Country diary: this cute creature is a cold killer

Aigas, Highlands: The pine marten brought a touch of night in its sharp black muzzle and in the big silent dark-stockinged feetFor more than 90 minutes we’d sat until cold air quieted the wood and the day thinned into the long shadows of the trees. By 10.30pm we were centred in an arc of artificial lamp glow. There was just the sound of a last robin across the loch, its spindly song an analogue for the vanishing day. The silent theatricality of the moment was thus complete when the creatur