Perthshire

While exploring the Atholl Estates, Keith discovers the abundance and variety of wildlife that call the area home

Caught by a whisperpuff of wind, the larch needles flickered under the weak autumnal sun as they pirouetted down through the air to fall gently upon this Perthshire forest track, brushing it with a carpet of soft amber. A movement caught our eyes and a red squirrel bounded across the track and quickly disappeared up a tree on the other side. These stunningly attractive animals seem to be doing rather well and I reckon there are more about than ever right now.

Their coats can show great variation and this one had a rather dark bushy tail, but in summer their tails often bleach into a warm creamy colour. During the winter, their ears develop prominent tufts. I’m not sure why this should be so, but perhaps the tufts help protect the ears when the weather turns bitter.

We could see no more sign of the squirrel, but we lingered for a while to soak up the marvellous scenery around us on this part of the Atholl Estates north of Dunkeld. It is such a diverse place; a mosaic of forest, moor and loch, and home to so much wildlife.

Over the years I have seen eight different species of bird of prey here, including golden eagle, merlin and hen harrier, and the moors and forests also hold black grouse and fallow deer.

In spring, I have glimpsed mystical woodcock engage in their dusk “roding” display flights over the open forests and watched wigeon court on the lochs.

This is somewhere I keep returning to because each visit is like the turning of a new page; a homecoming of sorts, a place where I feel at ease.

As we stood, those larch needles kept on spiralling down from the sky, and combined with the wilted bracken on the ground, the landscape glowed like a warm hearth, creating an orangey hue that is so distinctively Scottish.

But it was time to move on, and shortly afterwards, a green woodpecker undulated ahead of us in an easymannered flight. Green woodpeckers just love places such as this, especially the open areas where they can forage on the ground for ants and other invertebrates. This is a bird with plumage to match any tropical parrot, with its iridescent green body topped off with a crimson head-cap.

By a stand of birches, the simple sweet twittering of a flock of siskins floated across the tree tops but no matter how hard we looked we couldn’t see any of these charismatic little finches. Then, one flittered over the canopy with its little yellow tail-flashes catching the sun.

The siskin alighted on a birch twig and twirled upside down for a second as it searched for seeds, before quickly taking off again. But the rest of the flock remained hidden from view and as we carried on our way their gentle calls faded until all we could hear was the murmur of the breeze. Red squirrels are found throughout much of Courier Country, most often in coniferous woodlands. In winter, they make good use of stored caches of buried food such as nuts to help them survive.