Autumn is a magical time of year to be out and about in Scotland. The stags are rutting and the wild atlantic salmon (salmo salar) run the rivers and ascend waterfalls in an effort to get to their spawning grounds. One of my favourite passions is watching the spectacle of these powerful fish leaping. Some get it right some don't some get it so wrong that they hit the rocks at the side of the river.

The photo in this post was taken only this week on one of my trips up the river Spey. The fish left the raging torrent pushed on by instinct making a leap of faith or perhaps it was hope. Anyway it didn't make it this time around, my suspicions are that the trajectory was slightly out. Some say a leap like this is a reconnaissance leap to see how high the falls are. I wouldn't like to guess how many salmon actually leap these falls successfully. I do suspect that most get over eventually. There are many places in Scotland that you can visit to see this spectacle. These include the Falls Of Shin, Rogie Falls, Falls of Truim, Cargills leap, Newe Dam to name but a few.