Scotland's Big 5 campaign in quest for favourite

The Scotland’s Big 5 campaign has been launched by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and Visit Scotland.

The Big five are all high-profile species, widely associated with Scotland, with a broad geographical spread. They are the red deer, otter, red squirrel, golden eagle and common seal. 

Interestingly wild cat, capercaillie and pine marten all miss out. 

The campaign encourages people to enjoy the wider experience of exploring some of the places where the species can be found, and to take part in a web-based vote to discover the nation’s favourite wild animal, even if it’s not one of the Big 5.

Review: Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire; a fascinating place to visit

To gain an insight into the wildlife of the Wicken Fen nature reserve in Cambridgeshire, it pays to take to the water.

I do so in the company of Ralph Sergeant, who, with his East Anglian accent and long beard, is a fenman straight out of Central Casting. 

He worked at Wicken for over 30 years before his retirement, but he’s still on hand to share his knowledge when the need arises.

Holland: below the waterline in Flevoland

They’ve got sea eagles down there now,’ says pilot Joop Peek, indicating a patch of rough grassland and trees adjoining Holland’s Markermeer lake, near Amsterdam.

‘You wouldn’t want one of those to hit the aircraft,’ he adds, jovially, ‘they’re the size of a door. And they can easily fly up as high as we are now.’

We’re looking down, slightly nervously now in my case, on the nature reserve of Oostvaardersplassen. From 400 metres, we can see a group of wild Konik ponies moving en masse across a patch of mottled green grass – providing a brief glimpse of ancient Europe on one of its newest expanses of land.

Five minutes earlier we had taken off from the airfield at Lelystad, from which you climb for 13 metres before reaching sea level. This whole region, Flevoland, was reclaimed from the sea in the 1950s and 1960s.

Estonia: natural wonders of Soomaa national park

I am in Soomaa national park, Estonia, standing in the middle of one of Europe’s largest peat bogs, with what look like red tennis rackets strapped to my feet.

And I’m conscious that one false step could lead to me ending up to my chest in cold, muddy water.

‘I don’t know about that bit. It looks a bit too wet,’ Algis Martsoo’s warning comes just in time. I still have chance to change direction and skirt around a sinister-looking patch of black mud splashed with sporadic greenery.

Still, if one must be in the middle of a bog, Martsoo is a good person to be with. As a ranger, ecologist and guide at the national park, he is something of an expert in local habitats and to spend an afternoon in his company is to take a crash course in one of the continent’s rarest landscapes.

The konik horses of Wicken Fen

A horse is eating my trousers. It sounds like something from a school French phrasebook of the 1950s, but it’s true. I wouldn’t mind, but I’m still wearing them.

The animal in question is one of 44 dusty-grey coloured konik ponies living at the Wicken Fen nature reserve in Cambridgeshire.

The word konik means ‘little horse’ in Polish and the breed is one of the most ancient in the world – genetically close to the herds that would have roamed Europe 4,000 years ago.

The animals are inquisitive, using their noses, lips – and teeth – to find out more about anything new – and that includes strange people who happen to wander into their vicinity.