Monday, June 08, 2015
Conival
Or, as I renamed it, Whinging Hill: and I was the one doing the whinging. To begin with I didn't feel that well. Then I realised I'd forgotten the compass - for the first time in all our years of hill-walking. Next, it began to rain, and it was discovered that Greger was wearing the wrong trousers - rather than the waterproofs Goody Two-Shoes herself had on. All in all I was fairly cross as we left the road and set off up the River Traligill. We decided we'd just enjoy a walk and not necessarily go up the hill at all.
This settled, birds were on hand to cheer me up further. Willow warblers were singing unseen. Sand martins, house martins, and swallows swooped low over our heads, and a spotted flycatcher was glimpsed in riverbank trees. A cuckoo flew across the valley. Two mistle thrushes flew over churring and a pair of house sparrows gave me a hill-walking tick. Stonechats and wheatears were further up beyond the few houses. Still further up, a juvenile ring ouzel flew onto a rock just above the path, and a male appeared on the opposite bank of the stream with a beakful of worms.
The day was dull with light spatters of rain, and our hill was cloaked in cloud; but by the time we'd walked several kilometres up the valley we decided we would continue. Negotiating a horribly boggy patch with peat hags we got onto a path that was like a stream of white rocks; very hard walking. A family of ravens enlivened this steep stretch, as three juveniles chased an adult carrying a prey item. The fifth bird came to check us out and assert his territorial rights.
After the path of white stones came an enjoyable short scramble up a rock band, and then a plod up to the col. Looking back, I saw two white-winged birds flying up the hillside. The ptarmigans landed among grey rocks where they were difficult to pick out, the male looking on while the female poked about among the boulders (she can just be seen at the bottom of the picture).
Crikey, the bird list was growing; would this hill-walk knock An Socach (Braemar) with its thirteen species off the top spot? Meanwhile, from the col and still below the cloud, we got views north-eastwards over the lochan in Coire a'Mhadaidh.
Turning south for the last pull to the summit, we were overtaken by a younger, Scottish couple. The man said in passing what awful weather it was for June. We later passed the woman, who was sitting down; she said she had done Conival and come back down to wait for her husband - who was going on to do Ben More Assynt. And this was the thing: you do these two Munroes together because there's no realistic way to go up Ben More Assynt except from Conival; and having gained most of the height, it should be a simple task to continue along the linking ridge and bag your second top. But the mist was down and we didn't have a compass. There were no route-finding problems but even ridges can be confusing when you can't see, and there are quartzite slabs that can be lethal when wet. Anyway, we bashed on to the summit of Conival - or at least Greger did, while I brought up the rear.
In the end we decided against Ben More Assynt, and started back almost immediately. I went round a patch of snow while Greger walked across, after wondering if he could ski it!
Dropping down a very steep bit on the quartzite screes above the col I slipped, tripped, and sort of did the splits; but somehow recovered, landing on my right knee. A walker coming up had seen this and kindly asked if I was okay. I assured him I was with thanks, but I felt such a fool. A string of oldish men came up just after him. We sat down after this and had lunch, and again saw two ptarmigans flying past and landing out of sight.
Soon we were back to the rock band, where Greger scrambled down first and took a pic with his mobile.
As we dropped down through the muddy area, some sweet notes half-heard through the noise of a waterfall alerted us to the presence of a dipper. It was very active and soon disappeared. A short while afterwards, a grey wagtail flew upstream.
On steep, wet grass it was Greger's turn to fall. He slipped and ended up front down; but the worst he suffered was muddy knees. Soon after this we were back on the narrow path traversing the steep river bank; this interesting narrow groove offered an alternative to the path above which came to an abrupt halt where the bank had collapsed.
Where the river widened out beneath the trees, I snapped one of at least two spotted flycatchers.
I count all birds seen during a hill-walk, until the moment I get back to the car. And that's why this osprey will appear on the list, even though I was on the road at the time. But where did it get its prey? Either the river or nearby Loch Assynt, presumably.
The walk was about 15 kilometres, over a variety of terrains, and overall quite a tough one. Other birds seen: wren, robin, chaffinch, siskin, song thrush, willow warbler, and meadow pipit. And a promising coniferous plantation just up the hill from the path rang with si-si calls that suggested tits or gold crests; but I was too tired to investigate. As it was, the walk gave us twenty-two species, which makes Conival the best birding hill-walk I've done. Truly the "enchanted hill" of its English translation (although, while we were still struggling up it or alternatively, falling down it, other adjectives did come to mind).
// posted by Christine @ 2:11 PM 
