In search of Scotland’s wild secrets
Each stage of this five-month odyssey brought exciting new discoveries about nature and wildlife in Scotland, says
As dawn broke to reveal the frost-glistened air, a low haar on the horizon crept across the distant margins of the open flatlands of the merse. Above this grey-blurred blanket of hazy sea mist, a pink shimmer glowed and flickered. The sun was slowly rising, and nature was beginning to stir.
The vast emptiness of the merse at Caerlaverock on the fringes of the Solway Firth had taken me by surprise and its captivating hold was overwhelming. This is quite unlike any other place I have visited in Scotland. It is a pancake-flat saltmarsh that stretches as far as the eye can see, and at first glance, its appearance is akin to the Arctic tundra, with its short-cropped grasses and random scattering of pools.
The reality is more benign. The merse is a gentle, pleasant place, with a wild soul. Merse, a local term for saltmarsh, is a wonderful name that trips easily off the tongue in a manner that is both poetic and descriptive. Despite the white-sparkled frost, the rich song of a skylark abruptly cascaded down from above. With squinting eyes, I scanned the heavens but there was no sign of the lark. Then, as if by mysterious magic, he materialised, rising higher and higher on quivering wings, the head moving from side to side as he let drip his sweet-tempered notes.
My singing skylark had reinvigorated my spirit in a way that few other birds ever could, fuelling anticipation for seeking out my main quarry, barnacle geese. I knew they were about because on arrival under the cover of darkness, their constant high-pitched yelping cries floated across the ice-pinched air, albeit from some distance away.
As the dawn gathered pace, the first barnacle geese appeared, mostly in small flights, comprising of a handful of birds swooping low over the tidal saltmarsh. I was still on the landward edge of the merse, so I followed a narrow path used by wildfowlers and headed deep within its salt-breezed embrace. I followed a muddy channel that cut through the merse as it ran its way down towards the Solway Firth. Although the ground underfoot was firm, the going was rough, as I constantly negotiated routes across other watery channels that bisected the landscape. The tide was out, and these steep-banked ditches oozed with dark, clawing mud. Redshanks intermittently rose into the air before me, their piping calls forewarning of my approach. These small greyish waders, with long red legs, are part of the wild beating heart of Scottish coasts during winter and are everconstant companions, no matter the harshness of the weather.
Suddenly, I heard an abrupt clanging clamour from the west as the sky erupted into a black-speckled explosion as a multitude of barnacle geese took to the air. The geese were perhaps a kilometre away and had previously been resting on the ground out of my view. At the behest of an unknown cue, they had taken instant flight and were heading towards me.
It was hard to be sure, but there must have been almost a thousand of them, a clamouring throng of vibrant life. The huge skein split into two, and on measured wings, they rapidly approached, one flock veering to the north of me, the other staying on the seaward side.
Their wild echoes were mesmerising, and in the starkness of this open merse, it felt as if I had merged into the being of the landscape. An instant wave of euphoria swept over me, instilling a groundswell of inner emotion that only nature can deliver. The geese passed by, and on whiffling wings alighted on a mudbank close to the firth, calling all the while. Once they had settled, their murmurings quietened. They had hunkered down to rest. I scrutinised the barnacles through my binoculars and was struck by the subtle beauty of their white faces, black caps and necks, and grey-barred plumage.
They are smaller and dumpier than the commoner and more widespread greylag and pink-footed geese that also winter in Scotland. After breeding in the Svalbard (Spitzbergen) archipelago, between Norway and the North Pole, the entire population of around 40,000 birds sets off for the Solway in late August, arriving in September.
They stay until April when they embark upon their marathon return migration. On watching them, I reflected upon the importance of the saltmarshes and mudflats of the Solway Firth to this population. What would have happened to them if in modern times these saltmarshes had been reclaimed for agriculture or other development? It doesn’t bear thinking about. Such is the fragility of nature and our power to destroy it. That was March 2021, and my visit to the merse was the beginning of a fivemonth journey for my new book – A Scottish Wildlife Odyssey – in search of Scotland’s wild secrets, where I zig-zagged across and up through Scotland, alternating between west and east, heading northwards all the while until journey’s end in Shetland.
Each stage of my odyssey brought exciting new discoveries, including an amazing population of water voles in the east end of Glasgow, which don’t live by water, but instead, have adopted an underground living existence in parks and other areas of grassland in housing estates. The population density of water voles here is higher than anywhere else in the UK.
One site, which is probably the most unusual wildlife location I’ve ever visited was the massive Glasgow Fort shopping centre. Here, on its southern flank, bordering the M8, is a large green wall – a supporting
Up against the light of the sky, I could clearly see that there was a developing embryo catshark curled up inside the mermaid’s purse
buttress that is grassed over on its vertical surface, creating in effect, a high grass cliff, which is full of water voles. They have adapted with ease to their high-rise ‘tenement-style’ living, safe from predators within this formidable fortress. Nature and its ability to adapt never ceases to amaze.
On the first half of my journey, I also revisited my some of my childhood haunts in Edinburgh, including along old railway embankments where I used to watch foxes many moons ago. It also took me to Wardie Bay, which lies sandwiched between Granton Harbour and Leith Docks. Here, as I guddled around in the intertidal pools, I found an abundance of marine creatures.
The familiar shape of a mermaid’s purse also caught my eye in one of the pools. Mermaid’s purse is a wonderfully apt term for the pouchlike leathery egg capsule of the smallspotted catshark. On holding the semi-transparent egg case up against the light of the sky, I could clearly see that there was a developing embryo catshark curled up inside. Within this purse-like capsule was a beating piscine heart, a new life soon ready to emerge into the watery shallows of the Firth of Forth.
In my hand was something truly special, a miracle of nature found lying by the edge of Scotland’s capital city, and at that moment, I wondered what other surprises lay ahead on my Scottish Wildlife Odyssey.