Glen Affric

After a relatively mild and mostly snow-less winter, spring is well underway in the Highlands at this time. Leaves are reappearing on the trees, birdsong is abundant and the days are lengthening considerably now that we’re past the vernal equinox and are into the half of the year with more light than darkness. At the beginning of April I spent a Sunday out in Glen Affric and much of my time then was spent documenting some of the signs of spring.

[Read more…] about Signs of spring unfolding

As I write this we’ve just passed the equinox, and spring is well under way in the Highlands, with clear sunny days, lots of bird songs and the first flowers already in blossom. In some ways it almost seems like we didn’t have a winter this year, as the weather was generally relatively mild and the cold snowy days often associated with the season have been conspicuous mostly by their absence. There were occasional falls of snow, but usually the temperature warmed up again quite quickly, so the white covering on the ground and the trees never lasted for more than a day or two. [Read more…] about A magical snowy day in Glen Affric

For a casual visitor, it may often appear like there’s not much to see in the Caledonian Forest in winter. By then, all the leaves have fallen from the deciduous trees, many birds have migrated south for the winter and insects have gone into pupal stasis, out of sight. My experience, however, is that there is in fact still plenty of interest in the forest, if I shift my focus to some of the permanent, year-round life forms, and take time to look closely for them. [Read more…] about Damp winter days in Glen Affric

Each autumn I usually spend a couple of nights in Glen Affric, so that I can experience the early mornings there. At that time of year the days are often completely wind-still and the mornings in particular are characterised by mirror-perfect reflections in the lochs and the vibrant autumnal colours of the leaves on the trees. Overnight mist often lingers for several hours after sunrise, making it the most photogenic and memorable time of the year to be in the Caledonian Forest. [Read more…] about An unexpected sight in an aspen tree

July is one of my favourite months of the year, as it is the peak time for a lot of activity in nature – the blossoming of  many summer flowers, their pollination by a host of insects and the dispersal of young birds and mammals from their parents, to name some of the main events. In the middle of the month I spent a day in Glen Affric, visiting various areas of forest there, but the highlight of this trip was the time I spent with a few hogweed plants (Heracleum sphondylium) that were flowering beside the road, between Badger Falls and Dog Falls. [Read more…] about Floral attraction in Glen Affric

It has been a different experience to usual for me this spring, as I was away in southern South America for over 3 weeks from the middle of April onwards, where it was autumn in the forests. For the first time in many years therefore, I’ve missed out on some of my favourite phenomena in the Caledonian Forest – the return of the leaves on the trees, and the exuberance of the spring flowers, such as primroses and wood anemones, on the forest floor. [Read more…] about A great year for rowan flowers

By the middle of March the days are getting longer and the equinox, when there’s 12 hours between sunrise and sunset, is not far off. The first indications of new life were already visible where I live on the Moray Firth coast at Findhorn, with daffodils getting ready to flower and pussy willows appearing on the willow trees, so I headed out to Glen Affric to see if spring was also making its presence felt there. Situated inland, amongst the mountains to the west of Loch Ness and at a higher elevation, Glen Affric is always behind Findhorn with the return of life each year, but nevertheless I hoped there would be something to see already. [Read more…] about The first signs of spring

This winter continues to be one of constant change, with wildly fluctuating weather and frequent storms hitting the north of Scotland. After a cold spell of two or three days in the second half of January, with snow and freezing, sub-zero conditions, a warm front moved in quickly from the west, and within less than 24 hours the temperature rose to 14°C. As a result, the snow held in the mountains melted very rapidly, swelling the rivers and burns, making for spectacular torrents where there are normally more sedate and gentle flows of water. [Read more…] about A torrent in the forest, soon to be diverted?

At the end of November, the weather in the Highlands turned cold after having been relatively mild throughout most of the autumn. The unseasonably warm temperatures we’d had in October and much of November resulted in many of the deciduous leaves remaining on the trees for longer than usual. So it was that when it finally became colder and the first snowfall took place, we had what is a relatively rare experience in Scotland – fresh snow on the autumn-coloured leaves of the trees. [Read more…] about Winter meets autumn in Glen Affric

Each year, in the middle of October I like to spend as much time as possible out in the Caledonian Forest, to appreciate the beauty of the trees in the richness of their autumn colours, and to indulge my passion for photographing them at this most special season. This year I was out in Glen Affric for a day, and although there was lots of colour in both the birch trees (Betula pendula and Betula pubescens) and the bracken (Pteridium aquilinum), my attention was taken up for part of the day by something else – the bark of a large Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris).
[Read more…] about The natural artwork of Scots pine bark