Christine's walking & birds blog

Lovely wide vistas and far horizons are what you get on the east coast.....



We saw common and little terns today but failed to identify any Arctics. A displaying sedge warbler was a nice tick for the site. A little bunch of tree sparrows and yellowhammers suddenly flew up onto the fence; they seem concerned about something in the long grass below, but we noticed nothing at the time. 

I took a grim kind of pleasure in walking up the quarry road today in pouring rain. Bins and camera were safely packed away in the rucksack with an inner waterproof liner. It wasn't the best weather for seeking birds, but as far as I could tell there were no spotted flycatchers.

Blue tit, willow warblers, tree pipit, grey wagtails, and a small flyover raptor carrying prey were all I could manage before I turned; but the sudden sound of a wood warbler stopped me in my tracks. I listened in delight to the "pew" or "tiu" and the stuttering trill, but failed to spot the bird.

Almost back at my car I spotted a chunky bird on a pine at the side of the road, and realising it was a crossbill I risked getting the camera out for a record shot.



One thing I did find out - most of my waterproof clothing needs to be replaced. I was soaked! But was it worth it? For the sound of a wood warbler and the sighting of a crossbill? A resounding yes!

"Now is the globe shrunk tight
 Round the mouse's dulled wintering heart"  
                                                - from Snowdrop by Ted Hughes.

An apt description of how I feel. But mid-December is the time for these blues, not late May. Today the rain has drifted horizontally across the hillside, yet it goes deeper than weather. Mountain summits and birds usually lift my spirits so when conditions are right I have to trust they'll work again.

My target bird was whinchat - and I found one on the high road above Glen Oykel. He was distant and with a muddled background, but my record shot at least gives an idea of his stunning colours. He was also singing.


The tree pipit and willow warbler were closer to the road.



But the male crossbill, spotted on the drive home, was again very distant.


There were loads of orange-tip butterflies out, nectaring on delicate cuckoo flowers and looking splendid in the bright sunshine - but they wouldn't sit still for their portraits.

Our target was the two hills in the centre, which I first visited last June.


An unseen cuckoo called in the distance, and a willow warbler was singing from the conifers. House martins were back, nesting again on the dam. Along the track were meadow pipits, skylarks, a stonechat carrying food, and three quarrelling wheatears.


Our struggles began after we left the stoney track, plodding up rough ground through pine and birch saplings with lots of holes to trip us up. Above the deer fence it was slightly drier than my last walk here - but it was still pretty wet! There were lots of dwarf birches (Betula nana) - so tiny there was a risk of stepping on them.


A red grouse was flushed from long grass. This frog hopped out of our way, and a second one was seen swimming in one of the many peaty pools.


A plover went over, flying swiftly in the direction of Ben Wyvis. There was no time to grab bins or camera, but I had an impression of dark underparts; maybe it was more likely to be a golden plover than the longed-for dotterel. A mountain hare, pointed out by Greger soon afterwards, was some compensation for missing a pic of the bird.



A wheatear was on the first top (Meall Coire nan Laogh).....


.....where a huge cairn must be the work of the landowner rather than hillwalkers, I think.


After lunch we continued along the broad ridge. We spotted a lizard, and located lots of tiny cloudberry plants, growing mostly on disturbed ground where an ATV track had flattened/obliterated the vegetation.


Just as I was having my own picture taken at the second top (Tom Ban Mor), I caught sight of a white-winged bird flying across the hillside below, where we'd just walked. Greger said there were two, and tried to point out where they'd landed. But just as I got onto them they flew back round the hillside - they had to be ptarmigan (we saw at least two ptarmigan a couple of kilometres further north-west when walking up Am Faochagach in May 2018 - this is part of the same ridge).

Back on the first top of the day, I wandered around a bit still hoping against hope for a dotterel. Greger recorded my futile search with his mobile, looking north to Tollomuick Forest.


Several wheatears on the way down could have been the same ones we'd seen in the morning, at the side of the loch; so I'll say three wheatears, although it might have been more. By the time we got down to the track again I was limping - but I cheered up at the sight of sundew plants beginning to emerge in the ditch.


And because I stopped and was busy snapping the sundews, I couldn't hear what Greger was shouting back to me, although the fact he was pointing wildly with his pole into the sky suggested he was trying to draw my attention to a flying bird. Belatedly I got onto a diver, which had flown more or less over him.


As the swiftly-flying diver disappeared over the ridge, I just had time for a couple of very distant shots; I think it was probably a red-throated diver.

Back at the dam, sand martins and swallows were among the house martins; and a common gull flew past. There were four or five ravens; the two on the wall appear to be juveniles, although the less-than-perfect landing skills of the airborne bird suggest that it, too, is a youngster. And goodness knows what the meadow pipit's doing in the midst of them.


The only other birds for the day were hooded crow, buzzard, and two drake mallards on Loch Glascarnoch. We were very tired thanks to the difficult, spongy, pathless walking on the lower part of the hill. The walk was 8.5 miles, and although he admitted it was wonderful on the tops, Greger said that if I want to go up there again I can blooming-well go on my own!

Between two spits reaching like arms into the roadside lochan, four black-throated divers were hanging out together.

    

Sitting in the car, I should have managed better shots, but the "bow waves" in this picture show that, despite their rather stately appearance, the divers were actually on the move the whole time.


This was rather like their post-breeding get-togethers, but I'm not sure if this foursome is two pairs - or a male and three females, or a female and three males! There was certainly no animosity between the birds, but now and again two would come together and "kiss" - and I could never manage a sharp photo when they did.


Further north in another lay-by, I saw a pair of wheatears foraging and wondered if they already had young. While I was wondering, a calling snipe materialised from somewhere and dropped into the long bleached grass, from where it occasionally sent out its chipper call. From yet another lay-by, I watched sand martins hunting up and down the river; two landed on a nearby fence and preened, only flying off when a car whizzed past.


Stopping on the way back to look along fence posts for whinchats (unsuccessfully), I spotted another snipe on the far side of the river.


My second cuckoo of the day was singing from wires, but I got distracted when I spotted a white-tailed sea eagle, miles away, but coming closer. The eagle cruised along the ridge in the distance but eventually disappeared - at which point the "cuckooing" seemed very close. I spun round to see two cuckoos, flying side-by-side, the male still singing and the (presumed) female uttering a different call - not the bubbling call that I've heard only once before, but a rapid, sharper call - more like "wikwikwikwik". They flew right over me but I wasn't quick enough to grab a pic, or to say whether the second bird was male or female. Meanwhile, two more snipe erupted from wet grassy ground and went careering away across the road.

A nice morning - but it's still really cold. In fact, it's the kind of weather that sometimes makes me feel physically sick, with bright sunshine almost too glaring to be pleasant, and an Arctic wind that drops for a while - so that you feel the heat of the sun - and then comes back at you in a sudden gust and chills you to the marrow.

It didn't quite reach 7˚C today and we had a drive around with just a couple of short walks. The ring ouzel flew strongly across the cliff face and alighted on the rock high above.


Here's hoping for a female and a nest somewhere up there. As we left, the male's nice song came drifting down.

The grasshopper warbler seems to have gone; but a sedge warbler sang from the blazing gorse and twice flew up in display. It's a slow, cold spring.

Yesterday: Curious about the other route into the Fannichs from the weather station, we set off on a round walk: up through Altan Wood as far as the footbridge (as suggested by the wooden signpost in the car park and as followed by us on two hill-walks), and then returning along the alternative route by the side of the river. It seems a no-brainer as the track through the plantation rises steeply and then descends again to the footbridge, while the path along the river is almost level, with just a gentle rise.


As we walked up through the plantation we heard the bubbling call of black grouse, but failed to see any. A couple of wheatears were still around. After coffee and cake at the footbridge we set off along the river path. Along the slabby stretch of the river a grey wagtail made a splash of colour against the peaty bank and dead heather stems.


Another splash of colour in the otherwise drab moorland surroundings was a tiny wildflower which I've identified as lousewort - quite common, but a new one for me.


Across the Abhainn an Torrain can be seen the Corbett we walked up a couple of weeks ago.


So what's the verdict? From Greger's record of the walk it appears that there's little difference in length between the two routes. Obviously, for an ascent of the Corbett alone, the plantation track is better as the trees are on the flank of this hill. But when striking out for the more distant Fannichs, the main thing against the plantation is the unnecessary climb and descent before you even get near your hills; and the main thing for it is the cheering birdsong from the trees and the chance of seeing black grouse. The path along the river was fine now, but will get more overgrown as the summer wears on, and wetter and muddier in several places when the present dryish spell ends. Both routes have a stream crossing - with the river-path crossing possibly posing more problems after wet weather. It was quite pleasing to take note of all this and know we didn't have to feel too stupid for not having taken what seems at first to be an easier route!

Yesterday I took a walk along a forestry track, where I saw my first cuckoo of the year.


At least one tree pipit had also arrived.


And several bright male stonechats were seen in the clear-fell areas, hopefully with unseen mates sitting on eggs.

Today it was very cold despite sunny spells, with an icy wind from the north; I took only a short walk and birded mostly from the car. During a stop by the bridge over the River Kanaird on the A835 (in hopes of a sedge warbler) I heard the intermittent and sometimes elusive sound of reeling. The noise from passing traffic (including a high-performance car of some kind which was certainly not keeping to the speed limit!) made it extra difficult to locate the source of the song; but a movement on the bank below, closer to me than I'd bargained for, resolved through my bins into a grasshopper warbler creeping through the weeds.


I clicked off two optimistic shots, and was amazed to find the bird actually in one of them!