Christine's walking & birds blog

We walked up Strath Vaich to climb the small hill of Meall Coire nan Laogh (666m) which we've previously got up from Loch Glascarnoch - so the walk-in from Black Bridge along the private road was new ground for us. Our hill is the one in line with the house. Along the road we saw stonechats, meadow pipits, a wheatear, a chaffinch, a house sparrow - and a distant kestrel.


We couldn't find the old ATV track but came upon a more recently constructed track that had a horribly muddy section up through the woods.


However, higher up it was drier and did make ascent of the fairly steep hillside easier. Looking back, we were quite shocked by the low water level in Loch Vaich - although it has been fairly dry recently. This is an artificial loch created for the purposes of hydro-electric power, and it was strange to see that on its exposed bed, the course of the river still survives.


It was a very warm day and we found it quite hard going. Our starting point was lower than the Loch Glascarnoch lay-by, and the estate road doesn't ascend much; so the climb up the hill itself is a longer one. A bulldozed track means you don't have to struggle through long grass and heather, but on the other hand it tends to go straight up the hill - there are no gentle zig-zags. As we neared the convex crown of the hill, we left this track as it seemed to traverse the slope below the summit and even dip down again. This last part of the climb was vegetated and boggy for a while, then the rocky, tundra-like ground took over which was a relief - but it was still blooming steep. Greger said he felt as though he'd "hit the wall" as marathon runners are prone to do, and asked me to take a photo of him on the summit as soon as we arrived to remind himself later how tired he'd been!


Two giant tachinid flies were buzzing around, nectaring on heather and landing frequently on the cairn. This was a new species for my hillwalking list.


After lunch I studied the plantlife while Greger lay down and had a short rest. There was bearberry with its oblate fruits, but I think this patch of hill-top vegetation shows Arctic (or Alpine) bearberry. The picture also shows crowberry and reindeer moss.


I'm fairly sure this is Alpine clubmoss (ebps.org.uk - the British Pteridological Society).


A couple of walkers (who'd probably been all along the ridge to Am Faochagach, lucky things) coming towards us from Tom Ban turned off to their left and disappeared. We'd already decided not to trek across to Tom Ban, but now I suggested going a little way towards it and picking up the ATV track, which is what I assumed they'd done. We set off in that direction, and after a few minutes I spotted movement ahead among the rocks. Golden plover - unbelievably, my first of the year! All six birds are in this photo, with two hunkered down behind rocks with just an eye showing.


After a while they stood up again and started to preen, and to forage for insects. We continued slowly on our way and they made their way past us and up the slope we'd just come down. The two outside birds here have remnants of breeding plumage so I assume the group was parents with four young.



Unfortunately we were always looking into the sun - but this was a lovely sighting which made reaching the top worthwhile. The only other birds we saw on the summit were a lone raven checking us out and a solitary meadow pipit.

We soon picked up the old ATV track which was much nicer than the new track - it's sometimes so faint you can hardly see it, and lots of the pressed-down vegetation is springing back. Soon we could see the new track below us - a wide, brown slash across the hill-side - and eventually the ATV track converged with it.


Descending to the tree-line, I saw a female common hawker dance across the track and land on a birch trunk - but I needed bins to locate it against the flaking white bark. The yellow costa was burnished to gold by the sun, linking back to the beautiful golden spangled plumage of the plovers.

As we began the walk-out, I diverted across a hummocky grassy area to look back and get a photo of the dam, which appears to be turfed. The hill beyond is Carn Gorm-loch (910m) which is easily high enough to qualify as a Corbett (in fact, it's only a few metres lower than Munro height) - except that the col between it and the Munro Am Faochagach isn't quite deep enough (info found on the walk-highlands website). This is a pity, as it appears a more imposing and shapely hill than its neighbour (not in picture).


Not that it matters much - this is a hill too far for us now. Our walk today was 15 kilometres with a modest height to gain. It was enough.