Christine's walking & birds blog

Meall a' Bhuachaille - the rest of the ridge

We left home slightly later than last time, at about 6 am (a barn owl flying across the road near Leckmelm) and after a visit to Tesco in Aviemore, parked at the Glen More Visitor Centre just before 9. As we made our way up through the cool forest to follow our descent route of last Friday, Greger spotted a red squirrel. Emerging from the trees with the ridge ahead, we were in high spirits. With blue sky and sunshine and without that awful wind of last week it was going to be a really enjoyable walk. Wasn't it?


I got onto two far-off mistle thrushes, but it was Greger who spotted the golden eagle.



A bit further up, a family of stonechats perched and foraged in the heather or along the path or, as here, on juniper bushes.


This is looking back over Loch Morlich; the mountains on the skyline are part of the Glen Feshie ridge which we traversed many years ago - notable for our only sighting of crested tits on a hill-walk. Or will we be lucky again today?


The fact that Greger has pinned back the brim of his hat shows that the wind was already getting up at this point - but, although annoying, it wasn't too much of a problem yet.

It started to really gust as we made our way up to the first top of the day (Creagan Gorm, 732m) - and they were fierce gusts! Here, I look north to Abernethy Forest and Loch Garten. It's difficult to convey strong winds in still pics on open moorland, but I remember feeling as though the wind was blowing the hair off my head - and it was relatively sheltered here!


The lovely ridge stretches ahead - and in the dim and misty distance we could just make out the long profile of Ben Wyvis.


We could see this large erratic boulder as we trekked up an unnamed top; deposited here by a glacier long ages ago, it could be granite judging from the pinkish colour. It was bigger than me - about half my height again.


A red admiral butterfly danced manically by as we had lunch, and meadow pipits skipped around protesting - do they still have young? Not much reason for them still to be here otherwise - unless of course they were juveniles who haven't yet left these breeding grounds.

Wonderful though the ridge was, it was a relief to drop down at last and lose some of the wind. A crossbill flew over calling and landed some distance away.


Eventually we found the track that would lead us back to the car park; and along that track, from an immature pine tree loaded with cones, came a ringing trill. Crested tit! I got one poor pic and then a second one when it flew high into a mature tree. There were at least two birds, but they flew further into the forest.