Christine's walking & birds blog

The weather was sunny when I left Ullapool but heading north I drove through showers, and as I turned to the south-east at Ledmore Junction I was faced with a huge mass of low, dark cloud shedding rain across the high moors. The ditch near Loch Craggie held two frogs and a newt - no spawn yet. On the loch itself I could see only a female goosander and a pair of mallards.

I spotted a male crossbill in the top of a distant larch tree; I just snapped some pics from where I was without trying to get closer, as it's possible that breeding is underway.

I'm not sure if the extensive forestry operations currently being carried out in the area are down to landowners just harvesting the timber all at the same time, or if they're part of a big project which aims to replace non-native species with native trees. I don't know if the spruce that I see are Norway or Sitka spruce - but Sitka spruce will, apparently, have to go. Similarly I don't know if the larch I see are European or hybrid larch - and hybrid larch will also go. I've seen crossbills here feeding in spruce, pine, and larch - so it seems to me that whole swathes of crossbill food are being laid waste. Something else to worry about.

A pair of stonechats were presumably back on territory as the male was singing; and four whooper swans and a male goldeneye were on distant Cam Loch.