We began May lounging around in blissful midge-free sunshine, waiting for rain to plant up the raised beds and a new wildflower meadow. But the compulsory Spring storms didn’t disappoint, even throwing in a spot of ‘lambing sleet’. Deep puddles strewn with shredded leaves and gorse flowers are a classic May sight, as is the brown seaward face of trees and shrubs: delicate baby leaves burnt by the salt-laden wind.

Just before these salt-scorching storms, a hillside was scorched in an accidental wildfire. Miraculously (and thanks to the diligence of the firefighters who battled it) nobody was hurt and the flames largely spared the precious woodland that lines the burn tumbling off the hills and down through magical fairy pools. All the hillsides gush green briefly in June with deer grass and bracken, but beneath the flush of grass this burnt patch is still black as the ravens who cronk above it.

Elsewhere on the hillside, insectivorous butterwort is joined by its midge-eating partner sundew. Heath spotted orchids and bell heather are emerging; cotton grass nods in the bogs. Orange-tip butterflies flit around the shins and a large red damselfly warms itself in the heather. In soggy ground yellow flags are unfurling and warm air is heady with bog myrtle (which is said to repel midges – but really, does anything?). A dainty fringe of mauve wild thyme, yellow tormentil and white heath bedstraw freckles the roadside. Clumps of bird’s-foot-trefoil and sea pink make a pretty ensemble on licheny sandstone, whilst Achnahaird’s field of sea pink is an almost-preposterous luxury.

Any lowland walk at this time of year is accompanied by the tchak tchak of a Stonechat: black hat and back, crisp white collar and blush-orange chest, sparrow-sized. Recently I thought I’d seen a pair of massive ones, as big as blackbirds, sitting on a fence … but they turned out to be ring ouzels, probably just passing through en route to breed on higher ground. They’re on the UK Red List of Conservation Concern, as are several other birds we might consider common: the shag, curlew and our favourite alarm-clock cuckoo.

The wildlife charity PlantLife promoted #NoMowMay, which we happily embraced in our garden. The lawn is now thick with lacy pignut and magenta northern marsh orchids. ‘Our’ swallows swoop low over it, hoovering up a rich insect meal. Lately they have been joined by house martins, who somehow resemble dumpy flying penguins but are no less agile than their long-tailed cousins.

Lockdown has kept me off the sea for the first time in a decade; I have no idea what the birds and beasts are doing out there. I heard the puffins had passed through in April… but where have the terns chosen to nest this year? How are the fulmars, eiders, black guillemots? Any cetaceans? I feel I’ve been neglecting these old friends, but I don’t expect they’re too bothered. Nature: unaware that the human world is racked with chaos and torpor, and oblivious to the distraction and sanctuary it offers us when we stop to notice.  

This piece first appeared in the ‘Coigach Newsletter’, June 2020.