An invitation to watch a hill flock being clipped whilst we are in in Sutherland was an irresistible temptation for John. He had seen the shed where the sheep were being gathered as we drove into Durness to pick up some groceries, and then whilst fishing in the Kyle, got chatting to one of the shepherds who came down to watch him playing a fish. A fine grilse by the way. Like a bar of silver.

So next day saw us in the clipping shed with hundreds of sheep gathered outside and in pens; all around were lambs bawling and ewes bleating their distress at being separated from offspring. The shed provided a fantastic set up for clipping. Sheep gathered into holding pens by an outside team of shepherds and dogs, and then dropped down chutes to go back into the field once shorn of their fleeces. One by one the ewes were unceremoniously dragged out of the catchment pens, upended, clipped and dropped down the exit. Hypnotic.

Earlier in the week we had seen a small flock on a loch side being shorn with hand clippers. The resultant sheep look quite different. Those clipped with electric shears are completely bare. With hand clippers, there is a striped, ridged effect left on the sheep.

Quite distinctive I thought. Before leaving we got chatting, to a farmer who was administering a pour on insecticide over a pen of lambs and then attaching " electronic" tags to their ears. Although blowflies and maggots are not the main worry this far North, ticks are, and the pour on counteracts these. But we shared the same irritation with the ear tags, as easily lost and injurious to sheep's ears on the hillsides as they are to ours in a field.

" I expect you won't have this worry though ," she said showing us a pen of the sorriest little lambs I have seen in a long time. Eyes closed over, faces bare of wool, ears blackened and wizened. In response to our exclamations of concern she explained she strongly suspected that the lambs had been blinded and burnt as a result of eating bog asphodel .

The condition they were suffering from is yellowses. We had never heard of it but it is a problem apparently linked to lambs grazing on this plant which grows over the summer months on open, wet ground. Bog asphodel releases chemicals, which make certain cells in the body extremely sensitive to sunlight, resulting in areas of exposed, pale skin suffering extreme burning.

The plant appears to be on the increase because of changes to land management insisted on by environmental bodies. Significant numbers of lambs are dying or needing to be virtually hand reared as they cannot go back outside on the hill or with their mothers. Aside from the obvious welfare concern, it is a major financial problem for farms on hill ground where lambing percentages are low and the plant not easily controlled. And like every farmer I know we thought we had problems................so do others too.