In a tree, an ousel sings and not 10 yardsaway, sits, in rapt attention, a fox. Finally, the singing stops, the audience leaves
Nature writer goes to a gig in the hills of Stirlingshire where he is not the only fan enjoying the music
There is an image conjured by Seton Gordon’s 1937 book, Afoot In Wild Places, that haunts me, in a good way. He is writing about the arrival of spring on Skye. First, there is this:
“These first magic days of spring are the more prized because of the winter tempests and the drenching rains which preceded them, days when deafening peals of thunder and the hiss of hail drowned the exulting song of the gale that rushed in upon the island from its birth place on the Atlantic as it rushed furiously towards the east.
“But now (we hope) the last storm has sped on its way and in its stead are come warm sunshine, light wandering airs, and a sky of deep blue across which white fleecy clouds idly drift…”
Many a Hebridean wanderer of March-into-april days will recognise such dizzying transformations, but there is something you may have missed, which Seton Gordon did not:
“Beside Loch Eiseord lapwings wheel and somersault, and call joyfully in their courtship flight, so that the great northern diver ceases his fishing to listen to their music…”
I am a habitual student of what I think of as a core of half a dozen of Seton Gordon’s books. In every one of these, he has that capacity to startle you with a moment that springs from the general narrative.
He was generalising, scene-setting for a few hundred words then, without warning, he particularises. He doesn’t elaborate on the moment of the lapwings and the diver’s response. It’s just two or three lines, but it stops you in your tracks! How it makes you think!
It’s less than 30 words but it’s a complete picture – a minimalist painting of the moment a great northern diver (which in different circumstances could have been the centrepiece of any painting of the arrival of spring on Skye) is given a bit-part to show off the lapwings.
I confess that, if I had been there and witnessed the moment, I would have been tempted to make much, much more of it yet, in Seton Gordon’s hands, it’s done with a couple of deft brush strokes. And it is left to you, the reader, to see in your mind’s eye what that moment might look like.
It had been a while since I read that chapter of that book, long enough to be startled again by the moment, the freewheeling lapwings, the chaotic overlapping of their voices, the preoccupied head-underwater diver (as I see it).
It’s possible the diver had never seen lapwings before. Or, if he was a veteran of many winters in Hebridean waters, perhaps he was acknowledging the lapwings’ return. Perhaps he recognised their arrival as prompt from nature – time to be north-making, an ocean to cross. Or perhaps the most remarkable explanation of all is the one Seton Gordon suggests – the diver was listening to the lapwings’ music. If this sounds far-fetched, you might like to consider the
following, which I know to be true because I was there.
One of the benefits for a nature writer of homing in over years on a single species and a single territory is that you don’t just learn about the species itself. You don’t just become familiar with its territory in every weather and every season and at every hour of the day and night, you also get to know the neighbours, the creatures with which your chosen species shares its chosen territory, its fellow-travellers.
For 40 years now, I have been accustomed to visit a particular golden eagle glen in the Stirlingshire hills, and over those years I have spent who knows how many hours watching golden eagles or waiting for them to turn up.
There are days I have been astounded by what I have seen, many more when I have driven home completely empty-handed – empty-handed, that is, in having not seen so much as the shadow of an eagle.
On one such day, however, I had been sitting with my back to a big rock with a distant view of the ridge where the deeply-shadowed eyrie and a bright sky made watching difficult. My best hope was a hunting eagle flew in along the ridge and against the sky, but much more likely was it would come low through the glen and I would only pick it up by scanning the middle distance, a tapestry of hillside rocks, trees, grasses and shadows. Tricky.
Hours drifted by. I became aware of birdsong somewhere on the far side of the rock. It was mellow, musical and rare. It took some time before I could fit the song into a picture in my head of the singer, the mountain blackbird, the ring ousel. I decided to investigate.
I crawled up the slope in which the rock was embedded, then along behind the back of it in deep shadow, and stopped when I had a view of stretch of hill burn with attendant birches and alders. And there in the branches of a birch was the singer, and not 10 yards from the base of the tree, sitting in an attitude of rapt attention, was a fox.
If you had asked me then – or now for that matter – what the fox was doing, I would say it had ceased its hunting to listen to the music. And then I would tell you that I think perhaps Seton Gordon was right, and that’s exactly what the great northern diver was doing when the lapwings of Loch Eiseord interrupted its fishing.
The ousel stopped singing after a couple of moments, the fox stretched itself with head low and tail high, then fox-trotted past the bottom of the tree and disappeared among the rocks of the headwall.
That was the first time I became intrigued by the possibilities of different animals enjoying, or being intrigued by, the behaviour of a completely different species. The second time also involved a fox.
I was in Glen Finglas, the Woodland Trust Scotland reserve in the Trossachs. I had noticed the presence of fox and pine marten scat on the main path, and copious marten scats by the junction with a tiny path that disappeared in the
‘ The fox had ceased its hunting to listen to the music
trees. I decided to watch for a bit, but, before I could conceal myself, a pine marten appeared in the edge of the trees just as a fox appeared on the path from the other side.
The two advanced towards each other, regardless of the fact I was in the middle of the path and 20 yards away, trying very hard not to move and to look like a tree. For perhaps 10 seconds they stood nose-to-nose on the path then, without the slightest sign of animosity, the pine marten disappeared back the way it had come. The fox then appeared to notice me, gave me a long stare, and it too turned back into the trees. I wondered if they knew each other.
Finally, there is Seton Gordon’s story of two more species interacting, the dotterel and himself, as told to Tom Weir in this magazine more than 40 years ago:
“I remember going every day to the Wells of Dee to get the incubation period of the dotterel at 4,000 feet. In 26 days the dotterel got to know me and, as I watched on one occasion, a daddy-long-legs landed on my arm. The dotterel ran to my sleeve, swallowed it, and instead of flying away, gazed into my face steadily, then went back to the eggs. I felt I had been recognised as a friend.”