Scotland May 2015
14/5 Tulloch Moor near Loch Garten.
15/5 Tulloch moor again:
7:00 Cuckoo mobbed by small birds. Herd of deer - tried to stalk them upwind but they knew I was there and moved off. Curlew flew in calling. First time I'd heard that call in many years. Tried to stalk it but no sign - must be nesting. No grouse to see. Red and green moss. Wood ants nest.
16/5 Lochindorb
Gulls roosting on the moor. Mountain hare. Amazing views of ruined castle in the lake - rain and sun.
Black Throated diver - good view through telescope. Proper birdwatcher now! Bitterly cold. Rain and sleet showers but then sun - wonderful light.
Osprey flying over in sunshine. Walked up track to little sheltered valley. New farm owner putting in new fences etc. Different climate. Woodcock twice. Partridges? Where is the Osprey nest?
What is so different here is that the species we see in the winter in Wales and England are nesting here: divers, woodcock, widgeon, goldeneye, curlew etc.
All sorts of emotions about this trip. What makes it for me is the special moments - times when my life is lifted out of the ordinary: yesterday when the rain set in and I parked up, put the heating on, put my feet up and read an inspiring book: ‘Gathering Light’ by Jennifer Donnelly. Then in the evening, back to the pull-in at Tulloch moor where I had walked in the afternoon. I watched a DVD about a journey - the modern pilgrimage to Compostella - perfect. Then this morning up at 4:30, before the alarm as usual. The "Caper Watch" was disappointing - no sign of any Capercaillie, but one quick sighting of a flying Osprey. Heating on again for breakfast, then a longer walk on Tulloch moor - roe deer, a weasel, curlew (see above), some great pictures with cloud and sun.16/5 Geddes
Military road to Dulcie Bridge - several Wade bridges. Dulcie Bridge quite special.No word from Sasha at Cougie, so stayed in a Caravan Club Certified Locaction - £10 inc elec, so heated up water and had a shower.
17/5Cougie
The satnav bit was easy enough. It took me as far as a place called "Cougie Lodge". It didn't look right. It wasn't. When I got to what it called "my destination" I was still on a metalled road and there were a few normal looking cottages. There was also, fortunately, a sign saying "Pony trekking, Cougie" with an arrow pointing to a rough track. That looked more like it. The track started bad and got worse. It was full of potholes: the van could barely reach 15 mph and it went on and on and on, but all roads lead somewhere and this track was leading me through a landscape that looked less and less man-made with every slow mile. The rain came in and lashed the van, tore down the valley and then disappeared as quickly as it had come.
I'd heard so much about this place: from Steve in our many conversations over a pint in the Neuadd, and from the TV documentary "Power to the Pococks". Sasha was a star in that film, but she had not replied to my messages and I didn't really know what sort of welcome I would get. Iain had said fine when I first asked about a visit, and Sasha had sent two thumbs up signs in reply to my facebook message, but I had no phone number, so I just had to hope someone would be there and I could pitch up the camper for a couple of days. I knew Iain was away because he was with Steve on a lads party in Prague for one of the nephews.
The track got no worse; the sun came out and there at last was a big clearing in the forest with what looked like a rough and ready hamlet - all sorts of buildings with signs saying "Camping", "Pony Trekking", "Self Catering", rows of stones marking the tracks. It's beautiful. The houses look home-made but sturdy. There is a fast flowing river, small fields with ponies and all around is the wilderness - rough pine forests and bare mountains, some with patches of snow. It reminded me so strongly of my first experience of country like this - in Canada. That was an experience which had shaped my life ever since. It had given me an abiding love of the sort of landscape where mankind is no more than one of the players; on a level with the beavers, the scrub, the trees and all the rest of nature. In this place the balance has shifted back. The commercial forestry has been felled. The stumps are still there, covered in moss, but the natural forest - birch and pine - is slowly reclaiming the land. Not any old pine though, this is the noble Scots pine, one of our most magnificent native trees. It grows slowly - doesn't make enough profit for the foresters, so the true ancient Caeldonian pine forest is almost gone.
I have just spent 2 days in the largest remaining fragment - Abernethy in the Cairngorms. It felt like being in the restored fragment of ebony forest I saw in Mauritius. Most of the island of Mauritius is a brash tropical supermarket of trees, vines, shrubs, cats, birds, monkeys - all from somewhere else. With hybrid vigour they grab any unprotected land and move in. To save the ebony you have to keep them all out with fences and traps. You go through a locked gate, the aliens swarming behind you, and you are in the cathedral splendour of the native ebony trees. You know instantly that this is what forest should look like.
It's the same in Scotland. The harsh dense stands of alien conifers give way to spaced out shapely trees, bark like the skin of some ancient scaly reptile, rough brown and red, glowing in the light filtering through the dark green needles. It's not just that native forest looks good, it also supports far more species. It is a richer landscape in every sense - except the narrow one of profit, money. Alien species make more money. 
Intending to be out for hours, I walked up the track beside where I have pitched the van. It follows the river up a valley through this captivating landscape until suddenly nature stops and the desolation of a recently felled forest begins. The track became a river within a bog and I had to turn back. I saw Wheatear, seeming to be more green and yellow than the familiar brown and black. Perhaps they are a Scottish race, like the hoodies which are an alternative race of Carrion Crow. I saw one of them too, and a buzzard, the sort of wonderful bird which we call "nothing special". It was the wrong track anyway. Tomorrow I will take the other one which leads to a small remote loch. Perhaps there will be divers there. (Long walk next day – saw eagle twice.)
20 – 24/5 Orkney
(Written later)Sometimes sunny, sometimes wet, always windy and always cold, Orkney was a challenge on several fronts. I was staying initially with a distant relation by marriage who I didn’t know very well. Ben is the husband of my second cousin Victoria. He is tall, a serious, attractive and highly intelligent man with, unfortunately for me, a soft voice and quiet disposition but a wry sense of humour. I had to keep asking him to repeat things which is embarrassing and because he doesn’t necessarily speak unless he something to say, I tended to speak too much and further embarrass myself. He, like Vicky, is a catholic convert and (unlike her) had once been a monk. With his wife on course for a high flying career in medieval studies, he has adopted the house-husband role and works part time at a historic house and part time as an independent scholar. Vicky was away teaching in Iona when I arrived and Ben had plenty to do looking after their bright, lively daughter Stella, whose bedroom I had usurped for the 4 days. By the end of my stay I felt we had established a good rapport, but Ben remains something of an enigma. I hope they didn’t find me too difficult.
Luckily my first day was sunny, and with Ben at work until 4 I had 5 hours to cycle the 16 miles from Stromness to Evie. It was bright, but with a biting cold wind. Assuming I would find a nice warm café for lunch, I set off with just an apple, some water and a chocolate bar I had bought at what turned out to be the only shop on the route, and the only place selling food of any kind. I don’t have the muscles for serious cycling and soon found I was carrying far too much weight. It was hard, and a lunch break of water and one precious sweet bar was not enough to set me up well for the second leg so I finally got to Springfield Cottage pretty much exhausted. 
It felt wonderful to be in a bright warm space, well used but not cluttered, with everywhere nice decorative touches. Before Ben arrived I lay down in the garden enjoying the sunshine.That was a pattern for my stay: abrupt changes of mood – an intense challenge followed by sunshine, beauty and joy: a cold wet and miserable visit to the sensational Neolithic village at Scarra Brae followed by the welcome of the gorgeous Skaill House and a gourmet lunch in the visitor centre; cycling in bright sunshine but a 45mph gale; a cold grey early morning with close views of friendly eider ducks and then an amazing iron age “broch” or fortified village.
The past in Orkney is not ‘heritage’, it is woven into the fabric of the place. The dialect is more Norse than Scottish, and you feel the Vikings are never far away. The great stone circles and the excavated 3000 year old houses are part of a continuity of settlement enabled not by roads or airports but by the sea.
Long straight roads with no traffic; wide open spaces chased by cloud shadow, and everywhere the sea; there is no doubt that the Orkney main island is a special place. But it’s not human activity that has made it special for me – almost the opposite: it is a place where the people have had to live with nature, rather than try to dominate it. There is a vibrant community life with a university and several theatres serving a population of 20,000. The climate is unforgiving: spring felt like winter - a month later than Wales. Summers are cool, but winters are often frost-free. The wind stops the trees from growing, cropping them off like some giant grazing animal.
Rather than every square metre of land being under pressure for food production, huge areas are left as open moorland and many of the fields are unsprayed and unfertile – wonderful for the grey lag geese you see everywhere. The land is dotted with ugly cement rendered farms and wind-turbines dominate the hill tops, but nature still has things her own way here and the bird life is astonishing: iconic species like divers, harriers and eider ducks flourish.
26/5 Sandaig
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| the pilgrim |
A day of pilgrimage, of special places, and being the only one there. The special places I had to see on this trip were: Loch Garten and the Abernethy forest, the Flow Country of Sutherland, the Orkney main island, Loch Torridon, and this, the last of them: Sandaig, known all over the world as "Camusfearna" the house by the sea where Gavin Maxwell wrote "Ring of Bright Water". I had a hard time finding it. First off I misremembered the map and drove for miles looking for a little group of houses round a bay, not realising that I had passed it within a mile of Glenelg. Then I was looking for a path through forestry, but the forest had been felled. In the end I was glad because I got to see the village at the end of the road – Arnisdale, with deer strolling up the high street. Eventually I found the footpath marked on the map, but there was no sign and the path was very obscure. When it became a matter of hopping from one rock to another over the river I did wonder if I was in the wrong place, but it then joined up with a forestry path and a brisk walk brought me to the first view of a place which had been in my head since Natalie painted a picture of it on the kitchen wall of our little house in Pewsey - early seventies? 
How easy to be disappointed - so many things could have changed for the worse, like another magical memory of an old house by the sea in Wales - now a caravan park. Sandaig however did not disappoint. It was wonderful. Towards the end of his time there, in the 60s Maxwell over-developed the place with more buildings, power lines, roads. Now they have all gone. A few fallen telegraph poles show where the power lines used to be. The road in is now a path. The house has gone, and nature has come back: a shingle beach with ringed plovers nesting, a rough grass foreshore with at its centre a stone marking the place where the house had been and where Maxwell's ashes lie. There is an old boarded up cottage, a waterfall in the trees, and out towards the water a little string of islands placed there just to look right. It was a grey day with some drizzle but from time to time the sun came out to show just how special this place is. I was alone, but I could see footprints, and other pilgrims had left shells and stones round the two memorials - one to Gavin and one to his famous otter Edal. On the way back I found the forest track I should have taken - a proper bridge and easy walking. So easy I met a family group from Birmingham carrying a picnic. They come every year apparently.
It still felt special though. I can't wait to re-read the books.
As usual I had made an early start so it was barely mid-day when I got back to another magical place:
Glenelg.
To kill a little time and absorb a bit more of the place I had a pint of local IPA in the Glenelg Inn where a roaring log fire was burning - in late May. Lunch in the van - packet soup and sliced brown bread - and a snooze had me ready for more low-key adventure: a trip on the little five-car ferry to Skye. This too was special - the last of the locally invented turntable ferries now community owned. It's £15 for a car but £3 for a foot passenger so I left the van in the little car park and took the bike over. There is not much to see the other side except the view of this side, but there is a permanent wildlife hide and, looking very new, a temporary hide with an RSPB pro in attendance. I stayed there for an hour chatting about birds and animals and searching for an otter or a diver or an eagle. There were three divers but so far off we could not clearly identify them. The bird man said most of the divers there are Great Northern - the one I hadn't seen yet. He also told me that the best time to see a sea eagle would be next morning around 9 as the tide comes in. As I cycled along a rough track to the permanent hide my itinerary got changed. I would have to set off for the long drive south a bit later. At the main hide I enjoyed a conversation with another bird man, this time a part-timer with a London accent who had recently moved to the area after years visiting. He was about my age and also travelled round in a camper.
I explored a bit further on the bike and then took the ferry back. "How far did ye get?" said one of the ferry men. As far as I wanted and more.
27/5 Glenelg Ferry
What he has learnt, this restless person, is that you will never understand the natural world by walking through it. Walking you catch glimpses - a deer sticks its head up, worried, then bounds away; a bird flies towards you but changes course. Even the butterflies flap their way onwards, never resting for long when you are there. It's only when you stay in the same place for some time - half an hour, an hour or more - that you slowly become aware of the patterns of behaviour going on all around you but unseen unless you are still. 
The man at the hide had told him to look for a pattern: the incoming tide brings in the fish, the gulls collect above the shoal, snatching what they can. The sea eagle sees the gulls and flies in for his due as the top predator. The next low tide is around 8 am so the eagle might appear in the following hour or more. He had intended to do an early spell of driving - from 6 to 8 - then have breakfast a hundred miles south. The chance was slim, but it was a chance, so there he was at the little ferry station at Glenelg just over the water from Skye and the rain was drifting in, soft and steady. He got the van parked in the little car park - empty until the first ferry - with the open side door overlooking the sound. He set up the telescope and got the camera ready, and began his wait, moving from side to side to scan the water with the binoculars. The rain held sway, a trio of cormorants flew past, the rain eased a little and he looked around outside. Not for long, the next drift came in and he retreated to the van. Time passed.
Ah - a large white bird is flying round above the water. It has black wingtips so probably a Gannet, but he gets a few good shots and sees the bird on the screen with wingtips raised and feathered. Surely Gannets don't fly like that? They are so sleek. Could it be a Hen Harrier? Surely not above water. It is gone and the pictures are enigmatic. But it's all about patterns of behaviour and in due course it comes back. More pictures but still no final proof of Gannet-hood. It is gone, but there is a black dot on the water. The binoculars show it to be a seal, and there is another, and another. He had seen that there were many seals here the previous afternoon, so while interesting, they are not exciting.
There is another black shape and the bins show this to be a bird with a pointy head - it's a diver, but which one? The man at the hide had said that the Great Northern were the most frequent here. Does it have a black head? Yes! White streaks on the back? Yes! That's a great moment: the first sighting of a Great Northern Diver in Britain, and in its natural breeding environment.
The white bird is back and this time it is definitely a Gannet: not rare, but a first for the camera and a charismatic bird after all. Two dark birds with long wings are flying just above the water. They look like gulls or even falcons, but there are no dark gulls and they are too big to be peregrines. Not cormorants or divers, the wing beats are too slow. They can only be immature greater black-back gulls surely? They would look dark in a bad light.
It's 8.45 and time to set off on the long drive to Lancashire. No eagle, but some good field-craft learnt and the gannet and diver justified the time and the cold hands and feet.
