Wednesday, January 05, 2022
We had a good though cold (1ºC) walk by Loch Glascarnoch; we didn't see many birds today but at least they were all firsts for the year. A call made me turn to see two whooper swans fly low over the dam and land on the water.
Greger identified the tracks as those of hare - probably mountain hare as the brown hare is, I think, not found in the north-west.
A red grouse was spotted checking us out from the snowy slope of the plantation.
On the way back three small birds were foraging near the ditch; this one is a meadow pipit, so presumably the other two were the same.
Two red grouse flew away up the hillside but were seen later just beyond the conifers.
We drove to the wind-farm road to have coffee and cake - and a black grouse was seen in the distance, very conspicuous in the top of a silver birch.
We called it a day when it began to snow again. Driving back we saw a black grouse fly across the road from left to right near Altan Wood; and as we approached Loch Droma I saw another one flying towards the road from the Fannichs. This one cleared the water before landing on the bank. Perhaps they were both escaping from bad weather on the higher moors. There were lots of red deer grazing lower down; but as we dropped from Braemore Junction to sea level the road got wetter and the snow turned to rain.
