Friday, May 13, 2016
A pleasing two-toned trill drew us into the forest at Rosehall, although we'd only parked there to eat our lunch. A family group of crossbills seemed the likely culprits; and there was also some of the song that I've heard just once before - in Swinley Forest, Berkshire.
Enticing though the forest was, we left and pressed on to our real destination - Raven's Rock Gorge. The last time we tried to visit, it was closed; we'd assumed they were just doing some necessary tree work. It was open today, but as we walked it dawned on us what had happened here - and when.
We found the place by chance two years ago (August 9, under blog post August 10 2014), and followed the path to a quite exciting boardwalk and flight of steps along the rugged bank of the Allt Mor, climbing up through the trees and returning through lovely woods to the car park - a shortish but good circular walk. The information board today showed not a round walk, but two there-and-back routes. Following the lower path first, we came to a large clearing that we didn't remember, and remarked on the number of trees that were down. This was as far as we could get on the old path - and even there, we were standing on the roots of a fallen pine.
That first visit had been on August 9, 2014 - and two days later the tail-end of Hurricane Bertha hit the Highlands. I'm not 100% sure this happened then, but certainly at some point massive landslides have occurred, bringing trees crashing down as banks partially collapsed.
Above us, trees clung on to bluffs of rock that looked ready to crumble at any moment.
Returning to the start, we took the high route and looked down on part of the destroyed riverside walk.
The opposite bank had also fared badly in places; even on the first visit this had looked precipitous and unstable, with several fallen trees at the bottom - but the river gorge was now positively stuffed with piles of conifers.
I don't think they'll ever be able to reopen the boardwalk after that. Meanwhile, in the midst of all this destruction, a spotted flycatcher was a cheering sight.
On the way home, Greger drove onto the forest track at Craggie and I walked up to check on the amphibian ditch. After three days with no rain and some quite hot sunshine, the ditch had dried up in many places and the remaining water was rather green and slimy. But some tadpoles had evidently survived this far; the others having presumably been eaten by newts - I saw at least five individuals. The picture shows the webbed hind feet of a male palmate newt.
We stopped briefly by Loch Borralan, and were surprised when a bird perching near the top of reeds turned out to be a singing willow warbler. A cuckoo was on wires at the road-side; and sand martins have returned to their nesting holes on the bank of the Ledmore River.