The salmon launched itself from the churn at the bottom of the falls like a guided missile, tail flapping, and flanks glinting under the late autumnal sun.
It was a powerful leap, but the angle was terribly askew, and the hen salmon landed awkwardly half-way up on a rock ledge by the margin of the powerful torrent.
She lay stranded for a moment, and then, with powerful undulations of the body, managed to wriggle her way down the ledge so as to drop back down into the foaming pool below.
A surge of emotion swept my inner being after witnessing the trauma and effort this salmon had just endured.
Miracle of nature
Over the last few months, she had migrated from her feeding grounds in the cold northern seas off the Faroes, Iceland or Greenland, and by some miracle of nature had navigated back to her place of birth – the River Almond in Perthshire.