Christine's walking & birds blog

We woke up to snow. Greger wanted to drive up the Dirrie Mor to see if he should call off going to Inverness tonight (for his Spanish conversation class).  The snow got deeper and crisper as we drove up from the loch-side and the hills looked really pretty, but the road was clear.

Looking towards the Fannichs across Loch Droma:


We had a walk across Loch Glascarnoch dam. A stonechat was seen along the fence, flying down to perch on loch-side boulders.


Back near the car in a snow shower a dunnock was feeding along the shoreline with a male stonechat (perhaps the one above), and this female stonechat.


Three hooded crows flew over and a raven was heard in the distance; but the 26 whooper swans we saw here last time we drove past (including at least two juveniles) seemed to have moved on.

The bird that flew up from the roadside as I drove along the A837 looked very much like a jay; there was nowhere to pull off the road, so I just stopped and clicked off a hasty shot through the windscreen. Enough of the bird can be seen in the pic to confirm ID.


The jay was very wary and soon flew off (past a telegraph post) to another tree (not many of them along this road, at least not the deciduous sort) when I clicked off another wild shot.


But I had to move on, and as there were no more trees, the jay flew off in earnest this time, along the road, over the moorland, and out of sight.

Last year I caught a glimpse of a jay in the forest at Rosehall, but this was quite a bit closer to home (well, in terms of roads it was, although as the jay flies there's actually not much in it); I think they are seen from time to time on the west side of the country this far north, but are still fairly uncommon.

As I drove on, two red grouse were flushed from the roadside, whirring away across the heather behind me and disappearing over a hillock.  Loch Craggie was still enough for a mesmerising reflection of the cleared forestry and quarry on the far side - where a couple of buzzards were sitting atop two conifers that have survived the harvest (not in picture).


I went for a short walk on this grey, cold day, seeing a goldcrest, six fly-over crossbills, and a pair of ravens. One raven flew over me a couple of times, making quite a noise with its wings - was this to scare me off? I've heard this once before, although on that occasion I put it down to the close proximity of a buzzard.


Driving back, I spotted crossbills again; five pictured here, and another bird across the road - perhaps they're the group I saw earlier.


As I watched them, a raucous screech issued from the forest - so that's where the jay went!

At Ardmair, with the light failing, one of the black shapes on the water wasn't the inevitable shag but a duck - the velvet scoter that was first reported here in early November, I think.


It's a poor shot (better ones can be seen on highlandbirds.scot) but, although it was pretty distant, this was the closest I've been to a velvet scoter. A nice end to the day.

Sunday: A single-track road leads through Strathconon to Bridgend, where a "Walkers Welcome" sign marks the beginning of our planned outing; but we called it off. Snow had lain on the Fannichs as we drove up and over the rather slushy Dirrie Mor; but we'd hoped our hill, at just 673 metres, would escape. We left our rucksacks in the car and walked a little way up the track. In the picture, our hill is hidden to the right; it could be slippery up there, and with 3-season boots on and no crampons we decided against it.


Never mind. We'd established Base Camp for a future outing. A straggling bunch of stags moved slowly away from us onto the skyline, stepping delicately on the wintry ground.


We turned back, enjoying the fine views. The strath was green and neat and wooded, with houses on both sides of the winding river; while to the west, a foil to this tended loveliness, rose a group of snow-clad, shapely hills, with two of the tops linked by a mouth-watering ridge.

  
The hill to the right is Sgurr a' Mhuilinn - a Corbett with a trig point on the summit. But no such inducements are needed - these are hills to walk simply because they're attractive and inviting, and we look forward to coming back here in the spring.

A shower of rain and hail hit us, and we walked very quickly back to the car. The hills were blotted out for a while, but when the cloud had shifted we scanned them with bins and spotted two lone walkers. As I snapped a photo, one walker had just reached the top at the far end of the ridge and then disappeared, while the second was at the base of the summit cone, just above a rise of ground running like a line up towards the right.


As I watched the tiny dark figure making its way up through the snow, I felt my eyes pricking with tears. It can't surely have been just envy! I admit I wanted to be up there, and was disappointed that we couldn't walk our smaller hill - but it was more than that. It was longings for the uplands and to see ptarmigan again, but it was also guilt, family problems, a lonely pony in a large field that we pass every time we drive south (which has come to symbolise all the loneliness in the world, both animal and human), and being moved by sheer beauty.

Otherwise, we haven't been out and about much lately, although sunny weather one day last week did lure us south to look for crested tits. We didn't find any, but we did see a female (youngish?) crossbill right next to the main road at Silverbridge.


It looks a bit of a whacking bill, but I think it was just a common crossbill.