Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Glas Bheinn
For our first hill-walk this year we decided on one ("Glashven") that we've done before. The picture was taken later in the summer from further north. The hill is situated conveniently close to the road, and our traverse took us from right to left, along the edge of the corrie, round the corrie and down.
A raven on the skyline ahead was our first wildlife sighting; and a colourful frog hopping downhill was the second.
Some distance away to the right a ptarmigan peered at us over the rocks and then went flying down the slope, croaking.
Soon after this we saw a wheatear; and then we were making our way across the stony plateau to the summit cairn.
This is looking south-east to the Munros of Conival and Ben Mor Assynt.
We walked round the corrie rim under clearing skies. Tucked in under us on the extreme left is the corrie lochan, which I scanned briefly for life without success. Little did I guess what treasure it held.
As we dropped down steep slopes towards the lochan I scanned again, and sure enough there was something on the water. Two black dots eventually materialised into red-throated divers.
I kept looking back as we set off again and the divers were still there, lazing about, preening, and occasionally diving. We've seen plenty of red-throats on the sea, but encountering them in this lonely place was special. The lochan lies at 525m.
Meadow pipits were the only other identifiable birds. We had a soaking from a shower of rain but the day ended fine. A good start.
// posted by Christine @ 2:50 PM 
