Jim, Author at Jim Manthorpe - Page 3 of 3

into the rainforest – oak, moss and ferns

It was a balmy hot day on the west coast and I was going to head up a mountain but the heat was making me lethargic so I opted for the shade of the forest instead: the rainforest. Few people realise we have temperate rainforest here in Scotland. I’ve heard it called Scotland’s best kept secret. It once stretched from Portugal to Norway, along the Atlantic coast, but only fragments remain. One of my favourite fragments is Ariundle, a national nature reserve near Strontian. I hadn’t anticipated seeing much in the way of wildlife: it was about 26C in the middle of the day, so I was happy to find I was wrong. I saw plenty.

heath-spotted orchid

It may not be quite as lush as a tropical rainforest, and it’s not completely untouched – the forest has been carefully managed for timber in the past – but the thick cushions of moss that cover almost every tree and the ferns that protrude from the trunks and branches certainly make it feel like a rainforest. It was in the open glades, pungent with the sweet scent of bog myrtle, that I saw most. There were the bright whites and pinks of the sturdy heath-spotted orchids. There was bird’s foot trefoil, tormentil and the violet-blue bugle.

small pearl-bordered fritillary

It was the latter that was attracting a multitude of butterflies: small pearl-bordered fritillaries and the local speciality – the chequered skipper, found nowhere else in the British Isles but in this corner of Scotland. They flitted from flower to flower with such urgency, as if they were conscious of how brief this hot spell would be.

golden-ringed dragonfly

And then, as I sat by the river, I saw my first damselflies of the year: large reds, and my first dragonflies too: gold-ringed and four-spotted chaser. Aptly named; they shot after each other, in even more of a hurry than the butterflies. Males chasing away males, and chasing after females.

Ariundle Atlantic oakwood – a temperate rainforest

I headed back under the shade of the sessile oaks. This rainforest was uncharacteristically hot – usually the sky is grey, rain drips from ferns and wisps of mist creep through ancient branches. I love it on those days too but if the sun hadn’t been out I wouldn’t have seen so much life. This rainforest is full of life. It’s just a shame there is so little of the forest left. I think it’s one of our greatest natural heritage treasures. It’s the real west coast and yet so many who come here know nothing of it, instead marvelling at the empty hillsides where the forest once grew.

Allt Mhic Chiarain on Ben Resipol

Every summer solstice I make plans to climb a hill and sleep on the top. But most years the cloud and cold rain put me off. This year, despite one of the coolest, wettest springs on record the weather forecast didn’t look too bad so I headed for a local hill, a corbett at the eastern end of the Ardnamurchan peninsula – Ben Resipol. It is a classic pyramidal peak with no other high land nearby, so there are uninterrupted views west across Loch Moidart and Kentra Bay to the islands of Rum, Muck and Eigg. I first climbed it 24 years ago; it was one of my first mountains.

Ben Resipol stands alone, flanked on all sides by native Atlantic oakwoods. Many mountain slopes in the West Highlands are bereft of their native woodlands, but here the temperate rainforest – the great Atlantic oakwood – is still there. It is valuable not just for its biodiversity but in its capacity to remind us what we have lost elsewhere.

The craggy sessile oaks of the Atlantic temperate rainforest

The craggy oaks on the lower slopes are beautifully misshapen in the way that a commercial stand of conifers can never be. Lichens hugged every convoluted branch. In the open glades there was cuckooflower and orchids, stitchwort and pignut. A redstart flashed across the path and landed on one of the mossy branches to feed a fledgling.

Above the treeline the muddy trail climbs above a narrow defile in the mountainside – the Allt Mhic Chiarain, one of the best places in Scotland for bryophytes. It runs for about half a mile and on its steep edges hardy oak, birch and rowan cling on, safe from the browsing deer. As I approached the 700 metre contour I was surprised to find marsh marigold in the wet flushes and in the middle of the path a starry saxifrage with its five delicate petals and leafless stem. Tiny violet butterworts were in flower too and alongside them, with midges caught in their clasping leaves, were the reds and greens of great sundews. It’s always surprising how colourful the high ground can be.

Great sundew – midge devourer

I had planned to sleep on the summit but a layer of grey cloud shrouded the last fifty metres of the mountain so I lay my bivi bag out by the small lochans on the north side. It was a fine spot to sleep. The soft wind kept my face cool as I lay there watching shafts of light break through the cloud over the islands of Muck, Rum and Eigg. The sun set behind the Isle of Skye to the north-west and very slowly the light dimmed. But it never got really dark. Slowly the earth turned and, a few hours later, the sun popped back up further along the horizon.

Loch Shiel and the Small Isles from Ben Resipol

When I first climbed this hill 24 years ago I was in a rush to get to the summit, to see the view, to feel on top of the world. This time I was in no hurry and on my slow walk uphill I saw all those things that were there before but I hadn’t taken the time to notice. My approach to hillwalking has changed. It’s not about the top, it’s about the bottom to the top and everything in between.

Isle of Muck and the dying light of the summer solstice

Jim Manthorpe

Wildlife Cameraman

Author Archives: Jim

Into the rainforest

Solstice mountain