Fox Tracks, Beinn Dorain

After overnight autumn snow, I was the first person to walk along Beinn Dorain's white blanketed summit ridge, However my route was marked out before me by fresh fox tracks, excepting at the stretches where they lay remarkably close to the drops where I preferred to keep to the crest. I've not often seen foxes in the Scottish mountains, but the signs of their presence can often be found on the ridges.

Berry Laden Rowan

The previous week had been blessed with good weather and the autumn colours were some of the best we'd ever witnessed. In the glens, the birch was golden and it wove a pretty thread along the banks of the burns. A little higher up on the mountain sides, the brilliant ochres of the rowan and the bracken, illuminated by the low sun were contrasted against the blue sky. Unbelievably red berries blended into the scene, yet still shocked our eyes; a painting of them, with true to life colours would have had to be judged as "overdone".  It was continuously hard not to just stop and stare in order to memorise the beauty, for use in the future when the "real life" of urban existence feels like it's taking over.

Regurgitated Rowan Berries

 We weren't the only  ones to be making use of the Autumn's richness. Large flocks of migrating fieldfare were busy stripping the trees of their berries, gorging themselves and chuckling their way across the mountain sides. They are quite a large thrush compared to our less gregarious native breeding species of song-thrush and blackbirds, and as a flock they must consume a lot of food. Over a week of intense activity, the reduction of red berries on the trees was very noticeable. However, the birds in their frenzy to build up fat stores for the winter, clearly over-estimate their digestive abilities. All around, on the paths, or the tops of boulders, the bright red berries had been regurgitated as neat little piles with the ash seeds still intact inside each one.

Fox Scat With Rowan Berries

Much higher up at an elevation of 3400ft, and along another narrow ridge, I also spotted fox scat complete with undigested red berries. As is often the case, it had been left prominently on top of a cushion of moss for all to notice. In other places they are frequently to be found on the tops of cairns and rocks. The mountain fox's diet changes with the seasons, with food provided by ground nesting birds in the spring and berries in the autumn.  Unlike their lowland cousins who frustrate the farmers, the upland fox has to hunt a much larger territory of up to 15 square miles. Marking and claiming their area is obviously important and a mountain ridge is an obvious demarkation.


I felt myself thinking about the journey of the rowan seed, how nature ensures that it shouts out the berry's ripeness with a flare of signal red. How, it is transported in the overloaded crop of a greedy bird to once again find the light of day on the top of a rock ~ where the following day, the autumn rain will wash it down into some sheltered crevice from where someday it will germinate and a new rowan grows in it's characteristic way. Or of the fox, that unwittingly deposits another seed on a mountain top, and from there, the strong winter winds may disperse the seed to the other side of the mountain where another colony of ash may well be born. It's a remarkable story.