Today we visited Anagach Wood
but from a different entrance and again it was rather superb Caledonian
Forest. We spent two hours walking
around the footpaths in rather superb conditions with the trees and the ground
covered in snow but yet again without any Capercaillie. We had several frustrating contacts with
crossbills, one of which might well have been Parrot/Scottish rather than
Common.
Anagach Wood
Anagach Wood
Anagach Wood
Anagach Wood
Coal Tit
After leaving Anagach Wood and
taking a comfort break in Grantown on Spey we went to Tomvaich were we saw a
Buzzard and four Common Crossbills.
With the conditions looking
reasonable we decided to go the car park in the Cairngorms to search for
Ptarmigan. When we arrived there was
very little wind and it didn’t feel too cold.
We walked the short distance to the main building and positioned
ourselves so we could scan the slopes above.
The summit was not visible but the slope to the left had very little
snow on it, which had presumably been blown off by the westerly winds. As we scanned Roger picked a bird up in
flight but it disappeared behind the ridge but as we continued to scan the area
we found a nice male in amongst the rocks.
The next challenge was to get everyone to see it, which wasn’t easy, as
when it stood still it just looked like a patch of snow but eventually
everyone did managed to see
it. Roger then picked up a party of Red
Grouse that landed just a little lower on the same slope but only one was
visible after they had landed. A short
while afterwards several got up and headed off to the west and were joined by
more Red Grouse and five Ptarmigan.
Surprisingly the Ptarmigan had been much easier to see than we
anticipated and we returned to the bus for lunch. Whilst we were having lunch we located
several Snow Buntings on some picnic tables but they were disturbed by a
photographer and flew closer alighting a little further down the car park. Again they were disturbed and flew off to a
high ridge and we were able to confirm there were about twenty. Someone had put food down for them and it
wasn’t too long before they returned and present some good photo opportunities.
Male Snow Bunting
Male Snow Bunting
Female Snow Bunting
Female Snow Bunting
Female Snow Bunting
Female Snow Bunting
Having done well on the
Cairngorms we headed towards Loch Insh and Insh Marshes. We initially went to the north shore of Loch
Insh but saw very little a couple of Tufted Duck and a Goldeneye and so went
back and headed for the marshes. A Waxwing
had been reported at Drumguish but there was no sign but we did see a couple of
Great Spotted Woodpeckers.
On arrival at Insh Marshes I
went to the viewing platform, which is actually the roof of the viewing
hide. There were four Whooper Swans towards
Kingussie and plenty of tits coming to the feeders just in front of the
hide. A Peregrine flew over and another
five Whooper Swans flew in and when I watched a Greylag Goose drop in I picked
up a male Stonechat that was feeding just behind it. With the temperature dropping and the light
fading we called it a day and headed off back to Nethy Bridge seeing another
forty-four Whooper Swans close to the road.
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