Sunday, February 18, 2024
The weather here is capricious, to say the least; so when the morning dawned sullen and damp, I didn't despair. After all, the Met Office website showed a dry, sometimes sunny day from nine o'clock onwards, and I've seen the clouds roll away before, leaving a blue sky and sunshine.....only today, it didn't happen. I drove north to Ledmore Junction and then east along the single-track road, anticipating seeing crossbills and getting some pictures in good light. Loch Borralan seemed empty of birds, though I pulled over near the motel to identify a solitary sleeping female goosander. A car approaching from the opposite direction drew up alongside and the driver said "A silver van is coming along behind me, and he has no clutch, so he can't stop". I said I would wait there; he thanked me and drove on, and almost immediately the silver van came along and passed me with a flash of his lights. I supposed they were taking it to the garage in Ullapool. Only in the Highlands.....
At Loch Craggie I walked up the track to look in the frog-and-newt ditch; frogspawn has already been reported in Assynt, but I know from experience now that it comes quite a bit later at this inland location (on the OS map, there is a spot height on the road of 155m above sea level, with a further rise of a few metres to the usual place). Not surprisingly, there was nothing there.
After lunch I drove back slowly, scanning the conifer tops for crossbills, but there was no sign of any. There has been a great deal of clear-felling along this road, although plenty of forest remains; but the work could have disturbed the crossbills, and there's no doubt that some of the best locations for them are gone. Or, of course, they're just somewhere else - they range fairly widely. Hope so. I parked again and walked across moorland to another good spot, but again there was nothing. The rain was by now quite heavy, and I decided to go home. Back on the A835, I looked across at the snaking Ledmore River and caught sight of a pair of whooper swans. These were my first for the year.
Yesterday: A walk by a loch brought me my first stonechat of the year.....
.....and my first golden eagle.
Rotten picture, but it reminds me of the lovely moment when the eagle floated out from behind a hill and circled in the air above the ridge for some minutes. A man had climbed the hill just before, and maybe he'd disturbed it (not intentionally, I'm sure) because after a while the eagle flew across the road and I saw several birds (possibly black grouse) speeding away across the moorland. We saw grouse fleeing from a red kite last year, so it's hardly surprising that they're spooked by a golden eagle! My year list grows agonisingly slowly - but the best times are ahead.
