Wild Winter by John D Burns

John Burns' The Last Hillwalker was one of my favourite reads of 2020. As I said in my review (here), I didn't expect to like it; I love walking but I am certainly not a climber and I've never spent a night in a bothy in my life, nor am I likely to. But far from being the earnest tome that I had feared, The Last Hillwalker is an interesting, often funny, account of John's life in the hills, starting with a chaotic school trip to the Lakes.  Above all, it's a very human story.

Now John has written a new book about Scotland's nature and wildlife; he started it as an account of winter 2019/20, in which he intended to explore the flora and fauna that he had so far paid little attention to as he yomped up the hills and mountains of the Highlands. By early spring 2020, the book was becoming a record of a winter like no other, and we all know why that was. 

In October 2019, John had a bucket list of things he planned to see. Rutting deer, basking seals, otters, pine martens,  mountain hares, sea eagles, maybe a whale or two. Within a few weeks he'd ticked off the first one, having witnessed the ancient, bloody ritual of the rut in Strathconon. Having got that under his belt, surely the rest could be managed before next spring? He was soon to realise that nature isn't like that;

Wildlife doesn't co-operate. It's rarely where it's supposed to be.

He takes a whale-watching cruise but misses the only whale who deigns to turn up (and on the same trip, surrounded by expensively equipped retirees, suffers a serious case of lens-envy and manages to get 0 out of 10 in the bird quiz) - but instead he sees sea eagles, and a school of dolphins;

leaping and playing around  us...there is no mistaking their sheer joy

He buys a camera trap (a device for filming wildlife in your absence) and singularly fails to 'trap' the otters he seeks (tally: one curious roe deer, and the shadow of one unexplained human). He crawls along the top of a cliff to watch seals, and ends up face down in a pile of sheep poo. 

But this is what makes Wild Winter so readable; this is not some expert lecturing us on things only they can do, it's someone a bit like us. And because he isn't proud, John is happy to seek out the advice and assistance of the professionals, in particular Ben Ross, manager of the Knapdale beaver reintroduction project, and wildlife photgrapher James Roddie*.  Through James he manages to see one of the few remaining mountain hares, and his first pine marten. 

Mountain hare (c) James Roddie

Much of this book is about the devastation caused to the Highlands by centuries of misuse. Vast sporting estates, owned by mega-wealthy and often absent landlords, have turned much of the north into a rich man's playground. These estates are run purely for those who take pleasure in shooting grouse and deer - anything that might (but most likely doesn't) pose a threat to the grouse is ruthlessly slaughtered.  Hares, wildcats, eagles and other birds of prey, legally protected or not, are shot or poisoned. Deer numbers are uncontrolled, the land is overgrazed, no new trees can grow,

The place stinks of death and I find no beauty in its landscape.

This, coupled with climate change and pollution, make for a sad story - but despite it all, John finds hope. Several estate owners are turning their backs on blood sports (apart from anything else, they don't actually pay, and something has to fund these places.) When  Anders Povlsen bought Glen Feshie he was persuaded by the estate manager to abandon his plans to combine a conference centre and golf course with traditional shooting, and since 2006 he has instead been actively rewilding the glen. Meanwhile at Ardtornish Hugh Raven has developed a working farm, holiday accommodation and several hydro-electric schemes; guns are now used only to cull. Hares are no longer shot, nor heather burned, at Coignfearn. Change is slow in the Highlands, but change is coming.

Meanwhile sea eagles have been back on the West coast since the 1970s, moutain hares have at last acquired legal protection in Scotland, and beavers have returned both to Knapdale and - much less officially - to the Tay. They probably won't solve all of our flood management problems, and their activities have to be balanced with agricultural use of the fertile flood plains of rivers, but people like Ben Ross work to bring everyone - from farmers to wildlife charities - round the table to find ways of accommodating the interests of all. 

John also finds cause for optimism in the young people he meets on his travels - despite the fear he expressed in The Last Hillwaker that the next generation simply was not interested in the hills, he is now happy to acknowedge that he was wrong - not only are its members enthusiastic, they also have a great sense of responsibility towards the natural environment, and are often far better informed than his own peers. 

One of the incidental pleasures of this book is the chance it gives us to meet up once more with John's long time climbing companions, Martin and Joe. If you've read The Last Hillwalker, you may remember Martin trudging through the peat bogs of the Peninines in his school shoes. Martin hasn't changed much. He has never learned to drive, has no truck with technology, and uses the same climbing equipment he acquired in the 1970s. He arrives in Inverness on the train, carrying his ancient rucksack complete with outsize ice-pick; when this leads to a confrontation with Scotrail staff, you can guess who wins. Martin is nothing if not persistent. Martin also only eats foods from a list of similar age to his equipment, and the story of the three of them trying to work out what some fellow bothy visitors could possibly be making for their tea is priceless. (It's couscous...) 

And then, of course, there are the bothies themselves - John's already written one book about them (Bothy Tales) and they continue to feature large in this one. From the basic and Baltic (Inver Hut) to the state-of-the-art (Ruigh Aitechain at Glen Feshie), he's visited them all, and now uses them as writing retreats in winter. He's never less than truthful about the harships of bothy life, but he also speaks eloquently of its unique joys;

The privilege of seeing the sunset in winter...a secret world only revealed to the few who dwell here as darkness comes.

2020 dawns; there are rumours of a virus in Wuhan. Within weeks the country is facing lockdown; no more trips to the hills, no more nights in bothies. Imprisoned in his flat in Inverness John struggles at first, but then begins to appreciate urban wildlife - ducks, blue tits, housemartins - and, after singularly failing to find one in the wilds, he sees an otter swimming in the Ness as it flows through the city. That's nature for you. 

When Scotland starts to reopen (temporarily, as we now know) in summer 2020, there are reports of the Higlands being overrun with tourists. Whilst deprecating the infamous North Coast 500 route as much as everyone else who has the misfortune to live alongside it, John finds that most areas of the Highlands and the far North are not, in fact, bursting at the seems. What is needed, he suggests, is decentralisation; visitors should be encouraged to try the less well-known areas, educated about responsible wild camping, and offered smaller camp sites with fewer facilities. After all, he says, it's surely churlish to complain about the arrival of the very tourists whom the Highlands have for years tried so hard to attract. 

The book ends with John returning to the deserted Sutherland beach on which he first saw otter tracks (but no otter) in October, in another life;

I breathe in the smell of the wind and the wild, and I am free at last.

This is a wonderful, informative, inspiring book, and I hope everyone interested in Scotland's wildlife will read it.

Wild Winter by John D Burns will be published by Vertebrate Publishing on 1 April 2021. 
For more information about John, visit his website here.

*James Roddie is a multi-award-winning professional wildlife photographer based on the Black Isle near Inverness. He runs Black Isle Natural Photography and offers tuition and wildlife tours. James' website is here.