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| The track leading to the grave of Annie Meinertzhagen has been churned up by farm vehicles |
ANNIE Meinertzhagen was a pioneering Scottish ornithologist who monitored the birds around her home in Swordale, near Inverness.
She had papers published in ornithological journals and was the first to discover that at least some of the redshank overwintering on the banks of Cromarty Firth were of the Icelandic race.
Annie also researched the moulting patterns of wildfowl.
A mother-of-three, her life was cruelly cut short in 1928 in a shooting incident witnessed only by one other person, her husband, Richard, also an ornithologist.
What happened? The husband maintained she accidentally shot herself in the head while examining the jammed mechanism of a revolver he had been using for target practice.
There was no subsequent investigations and, following the passage of almost 100 years, it is almost impossible to believe that the full facts might yet still emerge.
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| Annie's grave is now overgrown and the headstone has toppled - the full circumstances of her death are now unlikely ever to be known |
Considering her contributions both to British ornithology and to community life in Swordale and Evanton, it is a shame that the memory of Annie Meinertzhagen (1889-1928) no longer seems to be cherished.
Aged only 39 and a mother of three young children, Annie died in the cruellest of circumstances and it is sad that there is now no one who seems to care.
* Tragedy at Swordale is available (price £2) as a kindle e-book via Amazon.
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