Christine's walking & birds blog

Today, I bagged a Dodd! On our walks along Loch Glascarnoch, I've often remarked to Greger that getting up the hill that rises from the track just after the second gate might offer a better route to the tops beyond than the rough mire I generally plod and squelch across to gain them. Seeing another walker going up recently, I decided to give it a go. Having done a bit of research, I discovered that Meall an Torcain (536m) is one of the Dodds - hills 500-599m high with a drop of at least 30m all round.

Well, it was pretty steep and fairly wet in places, but eventually I got to the top and looked past the modest summit cairn to my next two hills.

Picking my way down the northern flank of the Dodd I got into some really rough, wet ground - but I was cheered up by the sight of a fairly large patch of dwarf birch (I think this photo is upside down!).

There was also plenty of cloudberry - but the flowers were over and I could see only one plant with sepals. These were probably all male plants, so there were no berries - but never mind, I 'd once seen berries up on the col between the two hills I was heading for. By the time I reached the huge summit cairn of Meall Coire nan Laogh (666m) it was extremely windy, the cloud was down over Tom Ban Mor - and I was tired. I sat in the shelter of the cairn and had lunch. Standing up again, I realised that the patch of tiny red "flowers" near my feet was dwarf willow with its strange red seed capsules. I hadn't noticed this on my previous walks here - I've only ever seen dwarf willow before on the summit ridge of Ben Wyvis. Some of the capsules were splitting to release their fluffy white seeds.

A few oddly shaped reddish things like berries away from the main patches were possibly diseased dwarf willow - perhaps galls. Just over a kilometre away, Tom Ban Mor was now out of the cloud. I knew that if I continued I might find cloudberry fruiting again, while higher up there would be the outside chance of ptarmigan and dotterel; but then I recalled the rough ground I had to cross later in order to get down to the track - and I reluctantly decided to start going down. I was taking the old route rather than going back over the Dodd. Actually, the first part wasn't too bad - although a sighting of golden plover or red grouse would have made it better. On reaching the deer fence I was dismayed to find the walkers' gate gone, while a wide metal vehicle gate had replaced the old wooden one. This was no doubt to accommodate the huge diggers that have been doing work on the hillside recently - and fortunately, it wasn't padlocked. After all my struggles I certainly wouldn't have enjoyed having to climb over!

 .....and this interesting flower which turned out to be marsh cinquefoil.

And a marsh is certainly what it was growing in! When I tried to move, I found that my feet had sunk into the mud; and after I'd gone a hundred metres or so, I realised that I'd left one of my walking poles behind so I had to go back into the same mire to pick it up - its handgrip now, of course, covered in mud. When the going wasn't wet or muddy, there was very long grass and other tangled stuff to contend with and I tripped a couple of times but managed to stay upright. By the time I reached the hydro track I was pretty weary, and pleased that I'd made the decision up there not to do the extra two kilometres.

Other birds: willow warbler, skylarks, ravens, stonechat, a house martin over the dam, several unseen common sandpipers calling anxiously from the loch-side - and a possible dunlin calling as I started my descent from the second top (or was it a dotterel?)

// posted by Christine @ 11:33 AM 0 comments

An hour into the sailing, I spotted two terns which I'm confident were Arctics.

About twenty minutes later I was lucky to spot a group of Manx shearwaters (15-20) as they converged with the ferry and flew across the bows.

There were a few great skua sightings, but I probably saw no more than three individuals during the whole trip.

I spotted one small pod of dolphins but saw no sign of whales. At Stornoway we had to disembark (after a long wait while the vehicles exited) via the car deck - the passenger gangway being still out of service. I concentrated hard as we sailed back to Ullapool but the sea was fairly quiet. By the time we were approaching the Summer Isles I thought it would be safe to relax and finish off my Maltesers. Unfortunately they had been in the top of my rucksack, in the sunshine, and had melted! I didn't realise this immediately though, and in no time at all I had chocolate all over my fingers - at which point, a birder called out "Manxie!" and I managed to miss the most promising little flurry of birds on the return trip. Typical. Never mind, it had been a nice, bright day (although a bit on the windy side) and I did see other birds: puffin, guillemot, razorbill, fulmar, kittiwake, gannet, shag, white-tailed eagle - and, at Stornoway, common tern and grey heron.

// posted by Christine @ 10:35 AM 0 comments

Yesterday: Three black-throated divers were hobnobbing off the beach at Badentarbat.

// posted by Christine @ 6:01 AM 0 comments

We drove south down the coast and had a walk round Inverewe Garden. Aultbea could offer no hen harrier this time, although we did spot a white-tailed eagle flying across Loch Ewe. On the way back we pulled in at what used to be a large lay-by and which has, since Covid, become a pay-and-display car park; we don't normally use it but I wanted to have a quick walk there to hunt for whitethroat. There were none - at least, that I could see. But in a damp meadow with a small flood in a hollow, I found a few ragged robins.

// posted by Christine @ 11:03 AM 0 comments

I trudged along muddy paths to the shallow pools and puddles where dragonflies patrol in the summer - but I was jumping the gun as usual, and there was nothing to see yet. A golden eagle soared above a distant ridge, and a sika deer melted quietly into the shadow of the forest without its earsplitting shriek. I could hear song thrush, chaffinch, blackbird, goldcrest, blackcap, and wren - but they weren't singing with real conviction, and one by one they fell silent. Then came some lovely fluting "cuckoos" from somewhere nearby. As I walked back to the car a second bird started up - and I thought I also heard the brief call of a female. One of the male birds flew onto a bare branch, where it perched for a while against the backdrop of Sail Mhor.

A small bird on a lower branch was bothered by the presence of the cuckoo; they took off together, and watching them as they flew out of sight brought to mind Shakespeare's most famous stage direction [Exit, pursued by a bear.] Except in this case the pursuer was a chaffinch.

// posted by Christine @ 11:23 AM 0 comments

I set off in the rain, determined to get some exercise and not really expecting to see any birds. But as I reached the high moors the weather cleared, and I began to hope for snipe. However, a greenshank flying across my path high to the north was an acceptable alternative. Shortly afterwards, some "yippy" sounds alerted me to the approach of a white-tailed eagle being mobbed by a smaller bird which I thought was a raptor; but I couldn't tell which one.

// posted by Christine @ 11:19 AM 0 comments

Greger suggested a trip down the coast on this unpromising day, and we drove the length of Loch Broom in quite heavy rain. Turning back towards the sea at Braemore Junction we were encouraged by brighter weather ahead. At Aultbea we parked facing the sea. A male wheatear, a pied wagtail, and a swallow patrolling the edge of the plantation were the only birds around as we sat in the car eating Danish pastries.  The plantation obstructs the view to the left, and some concrete wartime gun emplacements block the view to the right; and just as I finished wiping my coffee cup out a pale bird materialised from behind the trees, flying across the small patch of sky in front of us. "Crikey!" (or similar) I exclaimed - "it's a male hen harrier!"

Greger said afterwards that he was hugely impressed by my speed as I grabbed the camera, opened the car door, leapt out, and ran across the grass towards the sea. I managed just one record shot of the receding harrier as it flew over the sheep paddocks and scattered houses (a nice potential garden tick for someone!).

I ran back through the car park and out onto the road, where Greger joined me; he scanned with his bins and was pretty sure he saw the harrier briefly against the moorland beyond the fields - where it seemed to disappear over the ridge. Wow! We've had three sightings of ringtails in this area - but I think this is the first adult male hen harrier we've seen on the mainland since we came to live in Scotland.

// posted by Christine @ 11:12 AM 0 comments