Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Nature Watch: The wizardry of nature at Inchnadamph

The bone caves
The bone caves

It was a remarkable phenomenon – a large tumbling burn, which appeared miraculously from solid rock as if spirited into existence by natural wizardry.

This was a natural spring near the Inchnadamph Bone Caves in Assynt in Sutherland where a subterranean stream emerges from the ground, bubbling up through a deep bed of gravel that is a feature of the limestone geology of the area.

It was a spontaneous creation that made the mind spin in wonderment at the forces which had forged the ground beneath me.

Natural spring

I ambled up the path by the nearby small river towards the bone caves, continually scanning the ridge tops for eagles, but the grey skies remained tantalisingly empty.

On climbing up to the caves, a female common darter dragonfly whizzed past in determined fashion.

Prehistoric past

The caves were an open door to our prehistoric past where brown bear and reindeer bones were unearthed by geologists in the late 1880s.

More recent digs have revealed the remains of other animals that once roamed Scotland, including Arctic fox, lemming, lynx, wolf and wild horse.

The fragment of a polar bear’s skull was even discovered in one cave, which is estimated to be over 20,000 years old.

Liverworts and ferns

Some of the bones may have been washed into the caves by melting glaciers, but the caves were also used as a shelter by animals, and later, by people.

Liverworts and small ferns clung tenaciously to the cave wall entrances, themselves primitive plants, which thrive in dark, damp environments.

Liverworts are often overlooked, but they are fascinating small flowerless plants with leaf-like lobes, which appear like a lobed liver, hence the name.

Liverworts produce spores to reproduce instead of flowers and seeds and they provide important microhabitats for tiny creatures.

Firemore Beach

The north-west Highlands continually enthral and inspire, and no more so than a few days previously when I visited Firemore Beach near Poolewe.

Sea rocket at Firemore

After a morning of heavy skies, the clouds lifted, and the sandy beach glowed under the sunshine.

A late fledged young ringed plover, only just able to fly, ran along the shore edge on pattering feet, and soon found company with a pair of sanderlings, which themselves had only recently arrived from their breeding grounds in Greenland.

Sanderlings are diminutive pearly-plumaged waders that are always on the move as they search the wave-lapped shore for invertebrates.

Out at sea bobbed a small group of black-throated divers, still adorned in their summer breeding plumage, and a lesser black-backed gull tumbled high above in the blue sky.

Sanderling

My eyes, however, were drawn to the upper shore, where a drift of pastel-flowered sea rocket swayed in the briny breeze.

I ran my fingers along the one of the plant’s succulent, waxy leaves, which are designed to conserve the meagre water drawn by the roots from the beach sand.

Like the natural spring at Inchnadamph, this sea rocket, too, was a miracle of nature – an evolutionary masterpiece perfectly adapted to flourish in the most challenging of environments.

Conversation