The Hermitage, Perthshire: One fallen tree I find is more metal than wood, with so many ‘make a wish’ coins pushed in – a tradition that is likely to be harmful to wildlife

It’s a wet, cool day in the woods. Snow shrouds the high ground, but down here among the pine and the larch and the beech, the leaf litter is soaked through like a dropped towel. Here and there, the bodies of fallen trees lie sinking into the mud, the remains of last year’s autumn drifting at their sides, dwindling away into dust.

I know this path well, but for the first time I notice there are several small signposts in front of the largest of the fallen. Memorials, I assume – but no. They are warnings.