Wild Scotland

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By wild Scotland here, I mean what sort of wildlife you can expect to see on your visit to Scotland. I'm going to exclude birds from this section and cover them elsewhere. (You'll find some information on Scottish birds here.) Keep reading on this page and you'll find some facts about Scottish wildlife, mostly with four legs (or none). And I'll try to be realistic about what you are likely to see as you travel in wild Scotland.

Read a tourism brochure about Scottish wildlife and you would be forgiven for thinking that bellowing stags pranced on every hilltop and dolphins constantly leapt out of firths and waved their flippers at you in welcome. In wild Scotland, meanwhile, otters are always 'shy', seals are 'friendly' and - my favourite phrase of all - you have to be on the alert for 'the rustle of the unique Orkney vole'. (Yes, the tourism authorities would like you to go all the way to Orkney and listen out for mice.)

But of course, encountering wild Scottish wildlife isn't like the brochures most of the time. Having said that, given the number of nature reserves and forest walks, you will definitely see something. So let's start with a quick look at Scotland's larger mammals.

Deer - red and roe

The biggest on land is the red deer. (Not pictured left. That's a roe. Look at the wee antlers.) In a way, red deer are the exception that proves the rule about the habitually elusive wildlife of Scotland. You should be able to spot them in many parts of the Highlands. I have a couple of favourite places where I'm always on the alert for them. The first is south of Braemar, Aberdeenshire, on the A93, where I have so many memories of them looming up out of the dusk, especially in winter, and causing a heart-stopping moment as they cross the road in front of the car.

I could stick my neck out a little and say this icon of wild Scotland is also all but guaranteed at the road-end at Glen Muick, that runs south, into the big hills, from Ballater in Royal Deeside. And you'll see them from the A9, the main Highland road, again, especially if the weather is poor. In summer, they tend to go higher into the hills, but basically they are all over the Highlands in good numbers, from the Trossachs to Sutherland.

The red deer's smaller cousin, the roe deer, pictured above, is pretty common these days as well. We would expect to see them, for example, in good numbers in, uhmm, those big fields on the left after the Tranent road junction, Edinburgh-bound, on the main A1 south-east of the city. And all I mean by that is, there are plenty of field edges, with woods and thick cover nearby, that carry good roe populations all over Lowland Scotland. The sea-braes (slopes) of the east coast are another good bet. The Lowland parts of Perthshire also have plenty.

Wild cat

This is another favourite for any wild Scotland promotions. The Scottish wild cat is a bit like a tabby on steroids. I've climbed hills, wandered in woods with camera and binoculars and generally covered a lot of rough ground all my life and I've seen wildcats, oh, maybe twice. And one of these was late at night, in the car. I mean, I was in the car. Obviously, wildcats are fierce, but they don't steal cars. There is some anxiety in conservation circles that the Scottish wildcat Felix sylvestris is in danger of losing its pure blood-line thanks to inter-breeding with feral moggies (domestic cats). Ditto the red deer, though not because of amorous moggies, but through mating with the introduced sika deer. (Well, it's always better to be introduced before mating.)

Fox

Yeah, sure, we have foxes. Who hasn't? Best view I ever had was of the one that used to come and wait outside my mum-in-law's French windows to be fed. At least, I think it was a fox. Should have checked for a collar. I have to point out that glass separates our dog from the fox. This is in Edinburgh. I suppose this is where wild Scotland comes to town.

Pine marten

In wild Scotland, you have a better chance of seeing a pine marten than you have a wildcat. But just don't expect them to be dropping out of the trees on top of your camera lens. The best view I ever had of one was walking along the railway line near Plockton in the north-west of Scotland. In this case both pine marten and I were walking on the line. Technically, we were trespassing, though I doubt if the pine martin was worried.

You hear tales in the north-west Highlands of local residents putting food out of pine martens on their bird-tables. Apparently, they are very fond of jam sandwiches (the pine martens). And I always used to write in guidebooks and brochures that they hang about and forage in roadside litter bins (again, the pine martens), especially by Loch Maree, near Kinlochewe on the Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve. To be honest, I never saw one doing that but have been peddling this line for, oh, years and years now. Are litter bins the same as trash cans?

Badger

Yeah, sure, we have badgers. Who hasn't? I am exceptionally proud of this picture of one but only because, unless you know where a sett (a badger-hole) is and go and hang out there, the possibility of a chance encounter isn't all that great. Especially with the noise you make. But not only was this picture a random encounter, it was also daylight - a balmy summer evening and I had the tele lens on the camera. What are the chances? Only when I walked up to this badger and attempted to tell it that in wild Scotland, animals didn't flaunt themselves like this, did it eventually lollop away. This is the only verb I could think of to describe a badger gait. It isn't quite 'flump', as that suits seals better, see this page on Scottish wildlife, where we look at some other Scottish species.

Extinct (or re-introduced) Scottish wildlife

Just had this thought: wild Scotland was a lot wilder if you'd visited a very long time ago. We lost brown bears a thousand years ago though they were exported by the Romans for their brutal circuses. (Martial makes reference to 'Caledonio urso' in his descriptions of these entertainments.) We killed off beavers in the 15th or 16th centuries - and there is currently much huffing and puffing about their re-introduction. Wild boar had gone by the 16th century. Some Highlanders who fought in the Jacobite uprising, say, in 1715, would have known the wolf, though the species did not last much longer. In 1743, Macqueen, the stalker to the laird Mackintosh of Mackintosh, on the River Findhorn, apparently killed the last one. His 'long dog' brought the wolf to bay. Then, his own account reads 'I buckled wi him, and dirkit him, and syne whuttled his craig…' (I joined with him, knifed him and soon cut his throat….'

The picture here is of re-introduced reindeer in the Cairngorms, where they are a visitor attraction, and much in demand around Christmas time, when some are hired out to pull Santa's sledge.

For whales, dolphins, otters, red squirrels, adders, seals and miscellaneous small furry but possibly endearing beasties, see this other wild Scotland page.