other with tremendous force until one gives way. The
constant crash and clatter of antlers echoes through the
glens and together with all the roaring and grunting
from the stags tearing up the ground with their antlers,
the air fairly crackles with excitement. This is what life
in the Highlands is all about and people come from all
over the world to experience it. Autumn is high-season
at Alladale and the demand for accommodation is so
high that clients happily pay £3,500 a day for the 14-
room Lodge. Many of them are sportsmen who want
trophies to take home, but an increasing number are
content to shoot with cameras rather than guns. It’s
reward enough for them simply to experience the
thrill of being out on the hill and among the wild
deer while there’s so much excitement going on.
There are times when heavy fog blankets Glen
Mhor and we have to grope our way toward the herds.
Although we can’t see them, we can hear them and
we can certainly smell them. The largest stags stand
between 140cm and 160cm at the shoulder and
weigh up to 130 kilos and with all that testosterone
coursing through their bodies they’re really on the
nose. The antlers on a mature stag can be as long as
100cm and when the fog suddenly lifts and you find
yourself just a few metres from a magnificent animal
like that, it’s a heart-stopping moment. The dominant
males are often concentrating so intently on holding
and defending their hinds that they almost ignore
our presence. It’s an exhausting time for them and
toward the end of October, early November, when
the stags have served their hinds several times, they’re
often seen standing alone in the glen with their heads
drooping. They’re just about dead on their feet. At
that point they know they’ve done what’s expected of
them. They’ve fertilised the hinds, so they can afford
to stand back and allow the other stags to move in
and have their turn at the mating game.
Autumn is also a time of great activity in Alladale’s
rivers. Toward the end of October, early November,
the Atlantic salmon are spawning in the headwaters of
the Alladale and Upper Carron and we see the males
and females paired-up and resolutely swimming
upstream, bravely returning to their own birthplace
so that they, in turn, can lay their eggs. There, in the
gravelly shallows and shingle beds where the water
is barely a few centimetres deep, the backs of the
salmon are actually out of the river. The females lay
their thousands of eggs and the males fertilise them
with clouds of milky white sperm. At that point the
Innes MacNeill
salmon are pretty much exhausted after their long
journey up from the sea and they’re easy targets for
predatory otters and foxes and crows. It can be quite
distressing to see beautiful salmon with their heads
nipped off, but that’s the way of the wild. As lovely as
they are, they’re simply links in the food chain.
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