NATURE NOTES

Monthly highlights to look for by TOM BAILEY – Trail’s four-season photographer

PTARMIGAN

A remnant of the last ice age, the ptarmigan is a member of the grouse family. Only found above 2,000 feet in Scotland, this ground-dwelling bird relies on its camouflaged plumage, mottled grey in summer and white in winter, to help it evade predators. The state when they are not fully in either is known as eclipse plumage. Right now they should be fully white and at their most beautiful.

SCOTS PINE TREE

There is no other form in the Scottish mountains like the Scots pine tree – slow-growing, enormous and evergreen, with a reddish flush to the young bark. Thanks to the oils in the wood, they are long-lived even in death, their skeletons populating the corries for many years. Go to Glenmore, Torridon and the Mar Lodge estate in the Cairngorms to see a sight that will make you weak at the knees; trees, trees, trees.

CAVE SPIDER

Only recently I was bitten by one of these. I picked it up to see if their reputation for biting was true. It is! Powerful, but harmless. In nature there is no better experience than seeing, hearing and feeling for yourself. A more sinisterly spidery spider than the cave spider I cannot imagine. Strangely, they love to live in caves. Photophobic, they can be encountered in dark places in many rocky regions of Britain. Normally attached to the ceiling (which in a cave is about head height) means that your headtorch will send them scurrying away as you approach, in a ‘this cave is alive with spiders’ kind of way. One to be avoided!