A Deer Forest in June 



cock bird flies out with fast-moving wings over the loch, 

 describing a wide circle time and again over the spot where 

 his mate stands quietly on some stone at the water's edge. 



Many goosanders haunt the lochs of the forest. Of a 

 June evening one may see the drakes, handsome in their 

 plumage of black and white, standing on the shingle, where 

 the burn empties itself into the loch. The birds are in a 

 comfortable frame of mind, for they have dined on the pick 

 of the loch's trout, and are resting after their meal. At his 

 fishing the goosander is an expert. The birds often fish in a 

 body. They seem to drive the trout ahead of them, advanc- 

 ing across the loch in line — now flying on the surface with 

 much scattering of spray, now diving and yet progressing 

 with almost incredible speed. Time and again one may be 

 seen to emerge holding in his bill a good-sized trout, which 

 is rapidly swallowed. By June the young goosanders are 

 several weeks old, and though as yet unable to fly, can swim 

 and dive with great agility. 



No deer forest would be complete without its pair of 

 golden eagles, and in most forests this fine bird is strictly 

 preserved. In June the eaglets are well grown, for the eagle 

 is an early nester, and hatches off her brood by the first days 

 of May. A favourite nesting site for the eagle is some 

 weather-beaten pine standing far up the glen with a wide 

 outlook. In the more western deer forests trees are few and 

 far between, and eagles nest on ledges of rock; but such 

 situations are apt to catch the drifting snow of an April 

 snowfall, while on a tree, however exposed, the eagle runs no 

 such risk. 



On the high tops of the forest few birds make their home. 

 The dotterel — one must not confuse it with the compara- 

 tively common ringed dotterel or plover — seeks the highest 

 hill-tops, where, during June, the hen deposits her three 

 richly speckled eggs in a slight hollow scraped amongst the 

 as yet lifeless grasses. 



On the shores of a small hill lochan that lies over 



3' 



