Loch Ossian, a U-shaped valley & overhead an eagle

Our last full day at Loch Ossian youth hostel we did another walk that would be suitable for a day trip by train. The whole route was on substantial gravelled tracks and took six or seven hours which included plenty of stopping time.

First coffee-break of the day. The first of many...

We started by walking from hostel along the south shore of Loch Ossian. At one point we saw a black-throated diver close in to the shore. It was half hidden by trees but binoculars removed the branchy distraction and revealed stunning markings - streaks and spots of pure white against pure black. The next morning I saw it (or another?) fly along the loch from west to east. It was already quite high above the water when it began an upwards clockwise curve. As it circled higher and higher each lap took it directly over my head. Eventually it became no more than a white-black cross shimmering against the summer-blue sky.

sketchbook notes, black-throated diver

At the far east end of the loch is a shooting lodge, an interesting private building with tall triangle windows that blend well with surrounding conifers. The rear is less sympathetic, more sinister. A sculpture in the grounds looked very much like one of Antony Gormley's solitary standing men. 

Immediately beyond the lodge we turned north and walked three kilometres up the length of a wide U-shaped valley. A perfect example from a school geography textbook - flat bottom, steep sides, meandering river. Think of the massive power of that glacier gouging out the valley so many thousands of years ago.

valley of the River Ossian

Approaching the end of the valley we heard then saw two peregrine falcons fly from cliffs above us. They came together in the sky in courtship or mid-air food exchange (Peregrines are known for this. See an amazing video of it here on the BBC website). Immediately afterwards four ravens with thick rough necks were there down in the valley. Wise and wily they looked beside a ruined cottage, conversing ominiously in cronking voices. 

We walked down towards the ruin and crossed the River Ossian by a bridge with missing slats. There was a dipper on the rocks - the first seen on our trip. A wheatear flitted away to alight on a rock and then high, high above us a golden eagle appeared over a curve-topped hillside. A row of deer stood silhouetted on the rise and above them came the eagle. It flew a straight line east to west, gliding effortlessly, wingtips fingering. A smallish white patch towards the end of each underwing showed it to be a juvenile. What a huge creature. I realise now that every distant bird I've ever thought may have been an eagle (but was probably just a buzzard) was definitely just a buzzard!

deer above the River Ossian

 

a ruin at the head of the valley of the River Ossian

lunchtime sketching spot

Our turnaround point was the ruin where the ravens had been. Down by the river were bleached tree stumps and roots, preserved remains of the ancient Caledonian forest emerging slowly from the peat where some will have lain buried for thousands of years. 

We decided lunch would be here although I couldn't bear to be in such an amazing place and not get something of it captured on paper. Drawing can be like an addiction - sometimes it's a necessity rather than an option. I did two quick watercolours here and ate my food as we walked back. Peanut-butter, thickly sliced beetroot, & rosemary - my favourite sandwich but not many people seem to agree.

lunchtime sketch - 5 minute watercolour in sketchbook, 14.5x41cm

lunchtime sketch, ruin by the River Ossian, watercolour in sketchbook, 14.5x41cm

Arriving back at Loch Ossian we walked the north shore through fairytale moss forests. An uprooted pine gaped like a dragon rising from its underground slumber. Its tree-root mouth was open wide to receive and devour any unwary walkers. At least the now-drenching drizzle would douse its fire. 

Loch Ossian moss-dragon

Down on the edge of the loch a dipper perched on a boulder, chittering and chattering loudly as if the story it told was the most important thing in all the world.

dipper on Loch Ossian

Loch Ossian, Loch Treig, a bothy & back. Then the stars.

at least one a greenshank... but not the call..., pencil in sketchbook

After a good sleep with only three of us sharing the 12-bed dormitory I did my yoga stretches outside the hostel and watched the morning birds on the loch. (One I identified almost definitely as a greenshank but getting onto the computer once home I realised the call I heard was not greenshank but some other wader. I'm not sure what.) 

Loch Ossian, early, outside the hostel, pencil & watercolour in sketchbook, 14.5x41cm

I still had time to sit outside the hostel and sketch the loch pine islands before we set off at 10.45. The 20 km we walked took us eight and a half hours, with the return leg much quicker than the outward. From turnaround-point we were only three hours - the coming of dusk combined with gentle drizzle ensured we hardly stopped. If you're a reasonable walker and not prone to halting every time you see or hear a bird you could do it much more quickly, probably as a day trip arriving on the lunchtime train and departing on the teatime one. 

after-lunch coffee-spot, Loch Treig, pencil & watercolour in sketchbook, 14.5x41cm
 

me sketching at Loch Treig (see watercolour above), photo taken by Paul Phillips, 10th April 2012

bothy, pencil, pen, ink, 41x14.5cm

Our walk was a there-and-back, following a route I took more than ten years ago on my Duke of Edinburgh Award gold expedition. From the hostel we walked to the station then north-west by very boggy track to the long stretch of water that is Loch Treig. Our lunch spot was on the shore before walking west up a beautiful narrow V-valley to a three-room, two-storey bothy at grid reference 296678. Someone had left rice and dried apricots in one of the rooms. Welcome finds for the hungry walker arriving late.  

Staoineag bothy perches on a grassy rise in an idyllic spot - the valley opens here into a bit of flatland with the river Abhainn Rath meandering slowly through. The deep peat-brown water looked like treacle and I felt a dipper should come whirring along it looking for rocks to bob up and down on, or that a kingfisher should flash past. A white sphere sun was trying to break through clouds over the bothy as I sat on the grass down by the water and drew... bothy rising above me, trees rising above bothy, dramatic cloud sky rising above trees.

Kittie sketching, west of Loch Treig - www.kittiejones.com

We had various sketch and food and coffee stops, chatting a lot of the day, discussing what we were seeing around us, discussing the world more distant. When only a kilometre or so from home we watched a 24-car goods train power uphill past the station towards the large metal signs that mark Corrour Summit - the highest spot on the West Highland Lines at 1350 feet (411 m). The train slowed then began to trundle downhill for Loch Treig and Tulloch and beyond. It seemed a toy in such a vast remote landscape. Perhaps it was just an optical illusion but the caterpillar of carriages seemed to bend a little as they crossed the summit, sloping down on either side of the marker signs.

11.20 train to Mallaig having just passed Corrour Summit marker signs

goods train passing Corrour Summit below horseshoe mountains

Other than immediately around the hostel we saw only a very limited amount of wildlife throughout the day. Of course there were the ever-present meadow pipits and corvids and a few buzzards but excepting those our main sighting was four red-breasted mergansers on the water at the westerly tip of Loch Treig. We didn't even see any deer on the moors. It felt like deer territory.

The day finished with a late evening treat when we walked from the hostel to look up at the stars. We stayed out a long time as the sky got clearer and clearer: there was Orion's Belt; there was Venus - atmospheric moisture giving her an eerie green halo; one of my confusions was sorted - previously I thought Cygnus was that large 'W' on its side but in fact that's Cassiopeia; satellites regularly scribed their routes across the sky and completely by chance I saw a shooting star through my binoculars. Talking of binoculars... pick an area of the night sky and look up through a pair. It's amazing how many more pinpricks of light suddenly appear. Imagine what it's like to have a telescope and zoom in still further...

sky at night, Loch Ossian hostel

Three days in the Scottish Highlands - Loch Ossian youth hostel

looking down on Loch Ossian youth hostel

Recently I spent three nights in the Scottish Youth Hostel Association's Loch Ossian hostel. It's an eco-hostel with its own wind turbine. It has reed-bed-filtration toilets and no showers. Access is by train to Corrour Station then a one-mile walk to the hostel. You have to bring all the food you need and remove all the rubbish you create. There's no mobile phone signal unless you're on Vodaphone. 

If you think all this sounds too basic, think again. Waking on the shore of a beautiful loch amid vast moorland and mountains is worth any minor discomfort and inconvenience.

Corrour station

A day trip is possible by leaving Glasgow Queen Street at 8:21 am to have seven hours walking from Corrour before catching the 6:25 pm train home. Check ScotRail's website for the latest timetables.

Even better is to stay at the hostel and explore the area in greater depth. At the end of three days there with my friends Kittie (kittiejones.com) and Paul we still had a lot of ground not covered. I'll write about our walks in a few separate postings rather than in one very lengthy piece.

To start, a little about bird life around the hostel:  

 

 

As well as hordes of chaffinches and a few coal tits on the hostel peanut feeders were two siskins - delicate fork-tailed birds of the finch family. One a black-capped male, the other a dappled green-grey female.

Kittie & Paul above Loch Ossian, pencil & watercolour in sketchbook, 14.5x41cm

Canada goose sketch, pen on paper, 14.5x20.5cm

The low echoing honking of Canada geese sounded regularly outside the hostel. Probably they were nesting on the little pined islets. 

Sometimes as a goose swam it would stretch its neck forward and back, forward and back, low on the water. Either a courtship act or a threatening gesture to rival birds.

Canada goose, Loch Ossian

Canada goose sketches, pen on paper, 14.5x20.5cm

Canada goose, Loch Ossian

Meadow pipits accompanied us on our walks always. Moorland is their territory. From rock or heather perches they perform their song flight - they fly swiftly upwards before gliding back to earth in a parachuting motion with tail stiffened upwards and triangle wings.

Another regular sighting was the hooded crow - a close relation of the carrion crow. They're seldom seen in West Lothian where I live so I always love to be in their habitat. Contrasting light grey waistcoat body and black head and wings puts me in mind of mediaeval soldiers wearing tabard and helmet.

Grey herons are amazing to watch, it seems incredible that such a large bird can stay aloft. Here by the hostel they glide silently towards the islets on downcurved wings, rearing up at the last moment to leggily land in the tops of Scots Pines where a clattering racket immediately starts up. When they take flight again they make strangled cries - people hearing this sound in the skies at night used to think witches were passing overhead. 

from Loch Ossian hostel, a heron about to land, pencil & pen &watercolour in sketchbook, 14x20.5cm

An ornithological treasure hunt around a pink watermill...

Last weekend I was in Cumbria for the set-up and opening of my friend Kittie Jones' excellent exhibition of new British Birds prints at The Watermill, Little Salkeld.

The Watermill, Little Salkeld

I decided to make a complete list of all the bird species I saw whilst there – it's fun to do and makes the eyes become keener. Here's what I saw: 

Bullfinch, Buzzard, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Coal Tit, Collared Dove, 

Common Gull, Cormorant, Curlew, Dipper, Dunnock, Feral Pigeon, Fieldfare, Goldcrest, 

Goldfinch, Goosander, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Great Tit, Grey Heron, Grey Wagtail, 

Greylag Goose, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Kestrel, Lapwing, Magpie, Mallard, Mute Swan, 

Nuthatch, Oystercatcher, Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Redshank, Robin, Rook, Sand Martin, 

Shelduck, Shoveler, Song Thrush, Starling, Tawny Owl, Woodpigeon, Wren...

... 47 species in under 24 hours, and in an area of less than 4 square kilometres! It's amazing how many different birds are around when one really starts to look. 

 Dippers often disappear against a backdrop of swirling flowing water.

Dipper near nest area.

Dipper territory, under rail bridge.

Particularly exciting were sand martins swooping low for insects over the River Eden -only returned in the last few weeks from wintering in Africa- and a flock of fieldfares chack-chack-chacking noisily as they flew overhead. Very soon all fieldfares will have left our shores as they head east for the breeding season.

Here in Britain breeding is already well underway - below an old stone bridge of the Settle-Carlisle railway line a pair of dippers are nesting. I watched them bring white grubs every few minutes to feed their young. Nearby a tawny owl has a nest in a hollow in the remaining stump of a storm-felled tree.

Back in my own garden in Linlithgow the blue tits are building and a robin already has three eggs.

Sketching & Song in Rosslyn Chapel, Heriot-Watt Choir

Excelsior Per Cantum, Rosslyn Chapel, 24th March 2012. pencil & pen on paper

Given the title of my blog I need to be careful... this posting doesn't fit under the heading of landscape or nature or birds. So it'll have to be the art part - music and drawing.

Last night the Chamber Choir of Heriot-Watt University, Excelsior Per Cantum, put on a concert in Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh. I'd never been to Rosslyn before so I went early with Jennifer to sit in the amazing ornate surroundings while she and the rest of the choir rehearsed. As they sang I made this sketch. 

Then the audience arrived and I was able to enjoy the performance all over again. The songs were Scottish - ancient and modern and everything in between. All the Heriot-Watt concerts are ultra impressive and setting and singing combined to make sure that last night's was no exception.

A railway walk: Bridge of Orchy to Tyndrum

This 10-11km walk is a perfect introduction to the West Highland Lines. Travelling by ScotRail, get off at Bridge of Orchy Station and walk south to Tyndrum to encounter impressive railway architecture, stunning scenery and lots of opportunities for watching wildlife. You're on the West Highland Way the whole time so getting lost isn't likely to be an issue, but take a map anyway and enjoy learning the names of hills and rivers.

I recommend walking north to south so that you end in Tyndrum where there are several cafes and pubs to wait in until your train comes. The Real Food Cafe sounds particularly nice though I haven't yet been. If you do walk in the other direction you could try the Bridge of Orchy Hotel which also runs a bunkhouse.

Bridge of Orchy, from THE Bridge of Orchy

The West Highland Way runs directly upslope of Bridge of Orchy Station platform but it's worth having a stroll around the hamlet before you set off. Standing on the 1751 bridge over the River Orchy I looked down at a grey wagtail bobbing beside this typically rocky Highland river. Nearby were coal tits, great tits, a blackbird and siskins. Most exciting of all - crossbills - the orange red males and greenish mustard females.

watercolour sketch looking across the valley, 15x21cm

After less than twenty minutes I stopped to make a quick watercolour sketch looking south over the yellow and ochre valley. A gentle stream trickling beside me provided water for my paints. Rising steeply behind me was Beinn Dorain, 1076m high. 

sketching spot near Bridge of Orchy

Highland cow on the slopes of Beinn Dorain

At grid ref 327 358 I found a beautiful spot where I sat on moss among birches by the river Allt Kinglass. A great spotted woodpecker flew into the nearby trees and right beside me a treecreeper climbed. Goldcrests were in the branches above, five or six or more. A dipper chittered its song from a triangle rock a little upstream. A train came into sight, bound from west to east. I watched it negotiate the viaducts of the Horseshoe Curve.

watercolour sketch from river Allt Kinglass, 15x21cm

approaching the horseshoe curve, pencil, ink & watercolour on card, 25x35cm

The Horseshoe Curve - rather than building a prohibitively expensive viaduct engineers created a half-loop that sweeps neatly round the inner slopes of three great hills- Beinns Odhar, a' Chaisteil, and Dorain. Two substantial viaducts are still needed to carry the rails across the wide expanses between. I deviated slightly from the West Highland Way to stand under the more northerly of the two, where the river Allt Kinglass runs. I chatted here with a man from Cumbria who wore a bandana and a red jacket. He'd cycled in the morning from Tyndrum and left his bike here whilst he climbed the 886m of Beinn a' Chaisteil. The OS map shows a spot marked 'Burial Ground' in italics just a couple of kilometres to the north-east.

the horseshoe curve & Beinn Dorain, pencil, ink & watercolour on card, 25x35cm

Now, about 3km from Tyndrum, the path still follows the Old Military Road, as it has done the whole way. I passed a gate with a sign with black lettering on white that read "please close gate". There was no fence on either side, just this rusty old gate. The tinkling of little streams and burns keeps solo walkers company.

Finally, walking above a steep river gorge as I descended into Tyndrum. The smell of wood smoke was in the air as I passed tree stumps carved to form a perching owl, a fox and a squirrel, an eagle catching a fish. A sooty grey cat sat by the red door of a whitewashed slate-roofed cottage.

In Tyndrum you can take your pick of two stations - Upper Tyndrum or Tyndrum Lower. Less than a kilometre apart, trains from Fort William stop at Upper and trains from Oban at Lower. The coaches join together at Crianlarich, one stop down the line.

below one of the horseshoe curve viaducts, Beinn a' Chaisteil above, I chatted with a man from Cumbria...

Painting Scotland by Rail - Sponsored by ScotRail

Since 2008 I've been working on a long-term project to explore Scotland by rail. As part of this my artworks have been exhibited at various railway-related events across the country. The sponsorship of railway operator ScotRail is absolutely invaluable to me in continuing this project.

I hope that my railway travels and the resulting drawings and paintings will encourage others to explore Scotland for themselves. Train is a great way to travel. It gives access to a wealth of wonderful landscapes and there's nothing quite as relaxing as sitting by the window and watching the world trundle past.

 view from a window, on the Glasgow - Stranraer line, pencil on paper, 15x21cm

It's fun to write a list of all the birds seen on a journey and really satisfying to make quick sketches out the window. There's only a second or two before the object or scene has been passed and memory and artistic license have to kick-in. Some of these quick window sketches of mine have been used to create often much larger finished paintings back in the studio.

cottage remains, steep forest clearing south-east of Elgin, pencil on card, 10x11cm

 For those who commute - travelling a route regularly needn't make it boring, in fact quite the opposite. I now know to look for that clifftop herd of bison on the approach to Aberdeen, or those small ponds on the right between Falkirk High and Croy where mallards and tufted ducks swim and you sometimes see a few teal that have flown in to join them. Or south-east of Elgin the remains of a cottage among stumps of felled trees - what family or railway worker once lived there?

 

In these postings I'm going to write about days out I've had along Scottish railway lines. Looking initially at the West Highland Lines from Glasgow to Oban and Mallaig I'll describe walks walked and wildlife watched. I'll mention interesting historic sites and probably wont be able to resist telling you about some of the cafes I visit... I do hope that you too will be inspired to get out on the trains and start to explore Scotland by rail.