After a very warm March, when the temperatures in the Highlands regularly exceeded those on the Mediterranean, winter – and reality – returned yesterday with a good covering of overnight snow.

It is always worrying to get bad weather at the time of the year because animals and birds are at their most vulnerable. They have made it through the winter but are desperate for the grass and flowers of spring. The hot weather in March brought some of these forward, but they will have been set back again now.

The key thing is to hope that we don’t lose any more deer calves. Our calving survival rate has been low for two years in a row now and this is something that will impact our deer population – numbers and age profile – for the next ten years.