Visiting Inchnadamph on 2nd June, we walked up the Traligill valley to find some wild flowers.

Wild?

Oh yes.

We know that we’re too late for the main show of mountain avens, but we’re hoping to see some orchids and, further up the valley, a burnet rose.

Mountain avens taken last year on 12/5/24 by the roadside at Inchnadamph:

Mountain avens this time in Traligill:

Just past the hostel and couple of houses, the view opens out to a grassy meadow and four wych elms along the limestone crag to the left.

There’s about two dozen red deer sitting in the field, relaxed and comfortable.

They’re the professional lawnmowers that make sure that new trees and many new plants can’t exist in this vast area; pretty much as far as the eye can see.

Except for inaccessible crags, of course.

On our right is the Traligill river, and quite a few sand martins are flying along it, looking for flies, I guess.

It’s difficult to count them as they flit about, occasionally chirping.
Walking on, we’re really heading to the exposed limestone about half a mile ahead.

At the old tin shack, there doesn’t seem to be any swallows; a surprise as they normally nest in there.

Looking inside, there’s a couple of nests, but no sign of any birds unfortunately.

Almost at the conifer plantation, we turn right and head towards the valley; normally dry at this point as the water has gone underground.

I want some elm tree photos: we’ve already passed quite a few along the wet part of the river, but there’s three more over here, one of which is becoming mythical.

It’s a pretty magnificent tree, apparently growing out of solid rock at the base of a small limestone cliff.

Right next to it, there’s a hole in the ground with an underground stream; out of sight but easy to hear.

I have it on good authority that a troll lives here, and judging by the hole being bigger than I remember it, the troll has definitely been eating his Weetabix.

The main tree looks lush with fabulous summer foliage and I get some more photos.

There’s a few really nice orchids along the grassy bank; not as many as I’d expected to see, and I speculate that the cold nights in spring might have held them back a bit.

One of them is (I think) a marsh orchid sub-species, and I was hoping to see it, as the colour is really lovely.

So we pass the footbridge to the caves and carry on as if we’re going to Conival.

Two more cuckoos fly over (or the same two again?) and not only say “cuckoo” but also add that peculiar quacking sound afterwards.

Chatting to some walkers, we say that we’re going to look for a rose and they say they hadn’t noticed it.

Mere amateurs!

Eventually, we got to the sharp left where the path starts to go up the mountain proper, and no sign of the burnet rose.

At our tea-drinking committee meeting, sitting on rocks by the burn, we’re joined by a dipper for a while, but none of us could work out how or why we’d missed the burnet rose.

Heading back downstream, we’re three quarters of the way back to the footbridge when the rose appears, as if by magic, right next to the path.

We join the ranks of mere amateurs as we can’t work out how we missed it on the way up.

Anyhow, target acquired!

Almost back to civilisation, there’s the distinctive sound of a stonechat clacking, and a little brown bird in front of us.

Then there’s two.

Two fledgeling stonechats, no discernible markings without binoculars.

The herd of deer are still where we left them, but wandering about a bit now.

And we’re back to the sand martins too, as we head for home.

I’ve seen it on the telly quite a few times, read about in books and heard a lot about it in a presentation by the in-house ecologist of 25 years standing, so Glen Feshie has been on my wish-list for quite a long time.

It seems to attract admiration and criticism in equal measures.

Admiration for the way that the land has been transformed by a huge amount of regeneration of trees.

Criticism as, firstly, it’s owned by a Danish billionaire, and, secondly, matters associated with switching from a “sporting estate” to one with a deer density of less than four per square kilometre.

Whatever your opinion on the latter, two things could be considered:

It wasn’t his idea. It was actually the previous estate manager, a local I believe, in “sporting” days who persuaded the rich bloke to pay for the bullets and conduct a large and controversial cull.

And the estate now employs more local people than it did before.

Hmmm.

Not the propaganda that I’d originally heard.

Enough of that, anyway.

Let’s do the admiration bit; that’s why I went.

When you see it on the TV, they often show a particular viewpoint (first photo, above), so of course being a tourist for the day, that’s where I went.

But it’s not actually marked on the OS map, and I discovered that it’s actually a really long walk from the car park and would’ve been much easier if I’d have taken my bike.

And by the time I got there, I wish that I’d have taken ear plugs: the amount of bird song along the way really isn’t something that I’m used to these days.

Perhaps protective safety glasses too: butterflies everywhere, looking particularly menacing.

Out of my comfort zone!

I don’t routinely carry binoculars at home any more; it’s usually not worth it.

Now there were birds everywhere. Fabulous!

So I came to see the trees…….

First thing is that neither the lovely old trees nor the regeneration are limited to the boundaries of Wildland’s Glen Feshie, they’re widespread.

Contrast this to Assynt, or Glen Affric for that matter, where young trees can only exist inside a huge fence.

This doesn’t represent the Cairngorms as a whole: a trip to the south eastern side quickly reveals plenty of grouse farms and strip-burnt heather.

Trees here are lush!

The new and recent growth is phenomenal.

On a trip to south Wales in March, I noticed lots of lovely old trees, but no new ones. So when the old ones eventually die, there isn’t any substantial succession. When they’re gone, they’re gone. Forward planning currently zero. And this can be seen in lots of the UK, just out of the car window.

This place has been absolutely transformed in the last 20 years or so. It can happen.

And mostly transformed by the trees themselves, just taking advantage of the opportunity to grow in a place that they’re not being eaten. Planting by humans not necessary. Almost like they’d done it before. Oh yeah…..

The next day, I had another little mission.

Half way between Glen Feshie and Aviemore, there’s a hill called Creag Fhiaclach which I’d read about in a book called The Treeline by Ben Rawlence. Here, there is supposed to be the highest relict tree line in the UK, with small gnarled Scots Pine described as “krummholz” trees due to their growth habit.

Another fairly long walk, which was all the more arduous because one of the paths shown on the map didn’t exist. Climbing a hill through waist high bilberry and heather isn’t a bundle of laughs, and I was thinking that I was running out of time when I discovered a path coming from a different direction.

Wood ants everywhere! Loads of nests right next to the path, crawling on my boots if I stood still. Reminded me of the Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull scene, so I kept a watchful eye on them!

Pretty exhausted at the top (only 700m, must be getting old), I had lunch and found a few “krummholz” pines and was pleased with myself.

These little gnarled ones looked just like ones that I see in Little Assynt at the dizzying altitude of 130m. The tree line clearly responding to local environmental conditions.

Two really obvious things: there were plenty of new pine saplings here too, and these seemed to be going higher up the hill. And the large, mature, regular shaped pines were in the gully only about 50m below me; it was an abrupt transition.

I guess that I walked quite a few miles in my two days here, and it was absolutely worth it.

Big trees, small trees, dead trees, live trees…..

The understory was something to see too. Heather in its rightful place, enough of it, but not overwhelming. Plenty of bilbery, and a surprise for me, a huge amount of juniper.

Willow warbler, goldcrest, long-tailed tit, crested tit, crossbill, goosander, sand martin, wheatear, stonechat.

Green hairstreak and orange tip butterflies in profusion.

What’s not to like!

I’ve done this before, and I guess that I’ll do it again: pick a subject and show the seasonal changes.

My “wych elm photography” has been a feature for 10 months now, and I’ve visited some of the trees several times, as they’re both appealing and accessible.

The triptych of the Eadar a’ Chalda tree (above) was a good exercise; I’m pleased with the result, but I also knew that I had far more shots of another particular tree at Inchnadamph.

“Seasons” kind of suggests “four”, and that has created a minor problem!

Like a lot of outdoor photographers, I’m more inspired by winter scenery and light, and short-listing four proved impossible.

I gave up.

So here I go with seven.

And two were taken on the same day, but I’m refusing to exclude either of them!

The framing of each shot isn’t identical; it was never supposed to be.

I really don’t need to waffle on any more; it’s all about the pictures.