Loch Ness farmer in despair as he watched sheep and lambs taken by river

Sheep, lambs and a calf missing after river rose up in matter of minutes yesterday.

By Louise Glen

June 13 2023, 6:32 pm

The River Fechlin yesterday afternoon when it suddenly swelled to more than four times its size. Image: Layla Rain Carr.

A Loch Ness farmer said he was helpless after the river on his farm flooded in a “matter of minutes” and swept sheep, lambs and a calf into its torrent.

Willie Wilson, of Whitebridge near Fort Augustus, initially raced to help before realising his own life would be in danger if he tried to save them from being swept away.

Mr Wilson, 82, doesn’t know yet the full extent of the loss to his stock.

But said the whole experience on Monday meant he felt like “throwing in the towel.”

He said: “I have never seen anything like it. In minutes, it went from flat calm to a torrent.

River Fechlin ‘rose up’ and flooded in minutes

“It must have been thunder and lightning up in the hills and raining really heavily, because all of a sudden the river came on – rushing through the glen.

“The sheep went down in the river. I can hardly bear to talk about it.

“The river was so strong that the animals didn’t know what to do. I thought I could jump over to save them, but then I was frightened that more of the beasts would jump to the wrong place.

“It was absolutely terrible, I just didn’t know what to do.”

Mr Wilson said he has been aware of the River Fechlin rising up in the winter time when the snow thawed in the hills. But in all his years at Dell Farm in Whitebridge he hadn’t seen anything like this.

He said: “I have never seen it rise up so quickly. My grandson was up helping me, but I couldn’t watch it.”

Mr Wilson describes seeing his sheep, and their lambs, stunned by suddenly being surrounded by water, where only moments before they were grazing.

He said: “I don’t want to think about what was lost. There was maybe half a dozen taken, hopefully they managed to swim. I saw three swimming away but they were coming up against fences, and they got caught.

‘Never seen anything like it in my life’

“There were big trees coming down, the fences were flattened by the river. As I said, I have never seen anything like it in my life.”

The river which washed away farmers sheep and calf — The scorched earth was washed into the river. Image: Layla Rain Carr.

Thousands of people across the region reported torrential rain coming down in a matter of moments, as the humid hot weather of the last week turned to thunderstorms.

The Met Office said the Highlands was experiencing an official heatwave, with unusually high temperatures for a prolonged period of time.