Christine's walking & birds blog

As we admired the ptarmigan, the elderly man overtook us. A little way below, two more walkers were approaching rapidly. How do people walk uphill so fast?! But at last we gained the broad summit ridge where we struggled along in a cold wind that took all the pleasure out of the walking, stopping now and then to scan the edges of large snow patches on the eastern flanks - but there were no dotterel, just a couple of meadow pipits. Eventually the elderly man passed us on his descent; and then we were approaching the summit ourselves - for the second time.

It was freezing on the top and we ate our lunch quickly. Greger suggested carrying on along the ridge instead of going back the same way, and dropping down from the bealach as a way of descent to make a round walk of it. This seemed a good idea because it would get us off the high ridge and away from that brutal wind - and just above the col, when hope was almost gone, we spotted a dotterel just ahead of us. This was bright enough to be a female - a probable male bird was nearby.

The birds uttered little contact or alarm calls which I would have loved to record but the wind made it impossible. Finally they flew off up the hill and we went on, elated that we'd seen them.

The first part of the descent from the col was very steep.

As we made our way down, a golden eagle cruised over.

The going was slow, following a stream with interlocking spurs and areas of bog which, in the end, we stopped trying to avoid and just splashed through. In several places we were startled by red grouse, erupting croaking from the heather - and disappearing over the hill before I could switch the camera on. The picture shows (probably) Alpine clubmoss (Diphasiastrum alpinum) and opposite-leaved golden saxifrage (Chrysosplenium oppositifolium).

The walk was about 16 kilometres long and the weather stayed dry throughout, but as we drove away from the car park the first drops of rain began to fall.