All is quiet at the Uath Lochans, secret pools tucked away in the forests of Glen Feshie. Uath – pronounced “oo-wah” – is Gaelic for hawthorn, although it is mainly Scots pine gathered around the waters now, with a scattering of birch and rowan. These are kettle hole pools, formed at the end of the last ice age, when large blocks of ice remained stationary as sediment from meltwater built up around them. The melted blocks then left a depression, in these cases filled with water. Instead of a sloping bank, a shelf of fibrous earth held together by tree roots and plants fringes the edges of the pools. In places the ground is so spongy that water rises as you tread, and the trail gives way to heaps of glossy sphagnum moss. Because the soil is peaty, the pools are rust-coloured at the periphery, soon deepening to black, and though shallow, their floor remains hidden. On this sunny afternoon, there is a glow on the Feshie hills and on the ranks of trees that stand like an admiring crowd alongside the pools. The air is still and warm, nothing stirring the leaves or the surface of the water that stretches out like dark glass. Somehow, in its darkness, it casts back the bright trees and the cobalt sky with fluffy white clouds, innocent as a child’s drawing. Deep in the branches, unseen birds sing pure, clear notes and, far above, a white glider passes soundless across the blue. Down on the ground, unruly clumps of heather offer up late blooms, each small mauve flower a memento of summer. In the undergrowth, however, autumnal fungi are advancing, discs of immodest orange and red in the tapestry of greens. Tiny insects with legs as fine as a strand of hair skate across the pool, each dart sending faint ripples out in widening circles that meet and overlap the rings from a neighbour. A silent current of air disturbs the water and the reflected world is split into a trembling mosaic of colour and light. The breeze passes and the mirror smooths, the trees draw tall and still again, the old hills gaze at the lowering sun, and the kettle pool remembers an ancient winter.