WILDLIFE
The Woodlands
The surrounding woodlands provide cover and food for a wide mix of species. Red squirrels are a regular sight, leaping through the canopy or pausing to feed on cones, while roe deer graze quietly along the edges at dawn and dusk. More elusive residents include pine martens, foxes, badgers, and stoats, which are rarely seen but leave signs of their movements. Smaller mammals such as hedgehogs, voles, and rabbits also make use of the woodland floor.
Birdlife is at its richest here in spring and summer. Roy Dennis OBE describes the dawn chorus between April and June as one of Loch na Bo’s highlights: “It’s very well worth rising at dawn and slowly walking the lochside paths.”
The soundscape includes chaffinches, siskins, coal tits, treecreepers, and the occasional crossbill, while in areas of deciduous woodland you may hear willow warblers, blackcaps, and chiffchaffs. Great spotted woodpeckers are often heard before they are seen, and larger birds such as wood pigeons, sparrowhawks, and buzzards are regular throughout the year.
The Loch
The loch is a focal point for waterbirds in every season. Resident mute swans nest along its shores, often engaging in noisy territorial skirmishes, while a wide range of ducks, including mallard, tufted duck, wigeon, teal, goldeneye, pochard, gadwall, and shoveler, can be seen across the water. Coots, moorhens, and little grebes are common around the inlets, and occasional goosanders and cormorants drop in to fish.
In winter the loch comes alive as a roosting site. Whooper swans and greylag geese, which feed on nearby farmland during the day, return at dusk to rest on the water. As Roy Dennis notes: “One of the most wonderful sights and sounds is when the swans return just before dusk with the most beautiful chorus of whooping calls.” The loch has also been known to attract rarities, such as a smew from Scandinavia or a ring-necked duck from North America, highlighting its importance for migratory species.
Summer brings another rhythm to the loch. Ospreys occasionally hover over the loch before diving for brown trout or eels, while large gulls, herring, lesser black-backed, and common, drop in to wash in the freshwater after feeding further afield. Around the margins, warmer months bring out striking insects: dragonflies and damselflies, including the common hawker, southern hawker, black darter, and four-spotted chaser.
Skies & Gardens
Over the open fields and gardens, a different rhythm of wildlife takes over. In summer, sand martins, swallows, and swifts fill the skies, feeding on clouds of insects rising from the loch.
Smaller birds such as robins, wrens, chiffchaffs, goldfinches, and blackbirds thrive in the hedges and gardens, joined by seasonal flocks of gulls, from black-headed gulls to the occasional Iceland gull. Pollinators are abundant, with western honeybees, bumblebees, and butterflies, including the meadow brown, red admiral, and green-veined white, drawn to the wildflowers, heather, and the Estate’s fruit cage.
As night falls, bats sweep across the lawns and loch margins, while hedgehogs emerge to forage in the gardens. The shifting presence of these species throughout the day and year reflects the Estate’s remarkable biodiversity.
