Christine's walking & birds blog

Beinn Liath Mhor a' Ghiubhais Li (for the third time)

It was a sunny but very windy day. Several wheatears were in the plantation, flying up into trees as we passed.


Toiling up the slope of grass and heather above the plantation, we flushed a red grouse.


The grouse flew around the hill, incorporating a bit of display flight as it did so. I could manage only a poor shot, but I'm posting it for a reason.

Our hill was clear, but snow patches lingered high on the Fannichs. Greger's mobile shot over my head reminds me that a hat was needed early on, as well as in the decidedly cool wind on the summit.


This is probably fir clubmoss - the second species of clubmoss I've found on this hill; but I'd never even heard of clubmosses until last November, so this is a tentative ID.


And this "plant" with its tiny red fruit, after much research on the internet, was revealed instead to be a lichen.



I'm fairly sure it's a Cladonia lichen, although I can't say which species - possibly cristatella. The much-branched pale stuff is another lichen, although it's generally known as reindeer moss. 

Reaching the summit, we walked across slowly, looking for ptarmigan; and then found a spot on the eastern side to have lunch. A very bright wheatear suddenly appeared a little way down the slope from us, and I switched on the camera. At the same time, Greger alerted me to a bird in flight, and I just caught sight of the white wings of a ptarmigan scudding past below before both it and the wheatear disappeared.

After lunch we walked along the ridge to the next cairn, but we saw no more birds; and it wasn't until we were leaving the main summit on our way back down that we spotted a ptarmigan. Because we were looking into the sun, and because she was so quiet and unobtrusive, we almost missed her.


It was fairly good underfoot today, after a long spell of dry weather; but peat hags still have to be negotiated, and Greger found a good route back through them.


Quite a few people were out walking, having parked wherever they could find a spot along the main road once the small car park was full (we're on the right, to the right of the camper van) but there was no-one else on our hill; plus, many Fannichers seem to avoid the plantation and follow the river instead, thus cutting out an unnecessary climb and descent. All in all, despite appearances, we had a nice quiet day!

Back in the plantation, we were sheltered from the wind and it was really hot. A wheatear flew ahead of us, then up into a tree, then down onto a stone.


Just after this I heard a harsh, almost hissing sound that was unfamiliar, and had just got onto something black out in the grass when it took off and flew towards a line of conifers - a male black grouse!


It's an even worse pic than the red grouse one, but I'm posting both as record shots because today for the first time we saw three species of grouse on a hill-walk. The black grouse was a nice surprise as I thought they'd deserted the area for summer quarters.

Sighing with relief as we passed through the gate and approached the road (nearly down!), we looked up to see a handful of martins. As we squinted up into the unbearably bright sky and debated what they were, one helped out by flying over us and almost stopping in mid-air. Clearly, sand martins - our first of the year.


There was one more wheatear by the stream and I was tempted to get the camera out again, but I was too tired. Driving home we spotted an osprey fishing in Loch Droma, and from a lay-by we saw it catch a decent-sized fish and fly to the far bank. A nice end to a really good day.