I had forgotten how magical this place is. I am standing on the board walk where it leads out across the bog through a field of head high reeds. A patchwork of small lochans surround me. Beyond them the wind sighs through the scots pine and above them the snow covered Cairngorm hills rise to merge into the clouds. These small areas of water where left here ten thousand years ago when the ice retreated and left great frozen blocks sinking into the earth like the tears of the ice age. There is a sense of the primeval here. Little has changed since then. The bear and the wolf have gone and the elk no longer stands chest deep in the water drinking with its huge antlered head but the memory lives here. This is an ancient place.

I walk amongst the reed beds listening to the bird song and then, as I step through the edge of the forest I come upon open water. The surface quietened by a thin sheen of glass clear ice that moves with the rippling water as if in remembrance of the great blocks. As I walk out of the shade of the trees the sun catches me in the open spaces between the tree shade. There is warmth in its rays now, a sign that the winter’s progress is almost done and that the riot of spring is marching closer. I am back in Glen Feshie. Ruigh Aitcheachan bothy is only a few miles away on through the forest on the opposite bank of the river Feshie. It is years since I last came here, how could I have forgotten such a place.

The walks here are mainly level and the area is accessible to most people including those who will find strenuous walking difficult.

Sometimes I walk down a glen, turn a corner in a forest or crest a hill I arrive somewhere I know is special. I can never predict it, that’s part of its charm. It’s that moment when I stand in silence struggling to comprehend where I am. It is the sense of the place that speaks to me, tells me of a connection deeper than my understanding. It came to me forty years ago when Martin, Joe and I walked in to the great hidden corrie on Ben Eighe. It happened when I walked to the lost bothy Poca Buidhe and it happened when I stepped out of the door of Glen Dhu bothy near Kylesku and saw the mirror calm sea loch before. It happened ten years ago when I stumbled across Uath Lochans. It never leaves me, this sense of wonder at a place. It is a connection with the earth. I feel it now listening to the wind in the trees and watching the still water. I am utterly content.

A few hundred yards through the forest I come to a small wooden bird hide. I sit completely still for a few moments and wait, watching the bird feeder full of peanuts rocking in the wind. After only a few minutes a blue tit arrives with flashes of yellow beneath his busy wings. He looks at me suspiciously, I sit motionless. He grows bolder, takes a nut and flies off. Seconds later he is back. He is more confident this time, and feeds on the nuts without feeling he has to fly off. A Bull finch joins him on the feeder, emboldened by the little Blue tits presence he feeds too puffing out his reddish brown chest. Then both birds fly off from the feeder and are immediately replaced by two smaller Crested Tits with their punk hair styles. The new arrivals dance about on the bird feeder, with the wind catching their Mohican hair styles, before the Blue Tit returns and bullies them away with his bluster.

Through my binoculars I can see every detail of these tiny creatures. The Blue Tit weighs no more than 15 grams but he struts about with total confidence, driving off the other birds from the bird feeder whenever he decides they are in his way. My flat in Inverness has no garden so watching these birds feeding is a delight I wouldn’t otherwise be able to enjoy. I spend almost thirty minutes watching them squabble and fight over nuts like schoolboys at an impromptu party. There is so much to see. The wild weather of this winter has forced me to spend most of my time away from the high tops, I had thought that would lessen my enjoyment of my days in wild places but that has been far from the case. I am finding so much to do and see so many places to go as I struggle to learn about the creatures I see and the places they inhabit. My quest for beaver and otter continues and I may even be able to see a Pine Martin, I’ve yet to even look for Wild Cat. It’s March already and the season seems to be flying by.   At least now there is snow on the high tops even if the relentless winds of this winter are making trips to the summits of hills difficult. This year the snow has formed a base that means it will survive into April and perhaps even through May. In most years in the Highlands, in what we used to call a normal winter, if such a thing exists now, the snow consolidates into a base layer. This is caused by the natural cycles of freeze thaw which solidify the snow into a deep layer of ice that adheres to the mountain tops and forms a solid layer that will take many weeks to thaw. Last winter 18/19 this didn’t happen which meant that any snow that fell on the high tops was either blown off or melted quickly leaving the hills brown. Even though I am keen to reach the high tops the wildlife is giving me plenty of interest. Sadly it is beyond the capacity of the camera on my phone to take pictures of the Tits rioting on the feeder. Perhaps I’ll need to get a better camera, here comes another passion.