Sunday, November 18, 2018
Beinn Liath Mhor a' Ghiubhais Li (second time)
There was ice on the puddles and frost in the grass early this morning on the track up through the plantations. A solitary fieldfare ran ahead of us along the ground and then flew reluctantly up into a pine. The low sun flooding a tawny landscape with golden light seemed to set the world on fire.
We left the plantation and the sunshine below us, climbing steep wet slopes in cold shadow and inadvertently flushing two red grouse. A growing arc of light on the skyline above us promised a return to the relative warmth of the sun; but though welcome, the brightness made that direction useless for birding. A small flock of silhouetted birds rose from the ground above and flew off; a desperate shot snapped when they were miles away suggests they were snow buntings.
This plant at least stayed still, and was later identified tentatively as Alpine clubmoss.
Climbing this Corbett for the second time was another bid to see a ptarmigan in its winter plumage, as we'd seen a pair here (not in winter plumage) on our first visit in April 2016. We reached the summit just as another couple arrived from the north-east. They headed for the shelter, while we walked on along the ridge and sat in the open for lunch, looking along Loch Glascarnoch to Ben Wyvis.
We decided against walking further along our own ridge, which still looked suitable for ptarmigan - but I scanned the area carefully and could see no movement on the ground at all. While doing that I caught sight in the bins of a distant eagle being hectored by a raven, but the two were moving west into the sun and I lost them.
Greger brought his camera along today and took this photo looking into Coire Lair towards the Ben Dearg group; the convex nature of the slope we're on creates a sort of optical illusion. The closer loch is 4 kilometres away, and between us lie unseen moorlands and the road to Inverness.
We set off back down the same way, picking our way across boulder fields and wandering back and forth a bit to continue the search; at about 600m a butterfly (probably a red admiral)went dancing across the hillside. A small (9cm long) white feather fluttered among the rocks, and I guessed it probably came from a ptarmigan. I failed to snap it in situ, where it looked fragile and beautiful, and have to admit it lost something from travelling down the mountain and home in Greger's pocket. The downy part makes me think of snowflakes, and is unbelievably soft and silky.
Droppings - possibly ptarmigan - suggested their recent presence, but we failed to see a single bird.
Just above the plantations, two black grouse and then a red grouse were flushed from the open hillside (the red grouse, like those from the morning, clucked as it flew, while the black were silent). As we set off down the track, a sudden flapping made us realise belatedly that four grouse had been feeding in a birch tree right by the track; and near the bottom of the track in failing light, two greyhens were spotted feeding in birches - giving me my first image of a black grouse seen during a hill-walk.
A ptarmigan sighting would have completed a nice tidy trio of grouse species for the day; but even without one we'd enjoyed a great outing - and just when we'd accepted that our hill-walking for the year was probably over.
// posted by Christine @ 11:01 AM 
