Monday, January 30, 2017
I wanted to get up a very small hill with a trig point on the top, which seemed accessible from the track where we saw the waxwings. But nothing's ever easy - nothing is as straightforward as it looks on the map; and as we walked the track towards Benmore Forest, steep slopes, very rough ground, and numerous barbed-wire fences kept putting us off, so that in the end we just continued walking out to Loch Ailsh. It was a new walk, anyway.
The loch held two whooper swans, a male and female goldeneye, and a pair of goosanders - all fairly distant. The River Oykel flows into and out of the loch, and we sat on a bench on the riverbank to eat our lunch. The bench carried the number 4, corresponding probably to the number of that particular stretch of the river for fishing purposes and known as a beat.
Just before we reached the car, a crossbill started singing in the conifers and then four birds flew out and across the road to plantations beyond. As for the hill - we decided to come back in a drier period and bash straight up from the A837 - it would be just as rough, but a lot shorter.
Today, three bramblings were with at least 17 chaffinches waiting for dropped seeds below the feeders.
// posted by Christine @ 9:30 AM 
