WILDLIFE


‘Did you know that chaffinches have local dialects?’


Naturalists come in many guises and frequen-


tly the power of observation and importance of the oral tradition are overlooked. As the rural population dwindles and fewer of us have roots in the countryside, our children will know less and less about country matters. My parents and grandparents were all countrymen. We hand- reared orphan birds, had pet lambs and a house full of animals. Much of my childhood was spent on the isolated Ardnamurchan peninsula, learning from shepherds, stalkers, crofters and fishermen. How many children get even a taste of that nowadays? My primary schoolteacher, Mary Cameron,


encouraged nature education and let us explore the nearby rock pools. We boiled up whelks to eat, pulling them out of their shells with a pin and savouring their rubberiness. In spring we would take in jars brimming with frogspawn; she would root out a big tank and fill it with weed, stones and water so that we could witness the tadpoles’ extraordinary metamorphosis. I made sure my son Freddy had a rich


country childhood too. He was always taking things into school for the nature table. One of his finds, a piece of minke whale bone from a remote Hebridean beach, proved just too big to take to class. Nowadays, I can’t help thinking, such a bone would be swiftly removed by the authorities in case it threatened us with some heinous disease, yet there can be no worse threat than losing touch with the natural world.


114 WWW.SCOTTISHFIELD.CO.UK


Freddy, at the tender age of five, surprised his


grandmother by telling her when she collected him from school that slugs are hermaphrodite. Many of today’s children do not get the chance to understand how important it is to respect nature, and that was very much in my mind as we put Fauna Scotica together. We have come a long way since the dark


days when kittiwakes were culled for feathers for the millinery trade, or when lark pie was served up for dinner, or when people believed that three roasted mice would cure whooping cough and jaundice. But many old beliefs have stood the test of time, even if they are not as they may seem. Mary, a Divinity graduate and former post-doctoral fellow in Celtic and Scottish studies, covered the wealth of beliefs and traditions surrounding animals for the book. One old Gaelic tradition she uncovered concerns the oystercatcher – one is reputed to have covered Jesus with seaweed when his persecutors appeared, thus hiding him and saving him from his enemies. The oystercatcher


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