My body is in London SW19, a-covering the tennis for this newspaper, but my heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer. In the gaps between matches and writing, I have found myself cornering my Scottish colleagues and telling them loudly how wonderful their country is. I get a lot of agreement.

That first evening of my trip to Scotland last week, I went up a little-travelled valley, the bare hills on either side, the shallow, bouldered, impatient stream down the middle, and the sky that never grows dark. I didn’t see darkness once during my stay: I went to bed in the light and if I woke in the night, it was light again, and I thought how marvellous it must be to be an Arctic tern, spending summer in the Arctic and the winter in the Antarctic, or rather, spending summer in both.

The floodplains alongside the stream were generous green grazing lawns, nourished by the mists and the damp and the rains, but there was no rain for me during this brief enchanted visit. And so on a golden evening, I watched as the deer came down to graze; I counted 700 in sight at one time, and there were more around the next bend as we moved on.

A thousand deer: something to boggle the mind. Many of them were males, with their antlers still wrapped in velvet, a strange and gentle affectation. It will be a few months before they strip the velvet from the antlers to reveal them as weapons of war; and then they will roar and bellow and fight all across the lawns that looked so peaceful now.

A strange business, to grow and discard the antlers every year, but it seems to suit the deer. But all thoughts of battle, and for that matter, sex, had been set aside, for the deer lead compartmentalised lives. Sex is for October, unlike those incontinent humans.

If oyster catchers were required to fill in forms for Who’s Who, under “interests” these birds would put “going peep-peep”. The valley was full of them, so naturally it was full of their din. The mountain hares scuttled about on the slopes, a different species to the brown hares of the lowland. Mountain hares turn white in the winter, the better to vanish against the snow.

I have seen big gatherings of herbivores many times, and mostly on the savannahs of Africa. And as I gazed at this great gathering of deer, I couldn’t help but ask: where are the predators? It doesn’t seem right that so large and so numerous an animal lacks a predator to give life added interest. I watched deer: and dreamt of wolves.

Red alert

Were there two of them? Or were there three? It took me quite 15 minutes to work it out, even though they were in sight all the time and no more than a cricket pitch away. They chased each in other in mad helter-skelter spirals around a tree trunk, chattering loudly, the sounds of claws scrabbling on bark clearly audible.

Almost absurd in their charm, these were red squirrels — and then one was caught in the backlight of the sun, and the tail turned blond. One would disappear behind the tree and then another — or was it the same one? — would reappear with unnatural quickness.

Eventually, I worked it out. There were only two: a younger one, without the ear tufts, being chased, and an older one, with the devastating sweetness of the full red tufts, doing the chasing. Nor was this something they got remotely bored with. After a brief pause to rest, one would suddenly decide that a chasing game would be a bit of fun, and off they went, round and round, up and down, chatter and scrabble, scrabble and chatter.

The march of the grey squirrels continues. They carry the dread virus squirrel pox, but they don’t die from it. But the reds do: and that is what has tilted the game in the greys’ favour. The situation is irresistible now. The glorious charm of the red squirrel is a living sermon on the way that, when humans change the balance of nature, we impoverish ourselves.

Advantage Times

Here at Wimbledon, there have been a few brief stolen moments of birding between the forehands and the backhands. As usual, this newspaper is locked in a titanic struggle with The Guardian for the greater bird list. I am currently up on Steve Bierley, but he has a black-headed gull and a starling and I don’t.

I heard a greenfinch singing while I was on Centre Court, which was charming. Wood and feral pigeon, naturally. Two jackdaws flew over, shouting “Jack!” at each other. Pied wagtail, swift and mallard complete the list. I saw a blackbird on one of the outside courts on television, but I don’t think I can tick it. I must ask the people of the rarities committee about that one. Ah, I know it’s jolly silly. But birds enhance your day even in the most unpromising circumstances. Now to go for that gull . . .

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