Among The Branches

Scotland’s woodlands are alive with hidden life, if you know where to look

- Jim Crumley, Scotland's leading wildlife author,

SOMETIMES, mostly in summer, I am beset by a particular species of restlessness. The only effective antidote I have found is the company of trees. Lots of trees. A land of trees. Somewhere like Tentsmuir.

I was about to write that I like to lose myself in the company of trees, but the metaphor is a poor choice, because getting lost in Tentsmuir is impossible.

All the paths are wide tracks, discreetly colour-coded and signposted. And because the site of Tentsmuir is flat, when it was planted in the 1920s there was no need for what was then the Forestry Commission to confront gradients with curves, so all the tracks are more or less dead straight. A map of the forest looks a bit like a street map of Manhattan.

But there are different densities of trees creating different atmospheres, different shadows, different light, different habitats. There are also different ages of trees (mercifully the Commission’s old clear-felling habit is not a management option here), and although none of the trees are truly old, there are many of middle age, youth and infancy.

There are interlopers, too, and these tend to make camp in colonies. The most prevalent are beeches, which form up in avenues along some of the trackside straights. Hollies thrive in cool shadows, birches crop up almost anywhere, willow and — along the forest's seaward edge — alder.

The deeper into the woods you go, and the quieter you move, the more intently you watch and listen to the forest heartland, and the more agreeable the forest is to confide its secrets.