Wildcats are commonly found in brochures
by - 13:11 on 19 February 2008
So, Scottish Natural Heritage would like us to keep an eye open for wildcat, as part of a national survey to establish their numbers. Well, I’ve wandered about Scotland for years and I’ve seen one once. In Knapdale actually. At least it could have been a wildcat – just a tabby thing with a big tail. It louped across the road between the rhododendron thickets.
It was too far off to read the name on its collar. No, only joking. But that’s the trouble with wildcats. The only place you can be sure of seeing them is in little pieces of tourism literature extolling the wonderland of wildlife that is mean to rear up in front of the most unobservant of tourists. In reality the Scottish wildcat does not appear to be an attention-seeking extrovert. As a variation on the wild duck and the waiter joke, we can irritate tame cats, but can’t usually deliver wild cats – at least not as reliable spectacle for visitors. Sorry about that.
The tame cat, part cat, part draught excluder (Felix boneidleus)
In that respect the wildcat is like that other favourite of the optimistic wildlife brochure writer: the pine marten. My best view of a pine marten was while trespassing on the railway line near Drumbeg on the Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh line. (It’s a long story and I promise I won’t do it again.) A foraging pine marten came mincing daintily along the sleepers towards us and viewed us for quite some time. Unless I’m going around with my eyes shut, the amount of time I’ve spent walking in Scottish pinewoods, divided by the number of times I’ve seen a pine marten suggests another beastie seldom observed by the casual visitor. However, I did once see a couple of them snoozing in a den at the Ardnamurchan Wildlife Centre. These were genuine wild creatures that had chosen to set up home in the centre. To be honest, after seeing them on a railway track and in a visitor attraction, I’d just like to see one up a tree or in acompletely natural habitat where they’re supposed to be.
Tourism literature also promises otters and we do them rather better. There used to be a much bandied around statistic that there were more otters in the Western Isles than there were in the whole of England. (Or am I mixing it up with the statistic that there are more people from England in the Western Isles than…oh, never mind.) But you’ve a much better chance of seeing an otter. From a rowing boat just round the bay from Plockton in Wester Ross (or Sou’wester Ross, as we call it), I once saw three of them swimming in a line. They whistled to each other – a mother and cubs, probably. Stick around the tide-lines of the north and west of Scotland and you’ve a really good chance of spotting them.
Dammit! He just dived in. Missed again
And I once saw one from the dining room of the rather swish Pool House in Poolewe. This was a very rare occurrence. I mean the otters are very commonly seen by diners but how many times in my life will I be able to afford a night there?
That's a bit better. And he's got an eel, I think
Finally, some other Scottish denizens of the wildlife brochures, for example, dolphins or red deer are pretty easy to see and, in places, you can watch spectacular species such as ospreys without even getting out of your car – but as for these elusive wildcats….be very patient and very lucky.
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Have done rather better with otters, as you say - we have seen them from the train to Kyle, from a carpark in Orkney and even on the bank of the Ness right in Inverness city centre.
And sheep in the road have to count as dramatic (if beligerent) creature encounters!