Christine's walking & birds blog

A small camper-van was in the car park, so someone was probably on the way up into the mountains; but they were clearly long gone, and I had the plantations to myself.

Close to the fork in the track, a woodcock was flushed; it flew up the hill-side and over the ridge before I could do anything with the camera. I walked almost to the lower footbridge, and watched the tops disappear into cloud. Somewhere up that valley is where we saw the short-eared owl in July; but that's probably also long gone - and the only bird I could see today was a buzzard.


It was quite cold, and some of the water on the track was iced over; but there was little wind and it was pleasant to be out. If I wasn't up in the hills at least I had them all round me. I turned and walked back; quite far down there was a flapping of wings - and two grouse took off from the heather and flew towards the conifers. The bank was high just there and hid them from me almost immediately, but I think they were black grouse rather than red.

Driving home, I pulled into a lay-by above Loch Broom and looked across the road to see a - what? Buzzard? I got the bins onto it and no! It was a juvenile golden eagle.


Eventually it vanished over the ridge.


This was a closer encounter than the one a couple of days ago; although I suppose it could be the same bird.