The Western Highlands

David Attenborough tells the story of a remarkable garden on Scotland’s rugged west coast. Tucked away in a remote glen, it provides welcome shelter for rare animals such as barn owls and pine martens. Matt Wilson, a passionate naturalist, has spent nearly 40 years shaping this sanctuary, but he never knows what will happen from year to year.

Winter strikes hard. A female buzzard, usually wary of humans, enters the garden in search of food. With snow covering her usual hunting grounds, Matt offers a lifeline. But it soon draws attention from a rival, and she must defend her patch if she is to endure the harsh months ahead.

As the snow recedes, a newcomer appears – a young female pine marten seeking a territory of her own. Almost hunted to extinction and threatened by the loss of their forest home, pine martens are bouncing back. Matt hopes his garden will give her the food and shelter she needs.

Matt has kept a journal throughout his time here, and his close observations mean that one animal has found a special place in his heart – a barn owl. Despite being poorly adapted to the west coast’s wet climate, Matt’s resident female has raised ten owlets in his carefully positioned box. This spring, her mate has gone missing, but one calm morning he returns, bearing gifts to prove his worth once again. She soon produces four eggs, but the chicks’ survival will depend on both parents finding enough food in the months ahead.

Spring arrives late this far north. Slow worms and common lizards emerge after months hidden underground. A common toad returns to Matt’s specially built pond – the only pond in the glen – to breed.

Three of the four barn owl chicks hatch, but each needs at least three small mammals a day. Thanks to their hard-working parents, they make it to fledging age. Just one in four barn owls survive their first year, so the owlets will stay close to home as they hone their hunting skills.

During the brief summer, the garden comes alive. Crossbills pry seeds from the cones in specially planted Scots pine trees, house martins raise their chicks under the eaves of Matt's house, and the reptiles are finally warm enough to breed. Down by the pond, carnivorous sundews trap insects in Matt’s specially created bog garden. When a newly metamorphosed toadlet emerges, it must dodge their sticky tentacles as it makes its way into the garden and the hills beyond.

Sand martins, which are relatives of swallows, fly thousands of miles from Africa to nest in the sandbank at the end of the garden, but a pine marten sniffs them out and hunts one down. It's the first time this behaviour has been filmed.

When autumn gales whip in, redwings arrive from Scandinavia to feast on the berries growing on Matt’s native trees and shrubs. Small mammals, birds and insects seek shelter in an old shed. But a pine marten fails to find somewhere suitable to hunker down, so Matt builds a new den in the eaves of his house.

As winter returns, Matt continues to put out peanuts for his visiting pine marten. Soon, more martens arrive, suggesting that next year there could be kits.

After decades of planning and planting, Matt has created more than a garden – he has allowed an entire ecosystem to flourish in one of Britain’s most unforgiving yet magical landscapes.