Changing seasons: The Eildon Hills

It's a hot day at the end of August 2024, and I am watching what I think is a Migrant Hawker dragonfly skimming across a small blue pond at the back of Eildon Mid Hill. It's a day for dragonflies, clear blue skies, and very little wind, a summer's day in the Eildons.

The Eildon Hills lie south, just behind Melrose, towering protectively over the small border town with its ancient abbey ruins. An iconic landmark in the east Scottish Borders landscape, the hills can be seen from quite a distance, almost as far as the east coast. I've often spotted the familiar three summits as I've crested a hilltop on my way back from the sea.

During the 1st century AD, the Romans built a fort at the foot of the Eildons. The fort took its name from the hills, Trimontium, which translates as "three hills." At a later date, a signal station was built on Eildon Hill North, most likely due to its clear views across the surrounding countryside. There is also evidence that the Eildon Hills were a sacred prehistoric site, with several sacred springs located around the foot of the hills.

Like many places in nature, at a distance the Eildons can look the same all year round, but when you get close, you see just how different the hills can be in every season.

Spring

It is early April, and I am climbing to the top of Eildon Hill North on a fine spring morning; looking south from my vantage point on the hills, I can see the Waterloo Monument on top of Peniel Heugh, another landmark that can be spotted from around the eastern borders. On a clear day like this, I can see as far as the Cheviots and spot the hump of Ruber's Law rising to the south west.

The gorse is out in force, always an opportunistic plant, any hint that summer's warmth is on its way and it will start to bloom. For me, gorse smells of honey and coconut; the scent takes me back to my childhood walks in the countryside several miles south of Edinburgh, where the Soutra hills begin to rise out of the lowland valleys.

Close to the summit of Eildon Hill North, I hear what I can only describe as an angry chuckling. It is a red grouse, hidden deep in the heather. Red grouse can be spotted all year round, and have a distinctive call that is easy to recognize. To me, it really does sound like someone having an angry chuckle. When I reach the summit, I am lucky enough to spot two male grouse strutting about on the shorter grass around the cairn; they scuttle into the heather when they spot me.

Summer

It is late August on the Eildon Hills, and I have decided to climb all three summits in a day. As I start the climb, I spot common ragwort growing in abundance along the path to Eildon Hill North, and the air is filled with the sound of insects. Across the hillside, purple heather is blooming, but is already past its best and beginning to die back for the autumn. Taking a break from climbing, I spot hoverflies feeding on the pollen of the ragwort. After a little bit of Googling, I'm fairly sure it is a common dronefly, a type of hoverfly that mimics the appearance of a honeybee. Wasps and bees are often avoided by predators because of their ability to sting; by mimicking them, a hoverfly can protect itself from the same predators.

Lunchtime arrives, and I'm sitting at the summit of Eildon Mid Hill, a steeper climb than Eildon Hill North, with loose shale that shifts and slides beneath your feet as you climb. There is a pair of Wall Brown butterflies making spirals in the air above me; occasionally, they come down to rest on the hot stones that make up the top of Eildon Mid Hill. The rocky ground suits the Wall, which gets its name from its preference for basking on walls and stones.

After a steep descent from Eildon Mid Hill, I am on my way through a forest of ferns to my last summit, Eildon Wester Hill, when I come across a small rush-lined pond. It appears to be a watering hole for cattle and sheep at times, but for the moment, it is undisturbed; the only creatures using it are dragonflies. They are almost too fast to identify, skimming across the water's surface, but for a brief moment, one hovers, I make a guess at a Migrant Hawker before it zips away again.

Autumn

It is a crisp autumn day, with frost on the ground and the bite of winter in the air. The grass sparkles in the morning sunlight, each shard of ice catching the rays. Once again, I am on the slopes of Eildon Hill North, but this time I have taken a different approach, skirting the base of the hill to the east, past a line of ancient beeches, their leaves a dazzling shade of orange. Looking across the fields, I see roe deer grazing at the far woodland edge. One raises its head as if it senses danger approaching, but a minute or two later, it returns to eating the grass.

Halfway up the south side of the hill, I spot a kestrel hovering high above, wings and tail fluttering to keep it stationary. Kestrels are grassland birds, hovering in the sky until they spot their prey, then dropping like a stone to pounce. Males and females can be identified by their head colour; males have slate-grey heads, while females have brown. While kestrels are a fairly common sight over grassland and along the edge of motorways, their numbers have declined significantly since the 1970s, and their conservation status is amber. The decline is thought to be due to many factors, including loss of habitat and a change in farming practices.

My kestrel is a female, and there seems to be nothing that interests her in the grassland of Eildon Hill North. She swoops south and lets the wind carry her out of my sight. As I watch her go,  my eye is caught by the number of bright splashes of red that cover the hillside. There are a huge number of rowan trees growing on the Eildons; everywhere I look, I see trees weighed down with the bright red berries. Rowan berries are an important food source for many birds, including blackbirds, mistle thrush, fieldfare, and song thrush. I spot several trees with a blackbird pecking off the berries as I pass by.

Winter

January has arrive and it has snowed in the night. I am out first thing in the morning to enjoy it before it melts. Snow makes everything look clean and bright, the trees are dusted white, and the world looks like Narnia in winter.

As a change to climbing the Eildons, I am walking along the base of them, from east to west. The gorse bushes are covered in snow, but still sharp when I brush too close. Beneath my feet, I can hear the ice crack on puddles that were a muddy quagmire two days ago; now they are frozen along with everything else.

High above me, I hear the 'kee-yaa' of a buzzard; there are several nesting in the Tweed Valley, and it is common to see them circling over the River Tweed, or perching in trees at the edge of the woods. There are two in the sky above me, wheeling in circles so high they are just black shapes with wings. Buzzards are Britain's commonest bird of prey, but this was not always the case. Pesticides and persecution from gamekeepers saw the bird almost disappear altogether from the Isles by the mid-twentieth century. The 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act helped them to recover; now there are estimated to be over 70,000 breeding pairs in Britain.

As I reach the path that descends into the town of Melrose, I look up at the towering hills. I can see the saddle, a dip between the hills, with Eildon Hill North and Eildon Mid Hill rising like sentinels on either side of it, and distantly I hear the angry chuckle of a red grouse hiding in the heather.