Just worth mentioning that I had a fantastic visit to Croick Estate in Sutherland over the weekend. This post is brief because there will be an awful lot more to come on the subject of Croick in due course, but the trip was excellent and the experience of seeing a North Highland deer forest in the dead days of February takes some beating. From chirruping sika stags under the moon to the sight of a golden eagle coming gliding gently through the murky half light of a frozen dawn, my single night’s stay in the isolated Creag Mhor bothy was certainly eventful.
Perhaps the crowning joy of the trip was when the dog flushed a greyhen almost from my feet where it was lying close in a thicket of birch and scots pine. As the dark, familiar shape rose into the wind and turned round behind me, it was silhouetted for a second against the distant snow-capped bulk of Ben More Assynt and the steep sided shell of what was presumably Canisp. With a bitter breeze slicing off the snow above, I started to get my bearings on yet another kind of heather moorland that is quite apart from the soggy knowes of Galloway. My education continues.
It so happens that Croick Estate has its own blog which I have been following for two or three years – well worth a look, and more to come on this very soon…
Bog Myrtle & Peat 