Brambles and fireweed
Think of autumn colours and chances are you’ll be thinking big, imagining a canvas painted at landscape scale. Such scenes can be impressive, of course, but so too are much smaller things, seen close-up and near to home. Brambles do it for me every time. Not just because I love the berries, in all their tongue-staining juiciness, but because of the many colours that the cool of lengthening nights can conjure from the leaves. Dark greens, tawny, buff and yellow could all be held in a single rough-skinned bramble blade. My grandmother saw such details when she hand-painted brambles on china a century ago, and I treasure her perception to this day. Rosebay willowherb or ‘fireweed’ is also worth a closer look now that the flowers have faded. Gap sites and path embankments can be good places for it, and a single plant can hold a symphony of reds, oranges and browns in its leaves. If you’re very lucky, you might even see some ladybirds gathered to hibernate on its stems.
Web tip:
www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A7209623 (brambles)
Foul is Fair
Going to a small island surrounded by choppy waters might not be everyone’s cup of autumnal tea. But for many a birdwatcher the length of Britain, thoughts will now be turning to some of those places. When the wind blows from the east, the clouds come down to ground level and a soft drizzle cools the air – those are the days when feathered magic can be worked on such isles. That’s when you might see migrant birds by the thousands, such as fieldfares and redwings, descend on places such as the Isle of May, North Ronaldsay or Fair Isle. Or you could have a chance encounter with a species not often seen in Scotland, such as yellow-browed warbler or Richard’s pipit. Whatever your birding skills, the new Fair Isle Bird Observatory, opened this year to replace a much older building, is a great base for a full-board stay. Couple it with some days on the Shetland mainland to further boost your migration-watch tally.
An ye hae been whaur I hae been
This is where it ended for ‘Bonnie Dundee’. Also known as John Graham of Claverhouse, the Jacobite general was mortally wounded in a charge against government forces down the slopes of Killiecrankie in 1689. Now, when the leaves take on tints of gold and blood and fire, something of the spirit of that uprising seems to rekindle in this wooded pass.
Autumn has a habit of doing that kind of thing: making you think back as well as savour the present. The woods here, in the care of the National Trust for Scotland, are rich in oaks and other broadleaves. Go to the Killiecrankie Visitor Centre above the gorge, then use a network of trails to see the changing leaf colours and have a chance of encounters with the local red squirrels. From October, the northern end of Killiecrankie will be in the expanded Cairngorms National Park. So thoughts of the future would now also be appropriate here on these history- steeped braes.
Web tip:
www.nts.org.uk/Property/39 Web tip:
www.fairislebirdobs.co.uk 4
www.snh.gov.uk
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