ROTHIEMURCHUS ESTATE, CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK

This bewitching landscape of hills, lochs and woodland offers fabulous opportunities to see Britain’s most exciting mammals – especially at sunset, says Susie Kearley

Speyside Wildlife ‘Dusk Watch’, on the Rothiemurchus Estate in the Cairngorms National Park, will bring you face to face with pine martens, badgers and wood mice. You might even see an owl or two.

But only if you take the right precautions. Silence is paramount and beeping gadgets and bright, rustling clothes are banned. No flash photography is permitted but with a decent camera you’ll still be able to capture some enchanting pictures.

DINING AFTER DARK

A professional guide leads small groups through the darkening landscape to a hide, outside of which are feeding stations for the various animals that live on the estate. On the day I go, the atmosphere is one of tense anticipation. All eyes are peeled for the night’s first visitor, and before long, he appears – it’s a wood mouse! He runs up between a crack in the rocks for some peanuts.

Next comes a badger and then a pine marten, who devours some nuts before running off with an egg. All three species come and go all evening, passing just inches from the window. I feel very privileged to have seen the wildlife at such close quarters.

Susie Kearley is a Buckinghamshirebased writer who enjoys travelling the UK to see wildlife.