Christine's walking & birds blog

Yesterday: I couldn't wait any longer to try my first hill-walk of the year, so I went to bed early the night before - and managed to miss the exciting match between England and France! I also missed Greger's cooked breakfast the following morning as I wanted to make an early start. 

Almost there.....

.....and because I knew I wasn't going on from this top, I spent some time studying the flora and fauna. Not much of the second - just a queen bumblebee (probably white-tailed) nectaring on heather.....

.....and a beetle which clearly didn't want my company....

.....and, given that it was the same size as the bumblebee, I didn't mind at all. There was Arctic bearberry (I think) everywhere, its berries a dark red; they'll be ripe when they turn black.

There was also quite a colony of lovely lilac orchids, which I think are either common spotted orchid or heath spotted-orchid. They and the strongly coloured bell heather were beautifully complemented by the rock.

Even at a distance, this small patch of grass stood out against the greenery; its stems and seed-heads were golden in the bright sunshine, but buffeted constantly by the wind (excuse for less-than-sharp pic).

This rosette of leaves is a bit of an ID mystery to me; I've narrowed it down to a species of fleabane, hawkweed, or willowherb - possibly. The "alpine" form of any of the three would be a good find, and I'll keep on researching it.

On the descent of the steep, often wet slopes, I thought that my left walking pole suddenly felt light - looked down, and realised half of it was missing. Oops - there it is, stuck in the ground behind me.

I made my way down with one-and-a-half poles; but Greger has since mended it for me, hooray! Meanwhile - this is probably a meadow grasshopper.

Birds were scarce today, with only meadow pipits on the hill itself. Other birds: a family of stonechats, a common gull flying along the loch, house martins wheeling and swooping over the dam, and several redpolls.

My stiff legs and aching lower back this morning reminded me that I'm not very fit at the moment - so I'm glad I did the walk, both because it was great to be up there again and because it was good training for our anticipated ascent of the usual Corbett once Greger is completely over his cold.