As the seasons start to get busier the inevitability of the blog suffering seems to become an annual anguish to me. So, as I sit here with a Thistle Trekking van full of luggage and with the group, safe in the hands of walking guide Maya, heading along the shores of Loch Lomond I thought I would flex my creative muscles and try and rectify the situation.
Leaving Drymen with the group on day two of their walk I had spied an unfamiliar forest path and decided that when I left the others as they headed off to Conic Hill I’d drop down the small section of the Rob Roy Way and have a wee explore on my way back to the van. It is a beautiful time of year to be out walking, everything is coming to life, the papery thin baby leaves of the Beech trees are an almost luminescent green, the coconut scented Gorse a vibrant yellow and the glades of the wood are carpeted with a sea of blue thanks to the Bluebells which seem to be even more prodigious than usual this year. The sky was an even deeper shade of blue more often associated with the Cyclades than the Highlands and in the distance the Camspie Fells looked splendid with an ever changing cast of Lambs and Cattle meandering scenically in front of them. The group headed off towards Conic Hill and after a short detour down a quiet country lane I found the track I’d seen that skirted along the edge of Garadhban Forest. The bird song recognition app “Merlin” has revolutionised my walks of late, helping to confirm uncertain sightings and picking up distant melodies too faint for my deteriorating hearing to identify. The app told me that as well as the obvious Cuckoos, the songs I could hear belonged to Whitethroat, Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers, all tiny birds and inveterate travellers who had made their way back to the UK from the Mediterranean, North Africa and beyond. Incredible feats for tiny creatures that would sit comfortably in the palm of your hand. Swallows swooped and wheeled overhead snatching tiny insects from the air and Orange Tip and Peacock butterflies settled in sunny patches on piles of rotting wood and bramble leaves. As I sat watching on one of these wood piles feeling the warming sun on my neck, a beautiful Brown Hare lolloped onto the path in front of me. In my mind I often think of a Hare as nothing more than a large Rabbit, but the reality is very different. This creature was handsome, muscular, aloof and built for speed. His ears were alert, his nose twitched as he sensed me watching and then, after nearly a minute of stillness, he was gone in a blur of speed, the hugely powerful back legs propelling him away and through the scrubby brush into the fields beyond. The blur of activity broke my reverie and I made my way slowly back to the Rowardennan Road and from there back into Drymen for a cup of coffee. On my way back to the road I saw the Hare once more joined by another as they browsed in the long grass every so often bounding off wary of some threat that I could neither see nor hear. It was a beautiful, unexpected morning and I felt priviledged to share it with the creatures who call the woodland home.
