Notes from the valley

Bumping into neighbour Mark Cocker in the Findhorn Valley proved not only how small our world is, but also how valuable the home patch is to us both. We compared notes around our Highland experiences, but attention quickly turned to where we had both come from. "Have you seen the Short-eared Owls?" We both had, and it was this pleasantly nagging thought that kept infiltrating my mind throughout the highland stay. Put simply, inside my head, it went like this: it is great up here, but when I get home I must get down the marsh. Despite Spring being a leap ahead back home compared to the north, reminders of the season past were hunting  Claxton Marsh as we had discussed. The Short-eared Owls had not been present all Winter, and sightings of two birds in April were oddly my first of the year. A background orchestra of Grasshopper and Sedge Warbler was a contradiction, but here were the early birds and a couple simply not in a rush.  I have been taking part in the Common B

Wilderness is relative, and a visitor to our shores from the near continent may sneer at the lack of carnivores in our ancient forests, and join us in universal deflation when confronted with the over-intensification of our countryside in favour of farming. Having said this, one cannot sit by the shores of Loch Morlich looking up at the snow-capped peaks of the Cairngorm Massif and not feel utterly in awe and that little bit smaller in the world. Only the brightly coloured water-proofs betray the reality that civilization is close by, but just a few mindful moments and the call of a Diver are enough here. Being a regular visitor to the Scottish Highlands, the likes of Morlich, Garten, Findhorn and Rothiemurchus all feel familiar and generally are the places where my Highland experiences begun. I will always go back to them. But what struck me on this trip, albeit a family holiday, was the wealth of habitat as yet unexplored. The Badenoch Way and Insh Marshes, off the beaten track in