Tuesday, August 05, 2014
Beinn Enaiglair
Yesterday evening, we drove down to Braemore Junction to recce access for a two-car hill-walk we'd planned for today. In the car park where we would start the walk we saw five or six crossbills flying around in the conifers. These were my first crossbills in Scotland but I think they were common crossbills.
We found a clear signpost to where we could get onto the moorland, so that was okay. We drove on to Loch Droma where I would leave my car, and I spotted two black-throated divers far out on the water. Again, there was a notice on the gate to show access for hill-walkers.
The sketch-map of the walk is taken from The Corbetts & Other Scottish Hills, issued by the Scottish Mountaineering Club and edited by Rob Milne and Hamish Brown.
This morning, we looked in vain for crossbills; and although the climbing moorland path skirted the forest for a while, we had to be content with a robin and a siskin.
Further up the hill we disturbed at least twenty meadow pipits and then a family of stonechats.
We turned onto a very rough track that was something like a quarry road, which I felt was wrong. A French couple who'd passed us now came back and said also that the track must be wrong - it was going downhill. Greger pointed out that it might descend for a while, as it had to get round the spur of the hill before turning. But they decided to look for another path, while we went on. I pointed out a line on the steep flank above, which looked like a path; but it would have been hard work to get up to it just there. So on we went.
We had good views on this route of the south side of Beinn Dearg. LATER: I had thought that the lovely white outcrop in the foreground was marble; but I think it might be white quartz.
Approaching the summit cairn.....
Looking north-west towards Loch Broom and Ullapool.....
After bidding farewell to the nice French couple we ate our lunch alone on the top, and then set off down the long south-east ridge, which turned out to be boggier than it looked. Our destination was the small loch in the middle distance.
It was Greger who pointed out a raptor flying and jinking high above; and by the time I got the camera onto it, it was fairly distant. However, this is the first picture I've managed to take of a merlin on a hill-walk so there's no way I'm not posting it.
A lonesome wheatear on a ruined shelter was the next birdy interest. It flew off as we approached, but a family of golden plovers, two adults and a juvenile, stood helpfully on the skyline.
At last we reached the fork in the path and headed down towards the A835 by the side of a bubbling stream. The path bizarrely led through the fenced grounds of what looked like a sort of smallholding - despite the miles of empty moorland stretching to each side. (At least, we assumed the gates in the fence were for hillwalkers. But the five-barred gate leading onto the road was padlocked, so we had to climb that! The rules of Scottish access can be inconsistent, to say the least.) A couple of buzzards flying around mewing and a pied wagtail in the car park were to be the last birds of the walk.
As for the black-throated divers of the previous day - like the crossbills, there was no sign of them!
// posted by Christine @ 2:14 PM 
