Scottish wildcats famously shun human contact. It’s sometimes said that if you see a wildcat, that’s proof in itself that it isn’t actually a wildcat but a convincing hybrid whose pet-cat genes are the only reason it let you lay your eyes upon it in the first place. It stands to reason that an animal with such a long history of persecution by humans should give us the widest berth it can – a hundred years ago, any Scottish wildcat that was tolerant of human presence would probably not live long enough to pass on its approachable genes to the next generation. In contrast, while feral cats are often quite fearful of people, they are nowhere near as worried by humans as Scottish wildcats are, and may choose to live in close proximity to us. Scottish wildcats, though, are most likely to be found in very remote, wild areas where the chances of bumping into humans are minimal.
Because feral cats are less human-avoidant, they sometimes live a not-quite-wild life and will accept handouts from people. If this food source is abundant they can form large colonies, living in much higher densities than is normal for any kind of wildcat, and within such colonies a sort of social structure will develop. Scottish wildcats never show that sort of sociality. This is perhaps the most important difference between the two, but when Scottish wildcats and feral domestic cats interbreed, the resultant hybrid young are likely to show a mixture of behavioural as well as physical traits, blurring the lines between wildcat and feral cat behaviour.
Although they are so similar in so many ways – similar enough to breed together, for a start – the fundamental difference in how they feel about humans means that the lives of ‘pure’ Scottish wildcats are much less easily observed than those of feral cats. What we know about how Scottish wildcats live in their natural environment is minimal because of their rarity, the sheer difficulty of finding them (let alone watching them at any length), and the fact that most of them today are likely to carry at least some domestic cat genes. However, we can infer certain things about them by other means: historical notes, observations of wildcats in captivity, observations of free-living European wildcats in other countries, and (more tenuously) the behaviours of feral and domestic pet cats.
While the differences between wildcats and tame cats are important, they share plenty of commonalities too. All Scottish, European and African wildcats, and all pet and domestic cats, have to eat meat to live, and their most basic instincts tell them that the way to do this is through hunting. They also need to avoid falling victim to other predators that are bigger and stronger than themselves – by hiding or fleeing as the initial lines of defence, and by fighting as a last resort. For male cats in particular, being able to fight and defeat other cats is also an important skill. Even the most pampered pedigree cat, descended from a long line of pets as indulged as itself, will retain at least some of this primal nature, and only those wildcats with the best hunting and fighting instincts can survive.
It is the ability to take down a wide variety of vertebrate quarry – many of them being animals with considerable power and intelligence of their own – and the stalk-and-pounce way that cats put their skills to work in the hunt that shape the basic feline personality. The saying goes that curiosity killed the cat, but I’d prefer to put it like this: cats are courageous. They are naturally inclined to approach, explore and investigate, and to rush in headlong when they commit to an attack. There’s individual variation, of course, but generally wildcats and domestic cats alike are extremely brave, especially given their small size and the fact that they are legitimately prey for a handful of top predator animals as well as being predators themselves. In dire straits even the most mellow pet cat will fight back with utter ferocity.
Tame pet cats with no anxieties around people show us the hunter side of their characters in the most charming way – through play. Before they can even walk or run properly, kittens start to attempt to pounce on and seize any object of interest – including their own siblings. By the time they are a few weeks old and mobile, play dominates their waking hours. Attacking objects of all kinds with claws and teeth is predatory behaviour, and rough-housing and stalking its littermates are behaviours that help to teach a kitten how to tackle a victim that might fight back. It is a vital part of kitten development, and the timespan between their being able to play with full physical commitment and their becoming independent of their mother is short. Within that timeframe, every wildcat kitten has to learn how to hunt well enough that it will be able to kill all of its own food without any help, especially through the winter when quarry is scarcest. For most pet kittens, there will never be a need to actually do this, but the instincts to act in this way remain strong and never fully disappear. Even a doddery old adult cat in its late teens can often be drawn into a game with a bit of string or a scrunched-up ball of paper from time to time.
Play with a cat and you’ll see the way it hunts. As soon as the object of interest is jiggled around, the cat goes into stalk mode, crouching and freezing with eyes fixed on the target and pupils dilating. The crouched position will power the attacking pounce, driven by the hind legs as the cat springs forwards, front paws outstretched with claws unsheathed. The cat can cover about a metre in its final pounce.
If you swish the string or roll the paper ball close enough to the cat that it doesn’t need to leap, it will strike very quickly with one paw from where it is, attempting to pin the target on the ground. The strike speed of a Scottish wildcat making a grab in this way (based on footage of a captive wildcat) is about 1/60th of a second – much quicker than that shown by a domestic cat.
Flick the string in the air, or throw the paper ball high over the cat’s head, and you may well tempt it to try a vertical leap. It will make a swipe or grab in mid-air, the way that it would attempt to bring down a bird in flight, and its accuracy is impressive. Whichever way the cat tries to strike or grab with the paws, if it successfully takes down the target, it will quickly move in to bite what it has caught. It may then roll over with the ‘prey’ held in its front paws, and start to kick at it forcefully with the hind feet, a behaviour that is seen during fighting as well as when trying to immobilise big prey.
This is the way Scottish wildcats hunt and catch the animals they eat. They sit and wait, perhaps for hours in some situations (when staking out a rabbit warren, for instance). Alternatively, they move in a slow walk, but in both cases they are constantly watching and listening for movement of quarry. If they detect a potential victim, they drop into a tense, hyper-alert crouch, and slink closer if they feel they can, each step very careful and deliberate, their eyes locked on the target. If they can, they move along landscape boundaries for extra concealment, such as vegetation, drystone walls, or just natural ridges and dips in the landscape – their pattern of broken dark stripes provides good camouflage against many natural backdrops. When close enough to strike, they crouch low and may perform the familiar cat bottom-wiggle to line up the hind paws on firm ground, ready to pounce. However, if a target appears suddenly, they can also react at lightning speed with a spontaneous dash or a leap.
Once a cat has hold of a victim it will seek to deliver a quick, hard bite to the neck, which will be enough to kill or at least disable all but the biggest and toughest quarry. A Scottish wildcat is most likely to perform the roll-and-kick tactic when struggling with a large rabbit, mountain hare or other sizeable prey item – the vigorous kicks and raking strikes of the hind claws can quickly disembowel the victim.
Both wild and domestic cats are versatile hunters. They do best at hunting small and smallish mammals, from mice and voles up to rabbits, but they are also able to catch birds within a similar size range and will readily have a go at reptiles and amphibians too. They can overcome their aversion to water if there’s a chance of scooping out a fish or newt from a pond, and they will also capture insects and other invertebrates provided these are moving fast enough to trigger the stalk/pounce response. Cats will, of course, also eat food that’s not moving at all if it smells appealing. Pet cats don’t need their food bowls to move about enticingly – the aroma is enough. And if a hungry Scottish wildcat happens upon a bird’s nest it will recognise that it’s found food by the scent and will eat the contents whether they be eggs or chicks. Ground-dwelling birds that rely on camouflage are also vulnerable to being unmasked by the keen wildcat nose. And, although wildcats are highly predatory, they will also eat fresh carrion.
Some pet cats are extremely adept hunters of all kinds of quarry. Some become specialists, attacking birds in preference to rodents or vice versa. Individual Scottish wildcats tend to be specialists too, taking whatever is abundant in their particular region or habitat type. There is a marked east–west split in the general make-up of the wildcat diet, with those in the east taking far more rabbits than those in the west, which eat mainly small rodents.
The ‘best’ prey for a wildcat is a rabbit or a hare (brown or mountain), as these large animals deliver plenty of meat for a single hunting attempt. Of those three kinds of lagomorphs, only one (the mountain hare) is native to Britain, and we know it now as a rather rare animal of the highest uplands, its distribution not overlapping that much with wildcat habitat as things stand today. However, it was probably much more widespread historically – before the rabbit and brown hare were introduced to Britain and outcompeted it in the lowlands – and would have been a key target. Tackling the bigger, faster brown hare is a challenge (albeit not an insurmountable one) for a Scottish wildcat, but rabbits are relatively easy prey and their habit of living and breeding in large, conspicuous warrens also helps make life easier for predators like wildcats.
One big wildcat needs to eat the flesh of a couple of rabbits a day to survive, but if it is subsisting only on smaller mammals it needs to hunt much more often – some 25 to 30 mice or voles a day will be needed to meet its energy needs. The small rodent most prevalent in wildcat country is the short-tailed vole, but there are also bank voles and wood mice in abundance in forests and forest edges, and common and pygmy shrews in all kinds of habitats. Less frequent mammalian prey that has been recorded as taken by wildcats includes moles, red squirrels, brown rats, and roe deer fawns. Whether wildcats can kill small lambs is a contentious point, but the possibility is enough to have earned them an unfavourable reputation among shepherds.
Cats are more suited to catching mammals than taking birds, but they can become skilled bird-hunters; indeed, the Scottish wildcat will certainly not pass up any opportunity to try to catch one. Small passerines like pipits and chats are taken frequently, as are larger quarry such as woodpigeons, ducks and pheasants. Species that nest or feed on the ground, such as golden plovers, woodcocks and game birds, are more vulnerable, and although wildcats tend to avoid the open heathery landscape of grouse moors, they will prey on red grouse if they happen upon them, and so historically their presence on grouse-shooting estates is not readily tolerated by gamekeepers. They may also overcome their aversion to human presence in order to raid a badly secured hen-house.
In some areas, small reptiles like slow-worms and common lizards are frequently taken; likewise frogs and newts. Any insect prey is likely to be the bigger, more conspicuous species, such as large moths, dragonflies or ground beetles. The Scottish wildcat’s willingness to take carrion is exploited by researchers using camera traps to search for their presence. A meat bait, such as a rabbit leg, is placed up on a post, so that the wildcat has to stand on its hind feet to reach the food. This means the camera facing the post should get a clear view of the tail pattern, which gives at least some idea of whether the cat in question is feral or a candidate for a pure Scottish wildcat.
What happens to a wildcat that can’t hunt, or can’t hunt well enough? Starvation, most likely, but there could be another option. When I was growing up, we often visited a local friend who lived in sheltered accommodation in a semi-rural area, and the surrounding woods were home to a colony of feral cats. Our friend fed the cats, as did some others in the accommodation. We ended up adopting a kitten from the colony, which our friend had identified as being particularly inept at fending for herself – this feral-born kitten grew up to be an exceptionally docile cat. Many of the others remained wild and fearful but they all still came to take food close to the residents’ homes. From what I observed, actually hunting for their own food was rare in this particular colony. I’ve heard stories of Scottish wildcats visiting rural gardens or loitering around country hotels and taking food put out for them, but whether a pure or nearly pure wildcat would ever scavenge in this way seems improbable. However, a hybrid wildcat–domestic cat might well overcome its wildcat side and linger around houses for scraps if the alternative is starvation.
As things stand, Scottish wildcats are top predators in Scotland. A young wildcat kitten might be killed by a fox or a buzzard, and there have been occasional reports of wildcats doing battle with golden eagles and coming off worse. However, historically there were Eurasian lynxes, wolves and brown bears living in wilder parts of Britain, and all of these would potentially prey on wildcats. In fact, there is a good chance they would particularly target wildcats, thanks to the curious phenomenon of intraguild predation. This behaviour describes the tendency of predators to seek out and kill other, smaller predators that represent competition for resources. The Eurasian lynx’s diet and habitat needs are not dissimilar to that of wildcats, and observations from mainland Europe where both species occur do indicate that the presence of lynxes is associated with lower-than-expected numbers of wildcats. A lynx is certainly big, fierce and strong enough to kill a wildcat, though the fight would be ferocious indeed. Intraguild predation is an important phenomenon in ecosystems – in Britain, for example, it accounts for the sparse distribution of the long-eared owl, which is victimised by the larger tawny owl where both species occur together. With reintroduction schemes in the works for both Eurasian lynxes and wildcats, the impact of the one species upon the other must be taken into account.
If you have two kittens or cats that play together, you’ll get a look into how cats in the wild might deal with attack by another predator or a territorial rival. As the attacker rushes in, the victim will try to race away, using all its powers of acceleration. If the attacker corners the victim, a stand-off may ensue, with the two face-on or side-on to one another, ears back and backs bristling, displaying their bodies in as intimidating a way as possible. Each is sizing up the other and looking for an opportunity to spring (the attacker is likely to do this first but the victim will often attempt a pre-emptive strike). When one jumps on the other, they grab on and roll around together, trying to bite at each other’s heads and necks and kicking at each other’s bellies. Pet cats that live together and have a cordial relationship engage in silent, restrained play-fighting, with only the occasional yelp of alarm or pain if things go too far. But when true rival domestic cats or wildcats fight each other, the bites and the kicks are full-blooded, intended to cause real damage. Their stand-offs are accompanied with low growls and hisses, and their physical struggles with loud and nerve-jangling shrieks.
We usually remove pet kittens from their mothers at eight weeks old, sometimes younger, but wildcat families remain together for up to six months after the kittens are born. The extra time they have under their mother’s care is vital – not only for honing their survival skills but for them to grow to a more survivable size where they are less likely to be attacked by other wildcats or predators. But eventually the mother wildcat becomes hostile to any kittens that linger too long, as it is time for her to become pregnant with her next litter, so the kittens she already has will have to leave her territory and seek out their own. By this time they should be able to hunt well, but they are still small, vulnerable, inexperienced and – worst of all – without a territory of their own. Getting through its first winter is a huge challenge for any young wildcat.
Scottish wildcat habitat is, as mentioned already, usually very remote, in places where encounters with humans are highly unlikely. It also needs to have a population of prey, and some safe, sheltered place (ideally more than one) that will serve as a den in which the cat can sleep, take cover from bad weather and (if female) have kittens. Habitats that are most likely to support them will most probably be in the uplands and will combine areas of pine forest or birch woodland with more open grassy moorland or other open country – the border between forest and grassland is often a particularly productive hunting zone. Boulder piles or spaces around the roots of large or fallen trees can offer sites for dens, as can the burrows dug by other mammals – old fox earths or rabbit burrows may be used. Complex, rugged landscapes with streams and patches of bushes offer more potential for stalking and hiding, as well as less chance of encountering roaming humans. Wildcats may find denning sites in more densely vegetated habitats – a bit further into the forest, for instance – but will need more open areas to see prey and make a successful hunt. They mostly avoid dense heather moorland, the deep interior of coniferous woodland, and open agricultural land.
No habitat, however promising-looking, will support wildcats if it doesn’t also support prey. However, historically many Scottish wildcats have long lived in a landscape in which quarry is fairly sparse and so they are adapted to use a large area for hunting. Some in the west Highlands may range over an area as large as 25km2, and cover more than 15km on foot in a single night in their search for prey. However, in the east of their distribution, where quarry is more abundant, the home range may be smaller than 2km2. A stable central or core part of the home range is defended vigorously against intruders – this might be defined as the territory proper – whereas the outer reaches of wildcats’ home ranges may change in extent frequently and may overlap with the ranges of other wildcats. A male’s home range is especially likely to overlap with that of one or more females, although social interactions are non-existent until it is time to mate.
Both wild and domestic cats mark their territory with poo and pee in order to leave a long-lasting message to other feline passers-by. When a cat excretes faeces, this squeezes out the contents of the anal glands, which add their distinctive aroma to create the bouquet of unpleasantness that cat owners and many gardeners know so well. Cats of both sexes also spread scent with urine, though males can do so more fulsomely as they stand and spray rather than squatting as females do. The final piece of the fragrant puzzle comes from scent glands in the cheeks and paws: the cat spreads these smells by rubbing its face on objects and by scratching at them, respectively. Cats patrol their territories regularly and scent-mark the same prominent points repeatedly, especially when other cats are around. Domestic cats – particularly those that are subordinate within a dense cat population – do bury some of their poo to try to hide their presence. However, poo-burying is not the norm for Scottish wildcats, except perhaps very close to the den area.
With Scottish wildcats now so rare and sparsely distributed, the problem of finding a suitable area to claim as a territory is perhaps less serious than it would have been a century ago. Yet territory still remains tremendously important. Wildcats are homebodies, not nomads, and to survive they rely on an intimate knowledge of their home patch. Experience will teach them how to make the best use of the space, exactly when and where the best hunting opportunities will be, and the key points to monitor for possible mating opportunities or intrusions from neighbouring territory-holders.
Unneutered female domestic cats (or ‘queens’) come into heat about every two to three weeks through spring and summer, beginning at about five months old and continuing throughout the adult life. Most of them have a breeding season dictated by day length (only coming into heat when days are longer than nights), so this shows some regional variation. However, some individuals may come into heat all year long regardless of where they live. If she is allowed to mate at will, a queen will have about three litters a year. Scottish wildcats, by contrast, naturally breed just once a year because the kittens remain with their mothers for about five or six months. A wildcat queen would, in theory, have time to have a second litter if her first is very early and she then loses her kittens while they are still young, but there is no evidence of this happening in the wild. Feral cats living in colonies may show shared maternal care, something that is not documented in Scottish wildcats (indeed, females are fiercely territorial against one another). This behaviour – whether natural or artificially induced by an abundance of non-natural food – can enable some of the queens to have two or three litters in a season.
A pet cat on heat is hard to ignore. She will call constantly, and this vocalisation is nothing like the familiar meow used to get human attention – it is a drawn-out, throaty yowl, an altogether more primal sound. She will roll about on the floor restlessly and walk in a curious waddling, half-crouched stance – if you stroke her, she will probably move her tail to the side and lift up her rear end. The general impression is of an unhappy and agitated cat. She is also releasing pheromones to attract unneutered males (‘toms’) through strong-smelling urine. She will stay in this condition for a few days, and then will return to normal until the next heat cycle begins, unless she mates. If she is allowed access to the outdoors while on heat (and she will do all she can to get outside) it is almost certain that she will mate – there are free-roaming or feral tom cats around almost everywhere in Britain and they will travel miles in search of queens on heat.
The call of a female wildcat on heat is historically described as a horrific screech, and males trying to get close to her while warning each other away is similarly unearthly. It is easy to imagine how alarming this cacophony would have been to shepherds and crofters out on late winter and spring nights. The cries of both sexes in the throes of this courtship ritual will attract additional males to the area, and they will also try to get close enough to the queen to attempt to mate.
As an aside, the sounds that we most associate with our pet cats are not typically made by wildcats. The plaintive mews and meows that cats give are for our benefit – a kittenish habit that never goes away. Watch cats interacting with one another and you are unlikely to hear a single mew, but when a cat wants your attention it will say so in this way. Wildcats will purr, and mothers will chirrup to their mewing kittens, but you probably won’t ever hear an adult wildcat meowing – even feral cats rarely do.
Courtship behaviour begins in late winter, with the female on heat for about five days at a time. The females will typically be pregnant by March at the latest, and gestation lasts 65–69 days – up to a week longer than in the domestic cat. Mating is a cagey and sometimes violent affair in both domestic cats and wildcats. Eager though she is to mate, the female is wary of allowing the larger, stronger male that close to her and he will often be repelled with snarls and swipes on his initial approaches. When she finally accepts him, she allows him to rush at her and seize the skin of her nape in his teeth. Then, once he has got a grip on her neck, he mounts her. The act of withdrawal is painful for the female as the male’s penis bears forward-pointing barbs, which rake her inside as he disengages. Her reaction is to shriek loudly, struggle out of his clutches and often then to attack and drive him away. Cats do not ovulate until they have mated – ova are released from the ovaries 20–50 hours after mating. The female may mate with two or more different toms while on heat, meaning that her litter could have more than one father.
Litter size is one of the ways in which domestic cats and Scottish wildcats differ. It is unusual for a wildcat queen to produce more than four kittens, and litters of two or three are frequent. Domestic and feral cats, on the other hand, have four or five kittens per litter on average, and more mature queens will have six or seven quite commonly. Bigger litters are common in certain breeds, such as the so-called oriental types (Siamese, Burmese and related breeds). The largest domestic cat litter on record is of 19 kittens (15 of which were born alive) born to a Siamese–Burmese cross queen. Having larger litters and regularly breeding twice or more in a season means that feral cats can easily outpace Scottish wildcats when it comes to building a population.
The pregnant female wildcat needs a den in which to bear and nurse her kittens. She will probably have more than one option in her territory. She does her best to keep the den’s location hidden, leaving minimal traces of use in its vicinity. The inside of the den is bare.
Birth in free-living Scottish wildcats is, understandably, not really documented at all, and is seldom observed in captive wildcats either, as it is best that keepers give the queen space and peace when her kittens are due. But we can have a fair idea of what happens from observations of domestic cats. The birth is quite a protracted process – signs of labour can be evident more than a day before the first kitten is born. The queen will be restless and will pace around inside her den, in between lying down and licking herself. She will pant and generally look uncomfortable. When the first kitten finally arrives, she will lick it clean of its amniotic sac, paying particular attention to its face. The grooming also encourages the kitten to begin to breathe. She will chew through the cord and often eats the placenta. The kitten will soon locate a nipple on the queen’s belly (most queens have six or eight nipples) and begin to suckle. The rest of the litter will follow at variable intervals – usually of up to an hour between each birth but sometimes longer. Each kitten finds a nipple from which to suckle and will always try to latch on to the same one for all subsequent feeds.
Newborn kittens, both wildcat and domestic, are furry with their coat patterns already apparent, but the eyes are closed and they are weak and almost helpless, able only to crawl a short distance and to make a surprisingly loud squeaking call. They huddle against their mother and suckle intermittently; when she has to leave them to find food they remain piled up together until her return. Scottish wildcats time their births for the point in the year when natural food is at its most abundant, making the queen’s foraging trips as short as she can manage – even so, she will need to eat much more than usual while she is suckling young. Her daily calorie requirements double, triple or even quadruple as the kittens grow, depending on the size of her litter.
The father or fathers of the kittens will be long gone by this point, so the mother wildcat has to handle all of this on her own. There are a few anecdotal accounts of male Scottish wildcats (wild and captive) associating with females that have kittens and even providing food for them, but this seems to be very much the exception. The mating system of wildcats is such that no male can be especially confident in his paternity, so it is not wise for him to invest time in supporting kittens that may well not be his. There are records of wildcat toms actively seeking out and killing kittens – presumably in cases where they have had no contact with the mother and so can be certain that they are not destroying their own offspring.
It will be ten to 13 days before the kittens’ eyes open. The newly opened eyes are pale blue, but gradually change to the adult-like yellow-green over the next nine weeks. At about a month old the kittens will be taking their first mouthfuls of solid food and waddling around the den on rapidly strengthening legs. By six weeks or so they can run and leap, albeit clumsily, and at ten weeks they will start leaving the den with their mother when she goes out to hunt. By 12 weeks old they will be eating meat exclusively, and catching and killing some prey for themselves.
Hiding and guarding the young kittens is a huge and difficult undertaking for the mother wildcat. When they are tiny she keeps evidence of their presence to a minimum by eating their waste, and by the age of just one week the kittens are already sufficiently wildcattish that they will hiss and spit at any intruders at the den, hopefully putting on enough of a discouraging display to hold off danger until the mother returns. There are myriad accounts of wildcat mothers ferociously attacking dogs, foxes and humans that have threatened their young. If she successfully fends off an intruder at her den, the mother will probably move the kittens to an alternative den as soon as she is happy that the coast is clear. When she moves them, she carries them in her mouth by the loose skin on their neck, and the act of being seized in this way activates a reflex which makes them relaxed and compliant. In domestic cats, the ‘go-limp’ reaction on being ‘scruffed’ is retained into adulthood, but no one has been brave enough to see if the same is true of wildcats.
It takes a brave predator to confront a protective mother wildcat, but kittens are sometimes taken by opportunistic hunters, such as foxes or golden eagles. As the kittens grow older and more independent, they are more likely to wander an unsafe distance from their mother’s side. Their natural curiosity can often lead them into trouble. About half of all wildcat kittens don’t make it past four months old, despite the constant and committed efforts of their mothers to keep them fed and safe.
Young wildcats’ first hunting forays, alongside their mothers, involve stalking and catching moths, beetles and other insects – relatively hapless and easy prey. However, these expeditions also offer opportunities to watch their mother taking on more difficult quarry, and when she captures a rodent or other larger victim she may not kill it but offer it to the kittens as a living toy for hunting practice. The kittens can pounce on a wounded mouse many times as it tries to escape, developing vital skills.
By the time they are five or six months old the kittens will be starting to move on. They may do this of their own accord or be encouraged on their way by their increasingly unfriendly mother. This is the hardest time of their lives, with only fledgling hunting skills, winter on the way and no territory of their own. They are still small enough that they might be bested by another predator, and on their wanderings they’ll also face new hazards, such as road crossings and perhaps other cats whose territories they may accidentally enter. Sometimes a mother cat will tolerate one of her kittens staying in her home range for longer than the usual period – especially female kittens. The males, which require a bigger home range as they need to be in contact with as many females as possible, are more likely to leave earlier and to wander further.
It is probably these young wandering males that are most likely to meet wandering female feral or domestic cats in the late winter and to father litters of hybrid kittens – they can breed at just nine months old. We can’t blame a young wildcat for taking whatever mating opportunities he finds, particularly when he is so much more likely to meet cats of domestic origin rather than other wildcats. However, here in the twenty-first century, interaction with domestic cats threatens the Scottish wildcat’s existence more than anything else.
Speyside, 2014
I make another trip to the Speyside area in November 2014, once again boarding the overnight coach to Aviemore and settling in for 12 uncomfortable hours of riding through the dark. The days are short now, and we are well into Scotland by the time the sun rises. My excitement at returning to my favourite Highland valley is tempered by the knowledge that I’m searching for the finest of needles in the hugest of haystacks.
Speyside, also known as Strathspey, is one of the ‘priority areas’ identified as holding (comparatively) high numbers of wildcats, although it is also an area where hybrids are likely to be more frequent, given the relatively high human population here. It’s more accessible than most of the other priority areas, especially if you get about by coach, train, bus and feet.
Timing a trip to look for Scottish wildcats is difficult in a way, but in another way it’s not: no matter what time you go, you’re almost guaranteed not to see one. But in theory, late autumn is a time when the population of individual roaming wildcats is at its highest, as those kittens that made it to independence will have moved out of their mother’s territories and will be seeking a patch of their own. They will be covering many miles each night and may be exploring new areas, possibly closer to human habitation than usual, in their quest for a productive territory. Summer’s lush vegetation will have died back enough to make them easier to see as they do so, too. My relentless optimism – a mixed blessing for a wildlife-watcher – surges to the fore and I pass the twilight hours on the coach in a mood of sleepy good humour.
A pause in Aviemore, a bus ride and a half-hour walk and I’m back at Dell Cottages in Nethy Bridge again – in a different one this time but, like last year’s, it has a little square of garden with trees at the back and a bird-feeder that is already busy with chaffinches and coal tits. I dump my bags, grab my camera and binoculars, and head past the last few fields between here and the forest. The last field of all is a spot where I always pause, as it stretches away into the distance, meeting woodland edge, with the grey bulk of the Cairngorms brooding beyond. The field itself is lusciously green, wet and sedgy, the sort of place where rabbits and rodents would thrive and wildcats could hunt them. So I stop, and scan back and forth. Then, overhead, a noisy storm of jackdaws erupts and they take my attention upwards. The flock spreads and fans out over me and I notice how, even within their massed morass, they are flying in pairs – each independently moving element of the flock is a twosome rather than an individual bird. I remember that I have read that jackdaws are unusually faithful birds, shunning all opportunities for what biologists call ‘extra-pair copulations’. Most other birds, although they appear monogamous, will mate with a neighbour’s mate if they can get away with it. Not jackdaws, though. Such is their devotion that even in the air they need to stay close to their partner.
It gets me musing about sociality in animals, in people, in my own nature. I’m up here alone for a fortnight – if I talk to any other people it’ll be only in passing. Most days I’ll probably speak to no one. As an introvert with more than my share of autistic traits, I do solitude pretty well, but I’m still a human and I do feel that pull towards my own kind sooner or later. So I sit somewhere between a jackdaw, who always has to be with its flock but, even more than that, has to be with its lifelong partner, and a wildcat, who has to be alone forever, for all but the most essential biological reasons.
When I was at school, one of my classmates had a pet jackdaw that waited for him outside the classrooms while he was in his lessons. It sat restlessly on a railing at the door and, as soon as the boy emerged, the jackdaw jumped up onto his shoulder to press itself against his neck in palpable relief at the reunion. I was impressed and a little envious of their bond, but I wondered whether the jackdaw suffered agonies of loneliness when they were apart. Walking into the wood by myself on this quiet grey afternoon, I feel more kinship with a wildcat, but I know that a wildcat will never ever feel any kinship with me.
After ten minutes of slow strolling down the broad, main pathway through the pines, I turn left through a gate and into more open, rough ground. Here the path becomes indistinct, but I follow a climbing ridge alongside little stands of silver birch. The ridge curves and I’m overlooking a big, boggy field in which roe deer are grazing. Roe deer rut earlier in the year than our other common deer species, in late summer, and hostilities are long over now. There are three in the group before me, all does, and all have probably mated. They are not technically pregnant yet, though – the fertilised eggs they carry will not actually implant until after midwinter, with twin or triplet kids born in early summer, five months later. This anatomical trick means that they can mate before winter sets in, and go through the most physically challenging stage of pregnancy after winter is over. The implantation delay means that, during the leanest months, they minimise extra demands on their bodies.
Our other deer don’t do this, but several other kinds of mammals with relatively long gestational periods do. It’s known in some mustelids, including badgers, pine martens and stoats (but not weasels, with their brief five-week pregnancies). It is also the norm for the bats that live in Britain, for example, with the males copulating with sleepy females just as hibernation is about to begin – despite their small size, bats have very long lives and very long pregnancies. Wildcats, though, don’t show delayed implantation. They mate in mid- or late winter, going through the physically demanding process of courtship (including fighting rivals) at a time when the stresses of life are already acute. By this time, the tom kittens of the previous summer are old enough to at least make an attempt to mate, and because they are also dispersing and possibly are well away from habitats occupied by other Scottish wildcats, their chances of meeting a feral or domestic female cat on heat are considerable.
I stop up here, finding a spot of dry ground to sit on, and watch the deer and scan the margins of the field repeatedly. It’s mid-afternoon and the sky is already a touch dusky. This is one of the downsides of being here so late in the year. In my sleepy state I forgot to bring my head-torch, so I have to head back before real darkness takes over.
The garden looks so beautiful in the morning. It is still overcast but this seems to heighten all the colour – the lawn, the lichen-crusted birch twigs star-studded with overnight raindrops, and the intensely copper-red dead leaves of the beech hedge. They match the pelage of the red squirrel that bounds across my lawn, then up into the beech tree where the peanut-filled bird-feeder hangs. The little birds scatter at its approach. It anchors itself to the twig from which the feeder hangs, gripping with both hind feet, then lowers its upper body like a gymnast until it’s hanging at full stretch against the feeder. It grips the wire mesh with its forepaws and works away with its teeth to pull a peanut through a gap in the wire. Having succeeded, it holds the nut in both forepaws and nibbles as it dangles, showing off a neatly outlined white tummy. It is heading towards its winter coat – its ear tufts are growing longer, its flanks and tail becoming greyer – but it is still essentially fiery red, autumnal.
When the squirrel finally climbs down and bounds away, a great spotted woodpecker turns up, a flurry of black, white and red, screeching to a halt somehow as it lands on the birch trunk. It’s a female, her nape uniformly black (a male would have a little red patch there). She scrambles up to the branch where the feeder hangs, and then down, bottom-first, onto the mesh, deploying her sturdy bill to bash away at the nuts. For every fragment she eats, another dozen spin to the ground, where they will be hoovered up by ground-feeders such as dunnocks and robins. I’m going to need more peanuts.
The garden show is compelling but I need to be out beyond all of this, so I head off for a full day’s walk, or prowl, around the forest and its edges. This forest is huge and feels particularly wild and beautiful on this blustery grey day. The Scots pines grow as they wish, giving the lie to our idea that, of our native trees, only the deciduous ones become enormous, spreading and bountiful. The trunks and lower branches are so thickly crusted with leaf-like lichens, and draped so heavily in trailing, cobweb-like lichens too, that it’s hard to see any of their bark at all in some places. The lichens are complex organisms, a symbiosis of fungus and alga that are inextricably intertwined. And among the complex physical structure of miniature ridges and hollows, strands and plateaux that is formed by the lichen and the bark on which it grows, a whole ecosystem exists, a community of miniscule invertebrate life forms. These Lilliputian creatures sustain the little birds – the crested and coal tits, but particularly the goldcrests and treecreepers. Tiny birds with tiny fine bills, these two are adapted to probe and explore this miniature landscape to make their living. Most of the other small, exclusively insect-eating birds that live in Britain are summer visitors, heading hundreds of miles south in winter because they’ll simply starve if they try to stay.
I watch a goldcrest at work. This is Britain’s smallest bird species, weighing barely 6g, and it has to eat nearly non-stop through the day to sustain its tiny body – it is literally a matter of milligrams away from starvation at any given moment. Given that, this one seems to be remarkably profligate with its extremely strict energy budget. It’s hovering like a funny-shaped hummingbird around the fluttering tresses of lichen hanging from the small birch by the pathside, snapping away at things so minute I have no chance of even seeing them. It pays me no mind as it lands in the tree and continues to investigate the lichen as it flits and bounces from twig to twig. Through the binoculars I glimpse its face, wearing a permanently sorrowful expression thanks to a huge dark eye and a dark cheek stripe that suggests a downturned mouth.
Finding a treecreeper is more difficult because they are less obvious, but I scan a few trees nearby and soon locate one, scrambling its way skywards in a broad spiral up the trunk, its marbled back camouflaged against the ashy and tawny colours of the crusty bark. It’s hard to imagine a duller life for a wild animal – climb to the top of a tree, fly down to the bottom of another tree, repeat, all day long. But it works – treecreepers are very widespread in Britain, and their numbers have been pretty stable for some 40 years. The same goes for goldcrests. What long-term trends don’t show is that these diminutive birds get absolutely hammered in severe winters – their numbers can drop by as much as 80 per cent if there’s a lengthy freeze-up. Eating fast enough to keep their fierce little metabolic fires burning in sub-zero temperatures is often impossible. This is when these birds might, in desperation, start checking out garden bird-feeders. But those that do make it to spring after a terrible winter will enjoy more space, more food and consequently more breeding success in the absence of intense competition from their conspecifics, and numbers will rapidly bounce back.
I wander on as the path dips downhill and the wind drops. It is cathedral-quiet now. It’s a depth of peace that’s just not attainable where I live in the busy south-east of England. Yet I wonder, as I walk, whether even here there are too many people around for there to be wildcats. It’s late autumn, but in summer I can imagine these wide paths along the forest edges attract a profusion of walkers, cyclists, runners. The spider’s web of smaller paths that criss-cross the central one are probably quieter, but perhaps there are too many of them. The RSPB, which manages this forest for its wildlife, reports that wildcats (or at least wildcat-like cats) are seen occasionally. I have seen a terrific camera-trap image of one captured in the forest from 2000, which to my amateur eyes had as fine a wildcat tail as anyone could hope for, but no one ever saw this particular cat with their own eyes.
The forest does have pine martens, that other and altogether more attainable iconic Highland predator. These gorgeous mustelids have also been caught on camera, climbing up to the famous osprey nest down near Boat of Garten to the south-west. Early-rising fans of EJ the osprey – tenant of the nest since 2003 – were alarmed to see, via the webcam aimed at the nest, the inquisitive face of a pine marten appear over the brim of the nest before dawn one April morning in 2018. EJ, a tough old bird if ever there was one, bristled and shouted at the intruder and saw it off, even though she had no eggs to protect. Pine martens are skilled climbers and expert nest-robbers – the osprey pair at another famous nest, by Loch Arkaig, also had an April visit in 2018 from a marten and then in May lost their clutch to (presumably) the same marten, despite conservationists trying to discourage the predator by cutting side branches from the nest tree and coating the trunk with a slippery compound to make climbing more difficult.
Pine martens are close to cat-sized, though lighter-weight with their lissom bodies and very long, thickly fluffy tails. With their chocolate-and-cream coloration and handsome heads, they are attractive animals and, unlike wildcats, are increasing in number and expanding in range after plummeting to a worryingly low ebb by the mid-twentieth century. For me as a child with a wildlife obsession, pine marten and wildcat were the same in terms of extreme rarity and unattainability. I knew I’d somehow have to get to the remote Highlands to see either, and even then I would stand almost no chance. Both of these mammals had once occurred commonly throughout Britain. Centuries of persecution and forest clearance had left just a few hundred martens, and probably the same number of wildcats, in remote regions of Scotland.
But now, pine martens are thriving. They have benefited from full protection and from reforestation. Their numbers have grown to some 4,000 in Scotland and they are spreading south through northern England. They have also been reintroduced in Wales, and Ireland has a growing population as well. Such is their success that there are now calls for a cull from some quarters (a depressingly predictable reaction to news of any predator daring to increase its population in this country), even though this is still a very rare animal, and presents no significant danger to any human interests. In fact, the opposite may be true. Fans of the marten point out that it could be capable of carrying out a cull of its own – of the grey squirrel. Martens are agile and skilful treetop hunters, though red squirrels can often escape them by retreating to outer branches too spindly to take the martens’ weight. For the heftier grey squirrel, this is not so easy, and it’s possible that the pine marten could prove a highly effective controller of our most notorious invasive mammal species.
To see a pine marten, all you need to do is rent a cottage somewhere around suitable habitat, and put some bait out in the garden. Wait until dark and, with luck, you’ll see a humpy-backed and bushy-tailed shape come lolloping into view and help itself to the chicken wing, smear of peanut butter, jam sandwich or whatever else you’ve left out for it. Unlike wildcats, pine martens have no overriding horror of humans. They can even be persuaded to live and have their pups inside human-made nesting boxes nailed halfway up a suitable tree. However, I’m still extraordinarily unlikely to see a pine marten here in the forest on my daytime wanderings even though we know for sure that they are here.
I walk a slow 10km loop and see almost nothing at all – even the small birds are elusive today. It’s discouraging. I still head out again at dusk to my favourite forest-edge spot, but to no avail. I decide on a change of tack for the next day.
Hours of light are short, so I’m walking in near-darkness down the road into Nethy Bridge. I usually take the riverside path but it’s too dark for that. From the village centre I find the northbound arm of the Speyside Way, which leads through more open countryside on its way to Grantown-on-Spey. I’ve heard that this stretch of path holds wildcat potential, so I’m more hopeful than usual. I’ve soon left the outskirts of the village behind and I’m on a track that traverses a picturesque rural landscape with fields (some stubble, others rough pasture), hedgerows, pine copses and tree-lined streams. The sky is brightening, displaying lilac streaks against indigo. It looks like it’ll be a fine morning.
Already this pathway is serving up more wildlife than the forest. I stop to admire a rook that’s alighted on a fencepost up ahead, to bow and give its hard-edged caw. Beyond it, more rooks are lifting up from the stubble field, their diamond tails and long-fingered wings making them seem gangly and irregular, not like the neat, compact jackdaws in their two-by-twos. I’m reminded of bonfire ash blown into the sky, and feel a twinge of melancholy.
Onwards and things get wilder. No houses now for a mile or more. I’m following the course of the Spey but the path veers closer and further away – now and then I can’t even see the river at all. I disturb some roe deer in a small patch of forest and somehow grab a photo of one of them in its full, panicked flight, the polished black hooves caught in mid-leap. Out onto a more open stretch again and there are suddenly redwings crash-landing in the sparse trees around me, calling incessantly. I wonder if they’re fresh arrivals from their Arctic summering grounds. Their voices are thin, coldly grating – the sound of Siberia. At a glance they look like our song thrushes, but song thrushes have mild expressions and each of these redwings’ faces wears a frown or glare, painted that way with dark and light stripes around the eye and across the cheek. I try to photograph them as they fly, catching black-streaked bellies and rusty armpits as their compact outlines flicker over. Then I shift my gaze lower, and freeze, because there is a cat on the path ahead of me.
It’s a black cat. So the adrenaline jolt is over almost before it’s begun, but I take a careful look at this cat nonetheless. It’s a long way up ahead and facing away from me, walking or stalking away along the grassy track in a slow, deliberate manner. Through the binoculars I can see it is a big, stocky cat, broad-headed and blunt-tailed. I think about the Kellas cats of legend – wildcat-shaped but jet-black, once thought to be a variant or even a different species or subspecies of wildcat and said to be even bigger and more ferocious, but all known specimens are now confirmed to be wildcat–domestic hybrids (or occasionally truly melanistic wildcats). I take a couple of photos of this black cat, which are not very good because it’s still early and the light is low, and because it’s so far away. I decide to try to get closer, but some sixth sense warns the cat of my intentions. It glances over its shoulder and immediately bolts away through the hedgerow and into the trees on the river’s side of the path.
Another not-wild cat, then, but one whose appearance and behaviour makes me wonder if it could be a hybrid – I would certainly not be surprised if I learned (somehow) that it was a feral cat, living wild and off its wits long-term. But then again I have known friendly domestic cats that become terrified of people the moment they step through their cat flaps into the outside world. The story of this cat is unknowable – and that’s the frustration of nearly everything to do with Scottish wildcats. So I keep walking. I stop often to scan the furthest fields, but the light is growing as mid-morning approaches, and surely any self-respecting wildcat would not be out and about any more. Yet again, I look to the other wild animals that share the wildcat’s world.
A noisy bugling overhead heralds the arrival of a huge skein of greylag geese. I watch them as they beat purposefully around in a sinking circle, finally landing in a far-off field among hundreds more that I’d not noticed until now. Among them are a few white shapes. Back home, the greylags would be feral birds, and any white individuals would be recent farmyard fence-hoppers – the domestic goose descends directly from greylags. But up here the greylags are truly wild and have come here from Iceland. And the white birds with them aren’t even geese – they are whooper swans, but they have come here from the far north of Europe and Russia. Between them and the redwings, all these birds blown in from the high Arctic, the mood is truly wintry.
Eventually I come to a lone farmhouse with signs on its fences about the ecologically friendly farming methods used on these fields, including leaving wild patches to provide winter food for finches and buntings. Fittingly enough, there are various finches fossicking in the hedgerow, and also a bunting right opposite the most prominent sign. It’s a male reed bunting in fresh winter plumage tones of chestnut and ash. He is much less boldly patterned (but, in my opinion, more beautiful) than he will be in summer when he’ll sport a glossy black head with contrasting white collar and moustache. In fact, no change of actual feathers occurs to bring about this seasonal change; it is achieved gradually, through wear. The feathers are tipped with those chestnut and ash colours but, as the feather fringes wear away over time, more and more of the black (or white) lower part of each feather is revealed.
A far-off mew catches my attention. It’s not a cat but a buzzard, describing low, slow circles in the multicoloured sky. I look around and spot four more doing the same thing. I imagine them queuing up to board the first thermal of the day – a free ride that will swirl them up to a spectacular aerial viewpoint. From here, they’ll drift for miles, soaring on flat wings with minimal effort, and scouring the ground below for anything that resembles breakfast. Another raptorial shape carves the vista in half – a mighty female sparrowhawk who has no time for thermalling and is dashing at breakneck speed towards a wooded hillside just beyond the farmhouse.
It’s not too long before the path winds right down to the river’s shore. The Spey here seems deep and slow, less frantic than it is further south. I pause to look downriver, wondering if I’ll find a dipper or a kingfisher. I don’t, but there is a little group of goosanders, which hastily paddle away around the first bend of the river as soon as they notice me watching them. Long-tailed tits approach through the riverside trees, conversing non-stop with soft ticking and purring notes as they navigate a complex twig-to-twig course. They bridge the gaps with bouncing flight, their exaggerated tail feathers dancing.
It’s a long hike back, and the best part of the day is over now – at least until dusk, and at least as far as wildcats are concerned. I’m tired but the falling light drives me out again that evening. I walk slowly, I sit and wait, I hope and then I return. It’s the same story the next night, and each night after that, and the same in the mornings too. Walking in the forest and the fields beyond still soothes me, and the other wildlife I encounter still enchants me, but I no longer really believe that I might meet a wildcat someday.