Making Scotland wild again
Transforming a traditional Highland farm into a home for wildlife took one man 25 years. Was it worth it?
Incessant grazing pressure from large deer herds meant our efforts were constantly thwarted.
It was summer 1994 when, with a gleaming property brochure in my hand and apprehension running riot in my stomach, I drove up a windy, wooded glen shadowed by towering Scots pines. When the trees petered out, Ballintean Farm came into view – its yard littered with dilapidated caravans and an eclectic mix of rusty machinery.
I had no idea what I’d expected, but this wasn’t it. An hour or so later, I thanked the farmer for showing me around but told him: “It’s too big, too much money and too much work.” I was glad to drive away. Six months later, I moved in.
I spent the first 15 years of my working life trawling Britain’s motorways driving trucks. Chomping on endless chocolate bars, I had plenty of time to reflect on the world and my place within it. As the years rolled by, a growing unease set in. I started to resent the injustice around our relationship with nature and, eventually, I knew I could no longer be a bystander. I made the decision to turn a passing interest in nature photography into a profession. I knew the Highlands would be the backdrop, but the reality was that I parachuted into a remote Cairngorms glen – with my wife, six-month-old baby and two dogs – with very little idea of what life ahead looked like. The morning after the move, our nearest neighbour called by. She owned the farm next door and no doubt wondered what these wet-behind-the-ears newcomers were all about. We stood watching the clouds scud across the mountains. “You’d never get tired of that view,” I reflected. “Aye, but yer cannae pay the bills with a view.” Her dismissive tone was a jolt, then, as I pointed to a young roebuck crossing the river, her next response was a dagger through my heart. “And the only animals worth much are those you can eat.” I smiled politely, but in that instant, I knew my life’s work was to prove her wrong.
Ballintean nestles in Glenfeshie, on the western edge of the Cairngorms National
Park. In 1994, it comprised 52ha of closecropped grassland alongside the River Feshie, one of the most dynamic river systems in Europe. The Feshie’s potential for flash flooding was manifested in the number of old fences strewn across the riverbed. But these looked like part of the natural landscape compared to the abandoned cars that lay partially buried in the gravel.
Thwarted by deer
For years, the farm had been used as a riding centre, and when we moved in, the ground supported nearly 70 horses. The gravelly soils of the river floodplain were grazed bare and, one summer night, when I counted 92 red deer in the field, I understood that we had become custodians of a fast-food restaurant for the local grazers, both wild and domestic.
With the horses gone, we tentatively started planting native trees, but the
incessant grazing pressure from large deer herds meant our efforts were constantly thwarted – nothing made it above knee height. Our neighbour peered down from her tractor, shaking her head. “The only way to get trees growing here is behind a fence.” Having spent months uprooting miles of rusty stock fencing around the farm, I wasn’t about to put it all back up.
Open for business
Meanwhile, we set about fixing up the old farmhouse to live in, and a neighbouring cottage to rent out. The most challenging obstacle, however, was the renovation of a large stone steading to accommodate tourists. It took all of our money, most of our resolve and nearly our marriage, but on May 25, 1997, with our bank account empty and the paint still drying, the doors opened and in walked a group of birdwatchers. We were up and running.
Speyside Wildlife, a local birdwatching holiday provider, became regular users of what is now Ballintean Mountain Lodge, and were good enough to offer me some guiding work. As I sat on the summit of Cairngorm one spring, watching a male ptarmigan with a group of birders, I had one of those rare lightbulb moments. One of the guests produced a monstrous telephoto lens and started crawling closer to nail his shot. It was obvious that the rest of the group, content to sit at a distance, weren’t happy. Here was an opportunity. Fast forward 12 months and I’d jumped into a legal partnership with Mark Hamblin, an established wildlife photographer. Photography tourism was barely a thing back then, but very quickly we were running nature photography tours around the world.
Travel is a great educator and, in a few short years, my eyes and mind were opened to new landscapes and wildlife. I saw bears roaming the forests of Finland, wolves pulling down bison in North America, and thousands of cranes gathering on migration in Sweden. More importantly, I started to ‘read’ the landscapes I spent time in.
I learnt about vegetation succession, predator-prey dynamics and trophic cascades. I started to see Scotland very differently and realised that though its beauty and drama is undeniable, the abundance and diversity of its nature was severely impoverished.
Scotland’s ecological decline is largely unseen, even to people who live and work here. Unravelled by centuries of burning, draining, felling and overgrazing, millions of treeless acres now dominate the map. Species that were once prolific now teeter on the edge, and invisible are the animals hunted to extinction – lynx, wolf, elk, crane, boar. It became apparent to me that our perception and understanding of Scotland’s ‘wild nature’ was severely skewed.
Shifting the balance
Juniper and gorse began smudging the hillsides and open glades. Ballintean came back to life.
In 2003, I got a call from Paul Lister, an eco-philanthropist who had recently bought Alladale Estate in Sutherland. He wanted me to photograph the story around a massive programme of ecological restoration – reconnecting woodland, revitalising drained peatlands and reintroducing lost species. In parallel with Paul’s acquisition of Alladale, a hugely controversial and significant deer cull took
place on Glenfeshie Estate, just a mile or so from Ballintean. These two events changed everything,
The reduction in deer in Glenfeshie was brought about by long-term overgrazing impacting on the ability of native woodland – and its associated species – to regenerate. With no natural predators, deer had proliferated and for a long time, this was welcomed by the estate, its revenue and capital value primarily based on the number of deer that could be shot on its grounds. With deer numbers in the area reduced, however, our trees started to grow – not the meagre handful we’d planted, but on their own, in their hundreds and thousands. Birch and pine sprung from bare gravel banks, alder and willow took root along shingle bars in the river, and juniper and gorse began smudging the hillsides and open glades. Suddenly Ballintean came back to life.
With the help of raptor legend Roy Dennis, we built an osprey platform, which was immediately occupied. Tawny owls, great-spotted woodpeckers and crested tits nested in our veteran trees; red squirrels started to use the emerging woodland corridors; redstarts, jays and cuckoos flitted across the increasingly blurred lines between trees and grassland. We introduced a small herd of Highland cattle to boost insect numbers, encourage seed dispersal and diversify the floodplain vegetation – they now graze across a wide, largely unfenced landscape. Scotch argus appeared in their droves in the damp glades that the cattle opened up. I started to see otter spraint along the burns, and pine martens – once the holy grail of wildlife sightings – are now nightly visitors to our accommodations, along with badgers. The riverbed – once a wide expanse of bare shingle – has slowly become more complex, with deadwood creating pools and tree roots providing shelter for young fish, while the river itself has been driven into myriad channels, slowing its passage downstream.
And what magic wand did we wave to create this pulse of life? None. We are no doubt beneficiaries of neighbouring landowners, who for the most part, like us, can see the potential in restoring and reconnecting