A winter wonderland
Today’s mountain safari was a bit different to be honest as we had snow on the hills!!!! Snow? In January? “The man is nuts” I hear you say, and you won’t get any arguments from me either. In all fairness, it has been a very mild winter so far and although the lack of snow (and skiers on the hill) has been great for my tours, it has not helped the Ski centre.
So, my party today consisted of Steve and Jacqui from Glenrothes, Rhona from Bridge of Earn and Doug from Peterhead. As we were meeting Doug at the centre, I took the other guests up the glen via a Black Grouse Lek first. Unfortunately this was a no-show but in all fairness we didn’t hang around long. So up the glen we went and we were a bit surprised to find it lightly snowing from a relative low level all the way to the Ski Centre car park. Thankfully there was no wind but it was snowing hard enough to make visibility not too great but the fog that was rolling down from the peaks gave a slight feeling of despair. Once we were all suited and booted we began the ascent and we didn’t have to go far to get numerous sightings of Red Grouse.
The higher we climbed, the heavier the snow seemed and the denser the fog became. One thing that did keep me smiling was the call of the Ptarmigan that we were hearing from further up the hill. It gave me hope that we might see one. Sure enough, near the top we saw a paired couple running about the hill. A couple of Arctic Hares were spotted as well but not close enough in the poor weather conditions for a decent photo. I wasn’t too worried as there are a few locations that I know that hold a high density of hares, unfortunately my head isn’t one of them! This proved to be a bit of a disappointment, not just my baldy patch but the lack of hares. I never would have thought that we would see more Ptarmigan than hares, but it proved to be the case.
After the Ptarmigan, we went to the summit of the Munro to get a wee team photo then headed off totry andv get the hares. God, they were hard work!!! I got my group settled behind some rocks and I set off up and around a couple of colls in the hope I would flush a few hares their way. As I climbed it became apparent that it was so foggy, I could stand on the blooming hares before either of us noticed who was where! Undeterred I got to the top and circled it then started my descent towards the group. Unfortunately the only thing that was flushed was my cheeks after the climb! We hunted about for a bit and eventually got some photo’s of the hares but the conditions were really deteriorating and not conducive to quality pics, well certainly not on my part anyway.
Once we arrived back at the car park, we nipped along to see the Snow Buntings and were treated to certainly a 30+ flock. Damn the fog and snow though, they again proved problematic for pics but my group seemed chuffed with their results. We parted company with Doug at that point and we took the trip home swinging by Bamff for a wee beaver habitat tour, I just love that place and my guests seemed blown away by the whole beaver thing, lovely. So yet another very successful day on the hills in brilliant company, thank you very much Steve, Jacqui, Rhona and Doug, it was a privilege.
