Inspired by nature
capercaillie spreading across from Rothiemurchus and the black grouse population is soaring.
The deer in Glen Feshie have been substantially culled in order to reduce grazing enough for this sudden recovery. Since buying the estate in 2006, Danish businessman Anders Povlsen has invested heavily in stalking to drive down the deer population density from its previous average of 40 per square kilometre, to only two per square kilometre. His uncompromising approach has sculpted a woodland that is finally on the move again. I reached what is credited to be Landseer’s bothy retreat in a thick cloud of midges. Only the chimney still stands, like a slender finger of human endeavour, with the fireplace and hearth intact. It wasn’t hard to imagine Landseer sketching and walking in the surrounding forest. And despite the recent cull there is still space here for Landseer’s beloved monarch. Once the young saplings have taken hold, the deer will be allowed back into a richer habitat that can sustain them in numbers again. From here the path follows an old drovers’ route and ScotWays Heritage Path through the glen and across the south-west slopes of the Cairngorms to
the head of Glen Geldie. In The Drove Roads of Scotland, A.R.B Haldane refers to an ancient cattle market or tryst on the flat top of An Sgarsoch: a high point where drovers could gather their livestock while keeping a wary eye across the surrounding land for potential attackers. I would have loved to have kept walking this route but, under sustained midge assault, cut up the Glen’s eastern slope instead. Labouring up the hill in muggy heat, the only relief was a breath of wind when I broke through the tree line at around 600 metres. Here mature pines give way abruptly to upland heath and a stunning view of the River Feshie is revealed as it loops south though the dusking landscape like a delicately laid silver thread. The transitional zone at this altitude would once have supported a montane woodland with species such as woolly willow and aspen. Anders Povlsen is hoping to bring back this more natural woodland edge to the Cairngorms. He has planted several acres of predominantly dwarf willow and birch to establish a viable seed source and the estate is working to try and extend this montane scrub from Glen Feshie to Abernethy and around Rothiemurchus. I walked up to the gentle summit of
Mullach Clach à Bhlair (a 1,019m Munro) to get a true sense of the Cairngorms’ monumental scale. The pale stone cladding on the Bens to the north-east gleamed like white armour and there was a biting Arctic nip in the breeze. Suddenly Glen Feshie seemed lost behind me and the challenges of landscape-wide conservation came into sharp focus.
Anders Povlsen has given us a tantalising glimpse of the habitat restoration that is possible throughout the Highlands, and Glen Feshie has earned its title of the ‘jewel in the crown of the Cairngorms’. But the will and wealth of one individual is not enough to ‘rewild’ an entire ecosystem. That will require consensus and partnership right across estates and communities in a modern Scotland.
As I wander back down to Ruigh– Aiteachain bothy with the last of the light for a few drams, I wonder if it would be possible to re-interpret the romance of Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen. Rather than an anachronistic throwback to a bygone era, maybe Landseer’s magnificent stag could come to represent a vision for a future landscape, one in which all wildlife can thrive in restored Highland habitats.
34 SCOTTISH WILDLIFE NOVEMBER 2015
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