Christine's walking & birds blog

It was dry and fairly bright today, but extremely high winds decided us to go for a sheltered walk in Inverewe Garden - where Greger spotted a red squirrel running across the path.

On the drive south, there had been at least twenty black-throated divers on the sea at Gruinard; some were still around on our way back - looking a bit scruffy as they moult into winter plumage.



The divers loafed about, preening and wing-flapping; and one of the shags on rocks nearby suddenly flung his wings back as if to show he could do that too.

 
A probable sea eagle was seen in the distance.

EEK! Giant insect eats walkers while strange pink chasm splits mountain in two!


Just a weevil exploring the sign on An Cabar, the first top you reach on the long ridge of Ben Wyvis. LATER: not "just a weevil" but a large pine weevil (Hylobius abietis); it feeds on the bark and tissue of conifers, leading to extensive damage and often death of trees.


Yesterday was not my finest hour. Terrified that next year I won't be able to get up on the highest tops, I decided on a last-ditch attempt to see a dotterel this year. Greger wasn't well, but wouldn't agree that I should stay at home. "To do what?" he said. "Watch a man have a cold?"

It was a beautiful morning, but a scarf of white cloud hung across the Dirrie Mor, blotting out Loch Glascarnoch and causing motorists to switch on their lights. I was pretty early at the car park but clearly some walkers had beaten me to it - with still more just arriving. A bullfinch and a coal tit were seen in the plantation, and out on the moorland red grouse were calling; but I had my heart set on dotterel and so walked on - fairly briskly, I thought. Nevertheless, people started to catch me up; and several of them had passed me before I got to the big boulder - where there was no ptarmigan today. However, I was cheered by a wheatear that flew down the hillside a short way.

The ridge gives nice walking, but the only birds I could see were meadow pipits. I couldn't resist continuing past the summit, down towards the col where we'd seen dotterel in May 2015. But of course conditions were very different now; the vegetation was higher, and only two dark patches showed where there had been snow on that occasion. I've seen dotterel three times in the hills; each time was in May, and they've always been on or near snow - perhaps because they feed at this time on winter stoneflies. Dropping right down, I felt disinclined to plod back up to the summit (stupid decision!) and set off down rough, steep ground following the course of the stream.

Pausing for a rest, I heard a kind of a trill followed by a plaintive call not unlike a golden plover's but shorter - "cut off". I scanned the opposite slope but could see nothing; was it a dotterel? Reluctantly I dragged myself away, with many a backward look at the skyline where you find the short, mossy, matted vegetation these plovers love. Why I didn't stay up there I'll never know.

Because now I began to recall this route, which we'd followed in 2015. It's horrible! Spurs covered in heather run down the lower slope of Tom a' Choinnich towards the stream, sometimes blocking the way so that you have to go up and over. The heather was often knee-high and hid holes and crannies where a foot could easily disappear - and mine frequently did. In any case, hugging the bank of the stream was generally not an option as the ground was mostly bog. I was wearing fabric boots, and my feet were soon wet through as I sank up to the ankles in wet moss and mire. Here and there where there was a bit of firmer ground with mud, I spotted the print of a boot - so someone else completely mad had walked this way recently! (Most walkers turn back at the summit and retrace their steps as it's a good hard path back to the car park.)

I kept looking ahead, longing to reach the forest - but when I did, it was even worse. The mature trees had actually long been felled on this side of the stream, while profuse undergrowth had sprung up. There was a faint path, but because of bracken that towered over me I couldn't see it half the time, and there were many terrible holes; after several falls, I finally had a really daft one. My right leg got caught in a hole, tripping me sideways so that I fell heavily onto my left knee; my walking pole stuck in the ground, and as I released it to save myself, it sprang back and hit me on the nose!

This was the final indignity. The forest rang with language I now regret, and I really could have sat down and cried. But I would only have got a wet bum, so up I got and on I went. At one point a spruce sapling blocked the way, and as "the interior" was impenetrable, I had to get down onto boulders in the stream and edge round it before regaining the bank beyond. Other parts of the bank had fallen into the stream, necessitating a nerve-racking tiptoe along soggy, narrow shelves of soil and grass that could hardly bear my weight. And then - pushing my way past another prickly young spruce, I found that the stream turned to the right - and across it I could see the forestry track!

I turned to the right as well, and after just fifty of so metres more of this horror I came out onto the track and crossed the stream on a vehicle bridge. A walk of one kilometre brought me to where the morning's path crossed, and then it was just a shortish walk down to the car park.

Sunday: There's no deer stalking on Sundays, so I decided to try and get up the hills on the far side of Loch Glascarnoch. I wanted to recce a possible (but quite long) route for doing Am Faochagach, and thought I could at least get a view in that direction to see if it was feasible.


After a walk of three kilometres from the dam wall, I reached this stream where the main track came to an end; so I turned up the hillside which was very rough and steep, but a deer fence running along the slope prevented me going further. I didn't feel like climbing over, and I couldn't see a gate. So I gave up for now; I'll maybe try a different way later. Back down at the tiny Loch Vraich Power Station, I thought Wish I could borrow this!


A red grouse erupting from a patch of heather near the track was a nice surprise; and there were several stonechats, including this juvenile - they seem to have had a good, long breeding season and hopefully some will stay on and overwinter. They're always nice to see when the days are otherwise dreary.


As my adventure had been curtailed, I stopped at the western end of the loch and had a walk out to the old road. A faint sound that gradually resolved into a familiar anxious yelling made me look up to see seventy-seven pink-footed geese flying over high to the south-east.


Welcome back, guys! Like the staying-on stonechats, you help to brighten up the winter months.

A golden eagle flew across the road as I stood in the lay-by, and I thought it would disappear behind the ridge where we saw the osprey a week ago; but instead, it hunted along the ridge and back again before flying off to the north.




At least thirty vocal redpolls were restless, flying up from the moor to perch on wires - although their right to do so was disputed by a smaller number of meadow pipits. A male stonechat was also present. Later, a merlin was seen in flight from the car - but had disappeared by the time I managed to pull in.

If I'd known the weather was going to be generally good today (just one heavy shower) I might have been tempted up a mountain in a last desperate bid to see dotterel before they all go.

We took advantage of a dry afternoon yesterday and went hunting crested tits. We didn't find any, but two very small creatures illustrated both the beauty of the natural world - and its opposite. I noticed what I thought was a fly on Greger's forehead, just above the hairline. When I tried to brush it off, it seemed to flatten itself weirdly, clamping down on his skin so that I couldn't shift it. Then it moved again and I was able to grab it with a tissue.


Greger was horrified when he saw the picture on the computer! The insect was larger than a tick (about the size of a small ladybird), and research on the internet reveals that it was a deer ked or deer fly (Lipoptena cervi); it flies onto a deer and immediately sheds its wings before burrowing into the coat and settling down permanently on the host, whose blood it sucks. They will bite humans, however, so Greger was fortunate in that he wasn't bitten; but the fact that only stumps of the wings remain on this one is rather troubling. Can they mistake their host?!

The Scotch argus was looking a bit faded but was an altogether more acceptable form of wildlife.

  
As was the merlin that flew up the hillside and disappeared before I could do anything sensible.

On Friday morning, a high tide at Achnahaird brought seven black-tailed godwits, two ruff, and a knot - along with quite a few dunlin and some sanderling. A sparrowhawk was again seen.

Yesterday: Men working in a garden along the road to Rhue had stopped what they were doing and were shading their eyes as they gazed skywards; I glanced up through the windscreen and there just ahead of me was a sea eagle. I raced on to the car park and grabbed a shot as it circled high above before heading off across the loch towards Beinn Ghobhlach.

Two crossbills left the top of a spruce at the corner of the plantation, flew across the track, and alighted on one of the wires - which was slightly closer to me. Could they have young somewhere? I wondered; but they didn't seem agitated, so I took some pics.

The male proceeded to preen and scratch quite vigorously, while the female remained motionless and aloof, as if in disdain at her companion's fidgets.


At one point they seemed uneasy about something below, but I missed this at the time. No doubt a whole family of pine martens - an animal I've yet to see - strolled past while I was concentrating on the birds.


Whatever it was, the danger evidently passed because my next pictures show the crossbills looking relaxed. I quietly backed away and set off along the track, turning for a last long-shot showing the birds still there - and, on the left in the long grass, the post I'd been leaning on to take the pics.


The wind was fairly warm but too persistent and strong for enjoyable walking, so I drove home, refusing to be distracted on the way by a tourist's eagle (i.e. a buzzard).