Abernethy Forest, Cairngorms: Wildcats are critically endangered, but there is hope. I’ll keep my cameras out

The nights are getting lighter, but it still feels like a winter sky, with a spectacular array of stars and planets as well as the Milky Way. From early morning, the woods are full of the sounds of spring: thrushes and robins sing on repeat and, among the calls of great and blue tits, I hear the tinkle of a crested tit in the still bare birches dotted among the Scots pines.

I’m off to check my nature cameras, and while in the past they’ve caught some lovely things – pine martens scampering across the forest floor, a badger lumbering past, a fox and a succession of red deer, including one antlered stag in front of a granny pine – I’ve been hoping for a sight of the elusive wildcat.