Country diary: The bog is only quiet at human height | Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

Flow country, Caithness and Sutherland: Take yourself down to the red bog moss, and the heather and boy myrtle it winds through, and you'll find a burst of microscopic livingThe white flowers of the bogbean shake, sprinkling starlight over the bog. They stand unsteadily in the pools, moving with the slightest wind. As the first colour of the morning fills in, it seems to come as much from above as below, where red mosses glint from the dark peat. Sphagnum capillifolium, acute-leaved, or red bog moss, forms dense hummocks, rising from the ground like an outward pulse of blood: a fleshy, silent circuitry.Stretch upon stretch of red courses through the heather and bog myrtle, while behind them, the dim mountains are hugged by cloud. Shadows move in. Rain begins. Small circles form on the top of the bog pools as the sweet scent of myrtle washes through. The only sound is the rain hitting my coat and the surface of the pools. The only movement is the drop of the water and the cool brush of leaf into leaf, stem against stem. Continue reading...