From The Shadows

Loitering in a Scots wood as the light fades to dusk, a magical encounter with a roe deer and her fawn as they emerge from the trees to browse

- Jim Crumley

THE place of trees in the landscape is never far from my mind. Sometimes, especially in summer, I seek out cool places beneath old trees, oaks or Scots pines for preference.

And because summer and Scotland and trees are the component parts of an equation that equals midges, I like my cool places beneath old trees to be like this one, 1000 feet up a mountain burn, and near enough to the edge of the wood to permit access for the wind, the better to keep me cool and move the midges along.

I know from many years of practice that sitting with my back to an old trunk, with the wind in my face, is an effective invitation to nature to drop in and pass the time of day nearby, and as likely to bear fruit as anything else I can think of.

The wind at my back, my scent and sound blown before me and nature a locked door. The wind in my face, my scent and sound a shredded wake and nature an open gate. Enter, ask for owl eyes, tree stillness, now make what you can of her secrets.

Then, the roe deer. The doe. She walked from tree shadows where dusk was just beginning to gather, into the one patch in that small clearing where the last sunlight caught her, and there she stopped and there she stood and there she glowed.

But the reddening sun was only on her head and neck and spine and the top half of her left flank. The rest of her was dark. She presented an almost eerie illusion, as if the top half of a deer was swimming through the trees. When she stopped, she floated.

FASCINATING FACTS

Roe deer eat buds and leaves from trees and shrubs, as well as ferns, grasses and heathers.

They tend to be solitary in summer, but form small, loose groups in winter.