Dalmigavie, Highlands: I approached cautiously but was not careful enough and all I saw of the frogs were the rear ends of legs kicking downwards to the shelter of the dark, peaty water
We stopped on the high moorland at around 500 metres and I walked slowly to a small bog pool. The heather-clad moorland looked dark and forbidding and the pool was hidden in a small depression. The open water was only a few square metres but I knew it held a colony of frogs. Despite the relatively warm winter, the frogspawn this far north seemed to be no earlier than usual. The first report I had was of spawn in a garden pond on the coast on 14 February. In a harsh climate like that of the small pool in front of me it is normally a few weeks later, and this year was no exception.
I approached cautiously, hoping to at least see a frog before they would dive out of sight. Only a slight movement would disturb them, as it could be the sign of a predator – a raven, otter or heron – so the frogs had good reason to be cautious. I was not careful enough and all I saw of the frogs were the rear ends of legs kicking downwards to the shelter of the dark, peaty water. There were 10 clumps of spawn, so 10 females had laid within the previous two days and no doubt there were more to come.
We descended into Strathdearn and drove west for a few kilometres along the banks of the river Findhorn. Then, what could be better than a picnic lunch on the side of the river in the sunshine of an early spring day. The hills towered over us and the babbling river, cliffs and scree slopes were breathtaking, but the landscape held its secrets of golden eagle, deer, wild goats and mountain hares. For me, dominating all of them were the hillsides part covered with large tracts of juniper: dark green foliage grazed, as if topiary, by deer and goats. And always there was the silence of the Highlands and its still large tracts of wildness to be savoured.