints in the sunlight reflecting off the Torridon hills across the bay. The “horns” of Beinn Alligin are dusted in snow. Yet on a bluebird day like this, the water off Ob Gorm Beag, “the little blue bay”, can still look Mediterranean. The weather is deceptive; the stags grazing nearby know that the snow is coming. When spring finally comes, they will be hungry.
