A day at Loch an Eilein

Loch an Eilein was a slightly unusual destination for one of my photographic trips, as I usually go to the glens west of Loch Ness, where Trees for Life carries out most of its forest restoration work. However, my partner’s son was staying with us for a few days in the middle of June, and he and his mother were keen to visit the Cairngorms, to climb one of the peaks there. I was more interested in the native forest than the high peaks (which I’ve climbed on various occasions in the past) so we traveled together to the National Park, and they dropped me off at Loch an Eilein before going on to climb Cairngorm Mountain and hiking on the summit plateau.

Loch an Eilein is one of the more readily accessible areas of native pinewood in the National Park, and although I’ve visited it several times in the past, it was quite a few years since my last visit. I’d never spent a day dedicated to photography there, so I was happy to have this opportunity now. There’s a well-made (and well-used) footpath around the loch, and it receives a lot of visitors in the summer. That’s one of the reasons I don’t go to the Cairngorm pinewood areas as much as those in Glen Affric and the neighbouring glens – there are less people in the latter, and it’s consequently easier to have a better experience of wild nature, undisturbed by large numbers of visitors, and the sounds of their conversations, as they pass by etc.

As soon as I could, I left the main footpath, and walked closer to the water’s edge, getting a little bit further away from the people and their dogs who were doing the standard walk around the loch. In doing so, I came across a group of aspen trees (Populus tremula) that I’d not been aware of before, so I stopped to have a closer look at them. There were several large trees, some slightly younger ones, and lots of suckers growing nearby in a grassy, open area. These suckers, or ramets as they are known in biological terminology, grow off the root system of a parent tree, and are actually therefore the same organism. Thus small stands of aspen, like this one, may consist of several mature trees and various younger ones, but they are actually all the same tree, as they are growing off the one root system. Such a group of interconnected aspen trees is known as a clone.

The suckers were two or three feet tall in most cases, and looked like they were being held in check at that height by the grazing pressure of red deer (Cervus elaphus) – there were clear signs of their leader shoots having been eaten. Aspen is one of the most palatable of all tree species for deer, and even small numbers of deer will prevent the successful growth of young suckers like these.

 

 

 

 

 

While I was looking at the aspen though, my attention was drawn by some motion in the water, near the edge of the loch, and when I turned to look, I saw it was a duck with two ducklings swimming there.

It was a female mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) with two young chicks, and they were steadily progressing along, near the shore of the loch. The mother was keeping a watchful eye over her young, while they darted in close to the vegetation on the shore, looking for food. It seemed like she was chaperoning or stewarding them, as they learned to feed for themselves under her supervision, and I followed them for a little while, as they kept going.

Where there was vegetation right on the shore, the chicks stayed close to their mother, but wherever there were trees or bushes, they would swim in amongst their branches, while the female would remain a short distance away, in more open water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I watched them as moved along the loch for about 50 metres or so, and then I turned my attention back to the aspen tree. However, within a few minutes, they were coming back in the other direction, so I got a second chance to watch and photograph them. While the mother was very attentive to her ducklings, I wondered at the fact that she had just the two chicks. Mallards are known to have between 8 and 13 young, so I suspect this one must have laid more eggs and had more chicks hatch, but that some were then lost to predators.

As the mallard and her ducklings moved away in the other direction along the loch shore, I turned my attention back to the aspen tree, and immediately noticed a small bird on one of its branches. Because I had my long telephoto lens already on my camera from photographing the mallard, I was able to get some images of this bird, before it flew away. I could see that it had a lot of insects in its beak, and it seemed to be looking at me quite intently …

I also noticed that it appeared to have a crest on its head, and from my initial glance I wondered if it might be a crested tit, one of the characteristic birds of the Caledonian Forest. However, on looking closer I saw that it was in fact part of an insect that appeared to be stuck on the bird’s head!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From checking a bird reference later on it looked to me that this was a willow warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus), and this was subsequently confirmed by one of my colleagues, who is very knowledgeable about birds.

As I watched, the bird flew around me, landing on various branches of the aspen tree, and always with the same catch of insects in its beak. These looked to me to be mayflies, and the willow warbler could have caught them as they were rising up from the loch. I suspected that the warbler’s nest was very close to where I was, and it didn’t want to risk showing the location of it to me. After a few minutes I moved on, leaving the willow warbler to deliver its catch to its waiting hungry chicks …

In all, I spent well over an hour in the vicinity of this group of aspens, which was barely a few hundred metres along the way on the route around the loch, so it was time I made some more progress anyway ….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walking on for a little while, I stopped at a particularly impressive old Scots pine (Pinus sylvestnis) that had a large spreading base, with a young rowan seedling (Sorbus aucuparia) growing on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s quite common to see rowan seedlings growing higher up on Scots pines, usually where a large branch creates a fork with the main trunk. They germinate there from seeds that have been deposited in bird droppings – the birds eat the rowan berries, digesting the pulp, but the seeds pass through their guts unharmed. It was unusual to see a rowan seedling in a position like this, due to the fact that most pines have straight trunks, so there’s nowhere at the base for a falling rowan seed to get caught and germinate.

Not far away, I came across another interesting and slightly unusual Scots pine. This one was growing beside the track, and all the soil around its roots, on the side of the tree next to the path, had gone, leaving the roots exposed and visible. While it was interesting to see the architecture of what is normally an unseen, underground part of the tree, I wondered how this situation had occurred. It must have been related to the path, and perhaps ongoing work to keep it maintained, that had led to the loss of the soil. The tree seemed unaffected by it, at least for the time being, but I couldn’t help but think that it might be more vulnerable to wind throw during stormy weather, because of the lack of soil around the roots.

There are only a few relatively scattered large old Scots pines on this section of the footpath around Loch an Eilein, but many of them seemed to have features of interest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One tree had quite a substantial blaeberry plant (Vaccinium myrtillus) growing at the fork where a large branch grew out of the main trunk. Like the rowan seedling I’d seen earlier, this is the result of a bird eating a blaeberry in the forest, and then depositing the seed in a dropping when it was perched higher in the tree. While it’s fairly common to see rowans growing on Scots pines, it’s more unusual to see a blaeberry plant in a location like this, so I savoured the moment of spotting this example.

Several of the Scots pines in this area had burls on their trunks. These are areas of deformed growth, usually caused by the tree experiencing stress of some sort, and often containing clumps of dormant buds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the far end of the loch, there’s an old multi-stemmed Scots pine that has been a particular favourite of mine since I first saw it, over 30 years ago. It’s got a beautiful, spreading shape and looks like it would be easy to climb, with its side branches forming a natural ladder up to the canopy. I’ve never attempted to climb it, but I’m sure that some people must have done so… I always spend some time with it when I’m at Loch an Eilein, and have been photographing it during my occasional visits over the years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were several low branches on one side of the tree, and one of them in particular was covered in male flowers. Scots pine is a monoecious species, meaning that male and female flowers both occur on the same tree, and the males tend to be grouped together in large numbers on adjacent twigs. As Scots pine is a conifer, rather than a flowering tree such as birch or oak, these are technically not ‘flowers’, but instead are referred to as male ‘pollen cones’. They release large volumes of pollen, which is dispersed by the wind, and any that touches a female ‘flower’ on a pine fertilises it and develops into the familiar conically-shaped pine cone, ripening  over a period of two years.

Much of the day had passed by now, and it wasn’t long until I was due to be picked up by my partner and her son, so I walked more quickly round the other side of the loch, to reach our rendezvous point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The east side of Loch an Eilein is covered with predominantly pure pinewood, and looks to me as though it has been planted, as many of the trees are growing close together and are even-aged. There were a few rowans in some places though, and like those in Glen Affric that featured in my last blog, they were all flowering profusely.

 

 

 

 

As I approached the car park where we would meet up, the day had one final treat in store – a red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) was on the path in front of me. It was one of those with a blonde tail, and it jumped on to the trunk of a birch tree and looked at me for a couple of seconds, before scampering up the tree and out of sight. I didn’t have an opportunity to photograph it, but this brief encounter seemed like a fittingly magical end to a day that had begun with some special experiences with the mallard and her chicks, and the willow warbler.