Robin Patten is a nature writer, ecologist and environmental historian. Twitter @robinspatten
March 2019
Country diary
Country diary: the mystery of the mounds
Assynt, Sutherland: These structures were once part of people’s lives. A trough perhaps two metres wide full of heated water: why? A prehistoric sauna? Ceremonial cleansing? Cooking? For making beer, one theory goes. We can’t know
November 2018
Country diary
Country diary: these odd rocks wandered in with the ice age
Assynt, Sutherland: The natural monoliths and pink quartzite that dot the landscape are erratics, carried there by glaciers
August 2018
Country diary
Country diary: cloudberries spark among more subtle colours
Country diary
Country diary: a vole emerges from the pond, as dark as the bank mud
April 2018
Country diary
Country diary: treasures that were once beneath the Cambrian sea
Assynt, Sutherland, Highlands: The stromatolite fossils lie on the Eilean Dubh Formation, a geologic stratum often marked by coral and shell fossils
