It’s a long way from Africa to the little Island of Mull off the west coast of Scotland. It’s especially a long way if you are only six inches long and you have to get here all by yourself. Yet that’s exactly what the small black and white birds I am watching, skimming past the bothy roof, do every year. They do it casually and easily because that’s what House Martins do.

It’s hard to believe that these birds, cutting through the air around me like tiny fighter planes with their black swept back wings, only weeks ago flew over the backs of wildebeest and rhinoceros. Now they are flying over me, an old man drinking tea outside a Highland bothy. It must be a bit of a come down.

It had felt like a long four miles that afternoon as I trudged up Glen Forsa, walking away from the little ferry that had carried me across the sound of Mull and up into the mountains. The valley is long, straight and steep sided, it’s one of those walks where the path stretches out in front of you and even after half an hour you feel no closer to your goal. It is May and a cold wind sweeps down Glen Forsa carrying rain and the cries of new born lambs with it. May is a fickle month in the Highlands, some years it brings sun to these hills and the air bursts with the buzzing of bees and the wing beats of a million flying insects. In other years May can be cruel and bring merciless snow to the glens whose white veil brings a bitter cold leaving young lambs dead in the Heather in their first week of life. The people here call these short, freezing intervals, “lambing snows” and hope they will not visit this Glen this year.

I zip up my cagoule against the rain, happy in the thought that I have only a few miles to go before I can set down my pack in the simple shelter of Thomsleibhe bothy and enjoy some tea. As I get closer to where I will spend the night the sides of the valley closes in about me, the open heath gives way to forest, with mountains rearing up beyond. As I pass a stand of trees three stags tiptoe out from cover and stand for a few seconds scenting the air, unaware of my presence. Their antlers are newly grown in and still covered in fine velvet, it will be months before they reach full size ready for the rut in October. Then the stags will be tested to their core and my not even survive. The wind changes, they catch my scent and run off up the hill barking in alarm.

I have never been to this bothy before but as soon as I push open its rough wooden door the little shelter feels comfortingly familiar. There is the friendly smell of wood smoke, damp clothing and well-worn boots. The bothy already has two residents, two men, like me, in their early sixties, who are spending their second night in the bothy. Tam and Gordy are from Ayrshire and I can tell at once they are veteran bothy visitors, their possessions are neatly organised on the bothy table. Stoves and pans are laid out ready for use, they have only exactly what they need and have brought nothing redundant. This tells me they have refined the contents of their rucksacks over countless bothy nights and now know exactly what they will need.

We spend the evening before the fire swopping tales of bothies we have visited and the characters we have met along the way. We bemoan the state of the world. Tam groans about being sent on courses by the “brew” on how to use computers that he hates. From that I guess he is unemployed and forced to jump through hoops by system that still pursues the myth that there is a job for everyone. As the evening passes in the candle light we slowly set the world to rights.

They leave early next morning and I am left to marvel once more at the house martin’s mastery of the they dart about the bothy with displays of precision flying weaving intricate patterns against the grey morning sky. Many years ago my father would take me fishing and I would stand beside the ponds of our Merseyside home and watch as hundreds of house martins and swifts danced like shoals of aerial fish above the dappled pools. There were so many, and they moved so fast, I expected them to collide at any moment. Then the surface of the water would be alive with whirligig beetles scuttling as though on some secret errand. They would jostle with Pond Scatters, tiny insects that looked like two men rowing a bout with their feet delicately balanced on the surface tension of the water. Around the water’s edge I would see the occasional water vole scuttling for safety amongst the reeds, peering at me with dark beaded eyes. The ponds I fished as a child are still there but the myriad life they once supported is gone. There are no dancing insects or diving house martins, our intensive agriculture has sterilised the earth. House martin numbers have dwindled by two thirds in recent years and they are now endangered.

In the grey morning mist, I pack my rucksack and head back along the Glen, at least here you can still see the water boat men on the puddles of the track and catch a glimpse of distant eagles far above the mountain summits. An hour or so later I am sitting amongst the tourist motor homes and farmers four by four vehicles, waiting for he little ferry to take me back to Lochaline and my drive home. I will come again to Mull looking for of its sea eagles and otters. Searching for a glimpse of wildness that will take me back to being a boy once again, watching the martin’s giddy flight.

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If you’ve enjoyed this blog you might like to read more of my adventures in bothies in my book Bothy Tales