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!