This is the same oak as the one titled “Oak at Loch Moidart, Scotland (2)”, but here it is seen from above instead of below. The other trees are mostly birches. The rocky, fast-flowing stream is cut down into a ravine where there the vegetation includes a great diversity of mosses and liverworts, some of them uncommon and with a markedly western distribution in Britain. I was here surveying those mosses and liverworts along the stream. I was with a couple of other people who were keen to be shown some of the rarer species. I was very happy to show them, but the constant noise of rushing water in the stream meant that I had to speak just a bit louder than usual, and after a while I had a really sore throat! This has happened to me on a few other teaching occasions, with background noise coming from such things as the river at the Birks of Aberfeldy in Perthshire and traffic on the A9 road in Speyside.

Details: Coloured pencil; 2011; 30 cm x 21 cm. Original sold; unframed print £30.

Included in the gallery Trees 1