Friday, August 31, 2018
Meall Gorm
Before we came to live here four years ago, I would cast wistful glances across to the distant, dipping curve of the Bealach Ban as we drove past on the A835 at the start and end of our holidays, and long to be up there walking that ridge. But the thought of the rough, boggy walk-in always put us off - until last month, when we finally tackled An Coileachan and found the moorland trudge to be almost (it has been relatively dry here recently) as tiresome as described. So we knew exactly what we were in for today when we agreed to take the same route up to the bealach and then turn right, to gain the higher top of our last Fannich - Meall Gorm.
After a couple of hours walking we began to encounter patches of drier ground - islands of delight in an ankle-turning morass.
We reached Loch Gorm for the second time this summer and then began the steep climb up to the col. It was a relief to reach the bealach knowing that the hardest part of the climb was over. Tantalisingly, there is a bird flying out of shot to the left in this picture, which we failed to see at the time.
Nestled in the moss in a damp spot were a few fungi; I haven't managed to ID them, but this could be a kind of milkcap - possibly orange or rufous.
Later, after much research: The small shiny one is possibly mountain moss psilocybe.
This is probably cowberry (also known as lingonberry).
The ground became stonier as we gained the first, unnamed top (922m) and looked along the broad ridge which seemed so promising for dotterel; but if there were any, we didn't see them.
A raven lifted off from the ground ahead as we walked, and with hardly any more climbing we rapidly covered the kilometre to the summit of Meall Gorm (949m).
I'm posting a shot of me at the top as well, because this is a landmark mountain. It's my 142nd Munro. I've always known how unlikely it was that I would complete all the Munros; and a couple of years ago when I began to realise that my fitness was not what it had been, I said I'd be content if I could complete half. There are 283; so, like the ring-bearer, I've fulfilled my quest. (Later: Actually, one Munro has recently been demoted so there are 282, meaning that I'd already reached half with the previous hill-walk.)
Unfortunately no eagles were seen, but a buzzard flew over while we ate our sandwiches.
To the north is shapely Sgurr Mor - the highest mountain in the northern Highlands. We've already been been up Sgurr Mor so we'll now never walk the stretch of ridge and the top between this and Meall Gorm (we were too tired to venture along it today).
A walker arrived from that direction now; she mentioned the walk-out that we'd come up by and how she wasn't looking forward to the bogs and the peat-hags. We ourselves weren't thrilled about the prospect of doing it again! (Most walkers do a round of several tops and just use that route for the descent.)
We set off back down with mixed feelings, a sense of achievement at having "bagged" all the Munros in the Fannichs tempered by the knowledge that we'll probably never come up here on these ridges again. I've sometimes felt envious on encountering walkers striding across several (if not all) the tops in one day - but there again, that can seem too much like using the mountains merely as an outdoor gym. I've quite enjoyed spending so much time here. But each to her or his own; after all, when I was younger I also liked to bag several Munros in a day!
Looking across at Beinn Liath Mhor Fannaich I could see among the cloud shadows at the bottom of the valley a tiny lochan (hardly even that, and unnamed on the map) on the stream that feeds Loch Li - but not Loch Li itself, which is tucked underneath our hill out of sight.
It was nice to drop down to the bealach knowing we didn't have to climb An Coileachan. Tiny dark dots (almost invisible) above Greger's head are two more walkers who have overtaken us bound for that top - it was getting quite busy. We walked a little way up the flank before turning down to the left and picking our way carefully back down the steep, rough, and sometimes wet slopes. To the right a tiny portion of Loch Fannich can be seen - and, beyond and above it, Loch na Curra.
Greger pointed out a mountain hare running up the hillside; and I spotted a small white flower, past its best, which I think could be grass-of-Parnassus. Not sure.
Walking up through Altan Wood in the morning, we'd seen meadow pipits and our first definite black grouse (a male) on a hill walk. It had been a great day but there was disappointment in the fact that, once again, on suitable terrain, we'd failed to see any dotterel. I've tried hard to see them this summer, but now of course they might already have left. Better that, than that they were never here at all.
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
I think the blackcap is a juvenile - one of at least two in the buddleia at the back this morning.
I've skulked indoors all day, fed up with glum weather, fed up with being cold all the time. We'd planned a hill-walk for today but neither of us felt fit enough to attempt it. Maybe next week.
Monday, August 20, 2018
At least fifty redshanks came flying in off the sea and up the river at Achnahaird yesterday; the first I knew of them was a lovely chorus of liquid piping - like their usual flight call but a bit muted, a bit more melancholy.
They swept round and back - perhaps because they saw me standing there - and landed among oystercatchers, while eighteen to twenty redshanks already on site but closer to me, flew over and joined them.
Later that night Greger watched the Bond movie "Spectre" again - prompting me to point out for the umpteenth time how unlikely it was for a black-throated or great northern diver to be calling from a lake in Austria in the dead of winter (or perhaps ever!). He was probably relieved when I left him to it and retired, sitting in bed reading until 1 am.
Opening the bedroom window for some fresh air, I was amazed to hear again the far-off calling of redshanks. Was I hearing an echo from earlier in the day? There could easily be redshanks on the river spit (they turn up there in small numbers during migration), but surely the calls wouldn't carry up into the village?
I went out and stood on the back step, and found that the partially cloudy sky was full of their sound. It came and went, and I wondered if they were migrating. But then the calling became louder again, and I caught sight of the movement of a flock coming towards me - perhaps numbering up to twenty - the waders showing their white underparts as they turned back towards the loch.
The redshanks entered our air-space, so I'll count them as a garden tick. I held the camera up and recorded; there was no picture of course but the sound was picked up - just. It was so special to stand there in the dark night and listen to these birds flying around, mostly unseen, their soft but urgent calls like a constant chattering among friends.
A walk late afternoon round the spit and out along the golf-course turned up no redshanks; so whatever they were up to last night, they're gone today.
Thursday, August 16, 2018
On this windy, showery day, at least 15 adult black-throated divers were in Gruinard Bay.
Eight were fairly close in on a high tide, preening, sometimes diving, but generally just lounging around and enjoying one another's company now the kids are off their hands. There was quite a bit of bill-touching going on which I managed to catch just once with the two divers on the left - though whether this is something breeding pairs do to strengthen their bond or something practised generally within the group, I don't know.
Graceful, enigmatic, rather harmless birds - and yet in 2013, one was found shot dead near Achnasheen.
On the drive home, we spotted 25 goosanders in a line on Little Loch Broom.
And, apart from about twenty common terns and three redshanks at Poolewe, and one greenshank at Gruinard, that was it.
Monday, August 13, 2018
Still, overcast weather brought out the midges in the Coigach area. From the car park I saw two godwits - one black-tailed, one bar-tailed - fly from rocks to the beach with oystercatchers.
I found them on the far side of the beach by the river, but people passing between the waders and me sent them over to the spit. Perhaps this is the bar-tailed godwit I saw here on Thursday; it seems to have the same insanely long bill.
Several wheatears were in the dunes.
On the machair, a raven was muttering away to itself with gusto as it picked at something in the grass. Eventually it lifted off and flew to where several other ravens and a great black-backed gull were feeding on the carcass of a sheep.
A pair of red-throated divers and their chick were off Badentarbat beach; and several juvenile black guillemots were fishing fairly close in.
Thursday, August 09, 2018
There were several wheatears among the dunes, but the best birds were on the beach. A flock of oystercatchers flying in contained a bar-tailed godwit.
For a brief space, there was no-one else on the sands; but the arrival of a lively spaniel and another dog sent the waders out to a spit beyond the river.
A few sanderlings were running about, and a Sandwich tern on the edge of the waves was a first for me at Achnahaird.
A flock of about a dozen redshanks flew in.
A greyish, windy morning had turned into a sunny day, and the beach car park was now very busy. I drove home with my head full of calls - the panicky piping of oystercatchers, the wheezy trills of dunlin, the sharp "kik" of sanderlings, and the "te-heu-heu" of redshanks - which, lately, I haven't heard often enough. The bliss of walking where waders are! Truly, a "walk on the wild side".
Wednesday, August 08, 2018
Sweden has experienced the same high temperatures this year as England, with drought and numerous forest fires bringing problems that almost outweigh the joy of having a beautiful golden summer. We came in for the cooler, thundery end of it all when we visited for Greger's brother-and-wife's joint 70th birthday party.
At the junction of the farmhouse drive and the road, a family of red-backed shrikes hunted in both a crop and a field of stubble, and perched in between forays on the seed-heads of reedmace that grew along the ditch.
This could be a juvenile - or the adult female. Not sure.
Whereas this is more likely to be a juvenile bird.
Other small birds feeding in the same area and flying up into trees when flushed by passing cars included this tree pipit - not the most dignified of shots. Greger says I've been "up-skirting".
Several fritillaries along an overgrown track were wary, although after a while they settled down and were more approachable; but I couldn't tell from the upperwing whether this was one I'd seen before.
When I finally saw the stunning underwing, I was sure this was a new fritillary for me. But which one?
Other notable birds: migrating cranes, dropping down to rest and forage on the fields (farmers get compensation) and filling the air with their wild, exuberant calls; a marsh harrier cruising silently over; tree sparrows in a spruce hedge - although house sparrows seem to have ousted them from the farm buildings; swifts, house martins, swallows; and, returning from a trip north to visit a friend of Greger's, half a dozen black-throated divers on a lake in a post-breeding social group, not far from the road.
