Country diary: Walking the storm path through an ever-changing pinewood | Amanda Thomson

Abernethy, Cairngorms: Even in this part-plantation where there is much uniformity, high winds ensure the woodland can never stay the sameAfter the summer's cacophony of greens, the broadleafs among the Scots pines are turning - the larches to green-yellow and bronze, the birches to a warmer yellow, but turning to bronze and copper too. I'm walking along a path with a line of larches and mostly pines behind. Storm Amy has made its presence felt, and a number of trees are windthrown.Through new gaps I see a couple of gnarly "granny" pines I'd not noticed before, so I head in towards them, crackling over fallen twigs and branches festooned with lichens. This area is for the most part plantation, so the trees are quite uniform in age, spacing and girth, with some granny outliers that speak to an earlier time. I find a storm path of sorts, diagonal lines where trees have dominoed, or where one has partially fallen and is resting on another. Each points north-east to a fault. Continue reading...