Beinn Liath Mhor a' Ghiubhais Li
Yes, it was back to this old favourite for my third and Greger's first hill-walk of the year. We walked fairly fast up the 2.5 km forest track and then stopped for a drink; we'd agreed that if either of us felt we couldn't do it, this was the point where we'd say so. We were both for going on - although we did find it hard work. Two bird sightings cheered the ascent. First, two red grouse erupted croaking from the long grass and glided swiftly downhill before I could get the camera out; and then a short, plaintive call betrayed the presence of a golden plover. I caught a glimpse of the plover as it flew across the rocky hillside and was just in time to grab a record shot before it, too, disappeared from view.
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We reached the first cairn on the summit plateau without seeing ptarmigan, and had lunch looking over Loch Glascarncoch to Ben Wyvis.
We soon chilled down and so didn't sit there for long. A raven flew over calling, and Greger took a rather nice photo of the Beinn Dearg group with his smartphone.
We left our rucksacks by the cairn and walked over to the large shelter on the main top. Three people were sitting there, and the man wandered over to chat. He had come up the north-eastern route directly from the road, so I asked if he'd seen any ptarmigan. He said he had - five or six of them. We didn't fancy using that way of descent again - not only is it unremittingly steep and rough, it would also entail a long walk on the main road back to the car; but I suggested going a little way down that flank before turning left as we'd seen a ptarmigan there once before.
As we turned to traverse the slope, Greger said "Look - just down there!" and there were four ptarmigan, not yet in full winter plumage but still whiter than we've ever seen them.
As we made our way down carefully through the tricky boulder fields, I spotted two more ptarmies.
These are probably male birds, although the black lores don't seem to stretch across to the eye in either individual; they're possibly younger males than the one in the third image. Anyway, they bring our ptarmigan tally to six.
We had plenty of time so walked down slowly; the air temperature was very low, but because of the lack of wind we got fairly warm while walking. As we exchanged the boulder fields for more spongy parts of the hill, I kept looking back, reluctant as ever to leave the bleak rocky realms of the ptarmigan.
Back on the track at last we drank some water and then made our way slowly down. The plantation had seemed devoid of life on the way up - would we get lucky with black grouse on the way down? A definite dark head and neck sticking up above the grass warned me, and I fumbled ineffectively with the camera as four or five splendid males rose together and flew off low between the trees. They didn't go far, but they must have hunkered down as I couldn't get on to them again.
This was my 13th ascent of this Corbett and Greger's 9th - and it's the second time we've seen all three of the grouse species possible here. The walk and the birds cheered me up after my car business - the final bill was over £3,000 and there's no guarantee of course that other things won't need fixing; so I think this will be its final year. :o(
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