From today until the 15th of October you can fish for salmon in the peaty waters of the River Tay- at a price. When the Atlantic salmon ran up the moorland streams of Lewis one Sabbath none dared pay the earthly- or spiritual- price.

Proposal for a walkway that allows visitors to see what goes on under the surface of the bog.

Though the mole doesn’t want to tunnel under the bog I’d like see what’s going on there. Erecting a big tower and building a boardwalk on the surface of the moss are all very well but the really interesting stuff is going on below ground.

The mole digs as close to the bog as it dare without getting its velvet coat wet. No need to go any closer, the sphagnum mosses of the bog create peat not soil so there aren’t any worms out there for it to eat.Mole hills and viewing tower, Flanders Moss National Nature Reserve.

Peat stacks, by “the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat.”

Fragments of seashells on peat- from when Flanders Moss was under the North Sea.

Alpacas on Flanders Moss today.

At today’s -9.5 degrees the bog was crinkling rather than squelching.

On the peatland’s Atlantic shore, a dream or a nightmare?

Winter on the moor.