West Highlands, 2022 – 1

Tags

Battle of Mulroy, butterwort, campanula, Commando Memorial, dipper, Eas Chia-aig Falls, Glen Roy, Glencoe, Glenloy, Gloucester old spot, grass of Parnassus, Jacobite, Loch Arkaig, Loch Linnhe, lungwort, map fungus, osprey, Parallel Roads, pine marten, River Turret, Round-leaved sundew, sedge fly, shieling, sika deer, Spean Bridge, stonechat, wagtail, waxcap fungus, wood tiger caterpillar, yellow saxifrage

Saturday, 10th to Sunday, 18th September. I stayed at Glenloy Lodge, our accommodation hosts, Jon and Angela, being our wildlife hosts also. Sadly, they are giving up at the end of the year.

In this map, the Isle of Skye is top left, that of Mull bottom left, Loch Ness top right, and Fort William somewhat to the right of the middle, at the head of the narrower part of Loch Linnhe. Glenloy is just a few miles due north of Fort William. Marked up are all the places we visited in the 556 miles we did in the week, except that we went a little off the map beyond Loch Ness once. Clicking/tapping on the map may enlarge it.

I had, reluctantly but due to several uncertainties about rail travel (and reckoning that I couldn’t actually prevent the plane from flying, whereas I could prevent my car from burning up fuel), flown to Glasgow from Bristol, and then taken a scheduled bus service from the city to Fort William. I had planned to listen to a number of podcasts I had downloaded during that last, three-hour, part of the journey, but in the event was so taken by the beautiful scenery that I just looked out of the window all the time. It was very sunny, and I didn’t think I would be able to take any useful photos because of reflections. But, frustrated all along Loch Lomond, I couldn’t resist any longer, and grabbed my phone to take a few of Glencoe. This is the most successful.

Those geography lessons about glacial U-shaped valleys kept coming to mind.

Jon met me at the bus station, and told me that there was just one other guest, David. It was not long before we had our meal, after which was the evening ritual of looking out, from the comfort of the sun lounge, for the pine martens who came to enjoy the peanuts and peanut-buttered bread put out for them. So strokeable – though perhaps not with those teeth. As long as we stayed indoors they were not fazed by our presence.

Before breakfast on Sunday, we were summoned to see what, if anything, had been attracted to the moth trap overnight. The answer was no moth, but a couple of sedge flies.

Each day, once we had set off at about 9.30, we were out until 6.00. This day, led by Jon, our first stop was in Glen Roy, famed among other things for its ‘Parallel Roads‘, mythically caused by giants racing in competition along the hillsides, but in fact caused by the shorelines of a retreating lake, which finally disappeared when a glacier blocking it melted.

We were meant to be looking for wildlife, but this is the first creature that caught my eye.

Gloucester Old Spot

These sika deer were a very long way away. I could not see them with the naked eye.

Young stonechat, waxcap fungus, grass of Parnassus (shame I took only this out-of-focus photo), yellow saxifrage

The Parallel Roads can be seen here.

These black-faced sheep distracted me. We saw hundreds of them every day.

Here the Parallel Roads can be seen, along with another geological feature, the river terraces of loose deposits left behind as the River Roy retreated. The little houses are shielings, summer accommodation once used by those tending animals, and their families.

The River Turret flows into Glen Roy. You need to cross this very attractive bridge to continue up the latter.

Two carnivorous plants, round-leaved sundew and butterwort

Campanula and friend

Somewhere in here is a dragonfly

Looking back down Glen Roy

The shieling children did not escape schooling in the summer. This is where they went for it.

Wood tiger moth caterpillar

We turned back a way. Views up and down the glen from our lunch spot.

Before leaving the glen entirely, and having seen a couple of exciting golden eagles, impossible to photograph, we saw two old monuments, and at Spean Bridge a modern one.

Said locally to be a communion table used by the Roman Catholic populations after the Jacobite rebellions. Communion cup carved much more recently.

Info on the Battle of Mulroy here.

This memorial to the Commandos, who trained in this area, was inaugurated by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in 1952. I was to learn much more of this later in the week.

We moved on via the Mucomir Power Station on the River Lochy (which afforded no interesting photos) to the Eas Chia-aig Falls, where the the lower pool is known as the Witches’ Cauldron.

Near there we saw some map fungus and some lungwort.

On to Loch Arkaig, where we took a short walk. The light was not good, and we just made it back to the car in time before it started raining.

Wagtails of various kinds

Very distant adult and juvenile dippers

Osprey. It really does have a head.

The evening’s pine marten

I am very conscious that one of the readers of this blog used to live right by Glen Roy. He will no doubt be correcting any errors I have made!

Travelling again – 7. Strathdearn and Insh Marshes

Tags

birch polypore fungus, butterwort, common rock rose, curlew, David Parkin, dung beetle, Findhorn Bridge, Findhorn Valley, Germander Speedwell, Grant Arms Hotel, greylag goose, heath spotted orchid, Insh Marshes, Nigel Marven, red deer, roe deer, RSPB, Ruthven Barracks, small heath butterfly, Strathdearn

I had been to Strathdearn on my visit to the area two years previous. I had been on my own and had had the good fortune to encounter there a couple of practised birders. On Monday 14th June, the location was one of the options on the programme, so I was able to benefit from the expertise of Richard, one of the Grant Arms Hotel‘s list of local guides. The meeting point was a car park ten miles along the Strathdearn/Findhorn Valley, where I took the obligatory photos looking ahead,

and behind.

We were some ten people from the hotel. Almost as soon as we were gathered, a herd of at least 20 red deer arrived. I was a little careless as I took the photo. They were at a considerable distance, but I should have held stiller. I include this merely for the record.

We also got a brief glimpse of an osprey, but not good enough for a photo.

It was blowing an absolute gale, a really cold one at that, and at times it was raining. Like several others I am afraid I just sat in my car for much of the time, and emerged only when I saw a brave few huddled over the roadside verge. They were examining two plants,

a heath spotted orchid, and this pretty, innocent looking thing, a butterwort.

Not so innocent. It is insectivorous, as a closer look at these sticky leaves shows.

After an hour or so alternately shivering outside and warming up inside my car, I gave up. I imagine the others were continuing with Richard to Burghead in the afternoon, but I had booked on to a different outing. I made my way back along the Findhorn Valley, admiring the views once more, and occasionally stopping to take photos when it was safe to stop in the passing places along the single-track road.

The art deco Findhorn Bridge at the beginning of the valley is interesting.

The inscription explains, ‘This bridge was built in 1926 to replace the bridge built by Thomas Telford in 1833’.

I had plenty of time before I was due at the meeting spot for the afternoon’s outing, so I stopped off at a hotel in the village of Carr Bridge for a coffee. I had to sign up for the Cairngorms own Track and Trace system and not to forget to sign out as I left.

Continuing on my way, I tried to capture the beauty of the distant mountains, some with occasional snow.

I was heading for the Insh Marshes RSPB reserve, and passed of over Loch Insh. It seems to be best known for its water sports activities, but I saw none of those, I’m pleased to say, and had the road bridge to myself when I took these, with not an activity in sight in either direction.

There’s a bit of a breeze, but it wasn’t cold here.

I was very early at the meeting place, ate my banana and wandered around a just a little.

I didn’t want to leave the beaten track, but just enjoyed the wildflowers on the verges, the sheep and the views. Not to mention the smidgeon of sun.

As I’ve said before, I do like a clump of flowering grasses.

It turned out that I was the only customer for this afternoon’s outing, so we were just three, Nigel Marven, Sue W of the hotel, and me. We went to a lookout. I was pleased to have expert company. I would have spotted nothing in these marshes without them.

But with their eyes, I was able to see at a great distance, (my camera is on maximum zoom here) a greylag goose and goslings (and more geese),

a curlew

and a roe deer.

We also saw a redshank, but my photo of that is so poor it does not even merit being included for the record. We came down from the viewpoint and started making our way to a ground level hide. Nigel went on ahead, and came back with…

… a dung beetle. No, until a few days earlier I did not know that the UK had dung beetles. Though ours do not gather and roll along those balls of faeces you see on the nature documentaries about Africa, and indeed which I have seen there, most recently in Morocco.

On the way, we saw, among other things, a small heath butterfly,

germander speedwell,

common rock roses, and

and birch polypore fungus.

Once installed in the hide, we were delighted to see very close a family of curlews. A parent,

a chick,

two parents,

and a parent and a chick.

In fact there were two very attentive parents and three growing chicks, but it was not possible to capture all five together. Sue was very pleased to see that there were indeed still three chicks, the same as the last time she had been there a couple of weeks back, and they were very adventurous now.

Over in the distance was a buck roe deer.

As I drove back to the hotel I was taken aback to see this. Only on my return did I learn that it was a significant historical monument, the Ruthven Barracks, built by George II after the 1715 Jacobite Rising. Had I known, I would have parked up and looked around.

After another delicious dinner at the hotel (here is the menu for that evening, which also included a choice of four tempting sweets),

visiting speaker David Parkin gave a very interesting talk, more so than might be suggested by the title, called ‘Birds and Climate Change’.

This was the end of the official ‘celebrity week’, but I had a further full day to explore the area.