A sunny winter’s day at Dundreggan

Two days after my last visit to Dundreggan, when I walked along the lower Red Burn, I was back out there again for some meetings. It was a very different day, with bright sunshine and a clear blue sky, in contrast to the overcast conditions previously. As I had a couple of hours to spare in between the meetings, I decided to make the most of the opportunity and headed up into the woodland to take some photographs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few rather photogenic-looking wispy clouds had appeared in the sky, so I made for a group of old Scots pines growing in a small clearing in the woodland, thinking that there would be some good views of the trees and sky from there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Along the way, I stopped in an open part of the woodland where there are some juniper bushes (Juniperus communis) growing amongst the birches (Betula pubescens and Betula pendula). These junipers are relatively young and small – a couple of hundred metres to the east, the junipers are much larger, growing up to 8 metres tall in some cases.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pines in this group must have grown without any immediate neighbours as they all have spreading crowns, whereas if they had grown up close together they would have been tall and narrow-crowned in shape. They are some of the most character-filled pines on Dundreggan, and as a result I visit them quite often …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I was watching the movement of the clouds above the pines, I heard the distinctive piercing ‘mewing’ call of a buzzard (Buteo buteo). Looking up, I heard it again, and after a few seconds the bird appeared from behind one of the pines, soaring on the thermal air currents generated by the heat from the sun.

I had the wide angle lens on my camera, so I took a photograph quickly, in which the bird was very small, and then changed lenses, putting my longest telephoto lens on the camera. The buzzard was continuing to call during this period, and when I looked up again, I saw that there was actually a pair of them, circling together. Their flight was effortless, requiring no beating of their wings, as they took advantage of the thermal air currents to rise up, as they soared round and round.

Then, as I watched, a third bird appeared, and I wondered if it was another male, trying to displace the male of the pair that were flying together? There was some more calling, but after a minute or two the third bird flew off and the pair circled together further south, out over the southern part of Glen Moriston, away from Dundreggan. I wondered if they were looking for a nest site? About 3 years ago, a pair of buzzards nested in the top of an old Scots pine on Dundreggan about 100 metres west of where I was, but the nest has been unused since then.

Watching the birds soar, my heart soared also, as I drank in the beauty of the day, and the special feelings of the moment. It reminded me of an experience I had in western Canada a few years ago, when I did some tandem paragliding with a friend. Jumping off the top of a small mountain in the lower Fraser River valley in British Columbia, we had climbed in one of the thermal air currents, just like the buzzards had been doing now. As we soared in circles, a bald eagle came into the same thermal, circling at the same level as us, but on the other side of the thermal, perhaps 30 metres away. It was a truly magic moment, in which I had a real sense of what it means to be a large bird like a bald eagle (or a buzzard) with the power of flight. The eagle eyed us up for 20 seconds or so, seemingly checking out this strange flying ‘bird’, before moving away, and that is the closest rapport I’ve felt with a member of the avian kingdom, before or since. Now, watching these buzzards, I envied them their power of flight, and wished I had a tandem paraglider close at hand, to join them in the air on this beautiful day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had my lunch out there on the hillside, watching the changing pattern of the clouds in the sky above, and enjoying what was a very special day for February in the Highlands. As is often case, while I was eating I looked around, and was surprised to see a tiny patch of snow in a hollow a few metres away. There was no snow visible anywhere else at all, but somehow that little patch must have been out of the direct sun, and therefore had survived when everything else had melted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The snow was partially covering a fallen frond of bracken (Pteridium aquilinum), and it looked like it had partially melted and then re-frozen, as it was more akin to ice in its characteristics than snow. Its crystalline, translucent beauty must have been a result of the warmth of sunny days combined with cold freezing nights, and was probably different each day, as some of the snow melted and the shape of the patch changed. It was another example of the ephemeral beauty of ice, which I featured in a recent blog. Finishing my lunch, I headed back down to the lodge for my afternoon meeting, feeling deeply nourished by these couple of hours I’d had out in the woodland on this sunny winter’s day …