Nature watch: Beinn Eighe

Scotland’s mountains are home to an astounding variety of plants and wildlife. Here, Vic Royce of Highland & Islands Ramblers picks out some of his favourites around the Western Highlands…

There are few more dramatic and challenging natural habitats in Britain than mountains. And although flora and fauna have adapted to the extreme conditions, according to Vic Royce of Highland & Islands Ramblers: “Keen hill walkers often seem totally absorbed with getting to the top of a Munro, which blinds them to the abundant and unique wildlife around them.”

Mountains offer a surprising variety of habitats: from scrub and acid grassland to rock and scree. The Scottish mountains are home to tiny Arctic and Alpine plants that have clung on since the last ice age. “There are at least four species of saxifrage flower on the highest grassy ridges,” says Vic, “while among the summer flowering plants is the exquisite dwarf cornel. Lower boggy slopes are often carpeted with bog asphodel and common and hare’s-tail cottongrass.” The only abundant mammal on the Scottish mountains is the red deer.

“We organise walks to observe the rutting season in October. The bellowing of angry stags and clash of antlers can often be heard from several miles away,” says Vic. One of the best places to view the rut is at Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve, in the Torridon Hills near Kinlochewe. The 4,800ha area of moorland, bogs and ancient pinewoods has extensive marked trails. Some upland wildlife has adapted to the conditions in specific ways. Both the mountain hare and ptarmigan (a game bird) shed their darker coats in autumn for a white covering to camouflage themselves against the winter snow. In summer, golden plover and dotterel nest on the highest slopes, while golden eagles are year-round residents.

“Take binoculars, you never know what you might see,” says Vic. “During a mountain walk in Argyll, our group saw a golden eagle struggling to fly with a dead heron in its talons. Suddenly, three peregrines mobbed the eagle, forcing it to drop its booty, which they then devoured themselves.”

Find out more
Go to www.highlandramblers.org.uk. For more about Beinn Eighe NNR, visit www.nnr-scotland.org.uk. Or read Hostile Habitats – Scotland’s Mountain Environment edited by Mark Wrightham & Nick Kempe (£16, Scottish Mountaineering Trust). ISBN 978 0 907521 93 8).

Main image: Richard Bartz / Text: Andrew McCloy