Christine's walking & birds blog

A drive north on a warm day seemed a daft idea, but was another attempt to see my first whinchat of the year; I drew a blank at one site, then heard this male singing from wires near the road at Ledmore Junction.


A snipe flew across the road and landed on the hillside; I heard the "chipper" call just before driving away.

We walked down to the Seaforth for a meal in the evening, and sat in the roofed area outside. An Iceland gull was flying around hoping for titbits, and when we left Greger got some shots with his mobile.

It was hot and dusty up the quarry road - just the place for a walk on probably the warmest day of the year so far! But I was hunting butterflies and dragonflies and this has proved as good a site as any.

While we decide what to do about my ruined Canon, we've brought the Nikon Coolpix P90 back into service, which was always extra good for close work on small creatures. There were very few butterflies however, and the only dragonfly I managed to snap was a four-spotted chaser - one of several.


The sound of a wood warbler singing took me completely by surprise, and it was quite a while before I could see where it was. Between bouts of singing it flitted about catching insects, frequently melting into the green gloom of the woodland light - dappled and filtered through layers of birch leaves.



The wood warbler was still singing when I left. Also heard or seen on my walk: willow warbler, spotted flycatcher, tree pipit, mistle thrush, chaffinch, sand martin, cuckoo.

Am Faochagach

This Munro is one of the rolling, grassy hills to the north Loch Glascarnoch and is 954m high. Starting from 260m above sea level helps, but there is a boggyish moorland plod to begin with and then a wade across the Abhainn a' Gharbhrain, a fairly substantial river.



I crossed successfully behind Greger and clambered up onto the bank. I heard a soft thud and looked round, but could see nothing on the grass and thought I must have knocked a clod of earth down. Later I realised that my camera was missing and we had to backtrack; Greger eventually spotted it lying in the water. It was, of course, dead. Because of this mishap, most of the photos on the post are taken by Greger with his own camera - which, luckily, he'd decided to bring along.

A cuckoo had been calling as we left the car, and I thought I heard a distant greenshank. Several meadow pipits and a wheatear were seen higher up, the wheatear displaying and singing. We emerged onto the long, plateau-like ridge and turned towards our top in a strong cross-wind. As we approached the col, a smallish bird was seen above us, looking pure white with a black patch underneath - it flew slowly on stiff wings and then dropped out of sight. Looking at photos on the internet (not that there are many), we're fairly sure it was a displaying dunlin.


Looking west-south-west we could see Loch a' Bhraoin and, rising from it, the brown, featureless shape of Creag Rainich (walked in May 2016) with the more dramatic but remote mountains of the Fisherfield Forest rising beyond.

Navigating on the wide ridges of our present hill could be tricky if the clouds closed in; to the left is the spur of Meall Gorm, while to the right is the ridge we used for ascent and descent. On the skyline to the south-east is the whaleback of Ben Wyvis - with, to the right, the three bumps of its smaller neighbour Little Wyvis.







We descended quickly. Sheltered from the wind, we grew hotter and hotter - but it wasn't until we paused for a rest and a drink that we finally stripped off a layer - we couldn't be bothered to stop before.


A green hairstreak butterfly landed on the inner rim of my baseball cap while it lay on the ground; no doubt it was getting some salt from my sweat.


We retrieved our wet trainers and made our way down to the river-bank. This time, I couldn't follow Greger; my feet kept slipping on slimy rocks and ending up in narrow clefts. I got out again and walked upstream until I saw something like a little cairn. Was that a deliberate marker? Yes, it looked doable. I was able to get across on dry boulders for most of the way, with just a short wade in the middle. A great day despite my silly avoidable accident with the camera.

Today was mostly concerned with brown birds, starting with two whimbrels on Badentarbat beach. The whimbrels were finding small crabs among the rocks, and at one point a juvenile gull tried to mug one of them which took off with the crab and led its pursuer a merry chase until the gull gave up. I snapped the picture through the windscreen.



Across the headland, great skuas provided the main attraction. One hovered over the beach with its wings in a V-shape, until a second bird went up and they flew off together. I assume they were a pair and that this was some sort of pair-bonding.
Courtship rituals or not, it soon became clear when one bird landed by a tangle of bones and feathers that what they were there for was food (a dead shag).




My worst miss of the day came when a flock of geese, mainly greylag, took off from the machair and flew around above the beach. I watched them closely, hoping to confirm that I'd noticed a pink-foot among them - and belatedly realised that a sea eagle (probably the cause of their unrest) was flying to the east in the distance.


The fourth brown bird was spotted on the drive out, when, scanning the distant skyline, I got onto a golden eagle (and when I say "distant", I mean about 3 kilometres away).

I stopped once more to snap a bogbean flower in a peaty pool.

On the east coast of Scotland in winter you can, I believe, see rafts of scoters - but the west coast doles out its treasures one by one. They're all the more precious for that, and when I spotted a dark duck beyond the car park as I walked back from the beach, my spirits lifted and I hurried through the jumble of cars, campers, and people sunbathing in deckchairs to get out onto the rocks from where I snapped the red-necked grebe earlier this year. The common scoter (my first close, definite adult male) was about where I saw the grebe.



I sat on the rocks for some time, watching the scoter dive and then preen, and finally go to sleep. Now and then I would hear the raspy call of a dunlin, seemingly somewhere further out towards the water. I kept craning my neck to see over the higher rocks; until a small fluttery movement caught my attention - and there, now in full view, were two dunlin, trying to nap but having to edge ever higher as they were splashed by waves of the incoming tide.


My first female cuckoo of the year was on wires at the junction of the Achiltibuie road and the A835.


A male cuckoo flew calling onto the wires further away and eventually the two flew off into the Coigach area.  P.S. A lapwing chick was seen in the distance on the machair.

There were 50+ dunlin on the machair and the beach, with a smaller number of ringed plover.


The wind was obstructively strong and although it came from the south it was cold; I wasn't the only person walking with a hat on.

On the way out of the Coigach area I stopped to look again at the bog bean flowers that I posted about on the 13th. The following day, Country Diary in the Guardian was about an older diary from 1933, concerning a search for this plant in the New Forest by Janet Elizabeth Case. The writer of the column, Graham Long, quotes her description "spike on spike of its amazingly lovely white-fringed flowers and rosy buds" and adds himself that "the enchanting flowers are unlike anything else".


It was nice to read this after seeing them for the first time - and for that, I have the holiday traffic to thank. If there hadn't been a bunch of cars and camper vans coming and going at that moment, I wouldn't have pulled in to let them clear. If I hadn't pulled in and got out I wouldn't have heard the snipe. If I hadn't heard the snipe I wouldn't have walked along the road to locate where the sound was coming from; and if the snipe hadn't taken off from the pool, I might not have looked closely at the pool. Every spring, I set out to learn as many wild flowers as possible - and every year I forget most of them! I don't think I'll forget this one.

Before I got back in the car, a snipe started to call again - the "chipper-call" according to BWP; and somewhere near Stac Polly, a cuckoo's liquid notes were echoing.

Little Wyvis

Garbat Forest rang with the songs of willow warblers and wrens as we made our way up the familiar rocky path alongside the Allt a' Bhealaich Mhoir. A cuckoo was vocal but unseen. Just after we crossed the stream and were negotiating the boggy hillside, a red grouse was heard in the heather - but again, not seen. A golden eagle flew right over us, high and heading north.


A tiny lilac flower with kidney-shaped leaves was, I think, a marsh violet. Well, it was certainly growing in a marsh, anyway!

The walking on the ridge was dry and enjoyable, and having gained the first top we were soon at the summit. Ben Wyvis is in the background.


After lunch we retraced our steps. A fine female wheatear was seen on crags; but she was wary, and flew off strongly up the hill.


Before dropping back down the flank of the hill, we carried on to take in the northern top of Tom na Caillich (An Cabar in the background). Greger waited by the cairn.....


.....while I walked a bit further down to snap our walk so far - Little Wyvis (764m on far left) and the unnamed top above the col.


It was great to be wandering again across montane heath, where the moss really did feel like a deep-pile carpet. All too soon we had to leave the ridge and drop down into wetter areas - but there were compensations. Later: I thought this low, sprawling shrub was dwarf birch but now not so sure.


A sedge resembling common cottongrass (bog cotton) could be hare's tail cottongrass. Bog cotton grows in a more scattered fashion, rather than in a clump.


Looking north-west, with Loch Glascarnoch in the distance to the left....


As we drew near the stream-crossing, a cuckoo flew in front of us into the plantation pursued by a meadow pipit. Dropping back down through the Garbat Forest we looked across to Carn na Dubh Choille (the notched bump on the skyline), a small hill with a trig point that we walked up in October 2016.


The walk was about 11 kilometres. I was disappointed not to see a dotterel, but you can't be too downhearted when a golden eagle has crossed your path.

Yesterday: It was a beautiful day, though still warranting a hat when in exposed places - which is most of the Coigach peninsula, really. A sedge warbler was heard singing from the car and then carefully tracked down for a snap in loch-side vegetation.


Present nearby were a pair of stonechats and a pair of reed buntings. Walking back to the car, I heard but couldn't spot a raven. A few gulls circling above drew my eyes even higher - and there was the raven, mobbing a sea eagle. The brilliant white tail of an adult eagle was conspicuous - but the birds were too high in the endless blue for me to find them in the camera; and with the raven soon falling silent, I assumed the eagle had moved away.

Compensation came in the form of four great skuas (which had been preening and loafing on the loch) taking to the air and spiralling ever higher. It's possible they were exploiting a hatching of flies - but they didn't seem to be feeding. Perhaps they were pair-bonding. I reflected that even bonxies can be beautiful as I watched them soaring, tails often fanned, wing patches lit by the sun.


Later, two cuckoos flying across the road and onto rocks on the moorland above, brought me to a halt in someone's driveway in Polbain; but I failed to get any decent shots of this fight between two cuckoo-ing males. A wheatear on the beach in Old Dornie made it easier for me.


A walk round the machair at Achnahaird brought only one dunlin with a ringed plover. Walking back along the cliff-tops, I half-saw a brown bird lift off from the ground ahead and fly down to the rocks. It was the whimbrel I'd been hoping for, and it had been standing just in front of me! I walked back and eventually spotted it on the beach, which for the moment was empty of people.


Driving back along the single-track road I pulled in for a while to let some traffic clear. As I stood enjoying some chiffchaff song from a nearby plantation, an unfamiliar call issued from the rough grass at the side of the road. I walked carefully along the verge only to see a snipe rise from a roadside pool, fly up the slope, and apparently land not far away.

Just as the skuas had been compensation for the eagle, so the little pool made up for not getting a picture of the snipe. These pretty, pinkish white flowers with their filament-like hairs seem to deserve a nicer name than "bogbean".


Bogbean's scientific name is Menyanthes trifoliata - information provided by my parents' old book on wild flowers; while the website plantlife.org.uk offers this brief but poetic description: "A flower of dark, moorland waters."  

We climbed up from Lael Forest Garden above a gorge and found a displaying tree pipit in an area of clear-fell.


Looking across the valley of the River Broom we had good views of Carn Breac Beag - destination of a recent walk, and hardly a hill -more of a small bump with a trig point on the rising moorland to the west.


Before we turned to come down again, a male kestrel was seen hunting above the line of the forest. Only one thing spoiled the morning - a dog came hurtling and barking towards us along a track, and as it approached I recognised my old Romanian antagonist from that day back in the winter when I called off my walk round the spit. It still wore a muzzle - but what will happen when the muzzle comes off?