New Year 2013/14 Inversnaid. Rain, rain, walking, rain, sketching, rain.

HaPpY nEw YeAr!!!

Loch Lomond dusk, pencil & watercolour

Every New Year a big group of us go away. Friends and friends of friends. (See our NY 2012/13, Kingussie, here) For the 2013/14 switchover we were in Inversnaid Bunkhouse, a mile east of the east shore of Loch Lomond. Some of the land here is owned as the RSPB's Inversnaid Reserve - see www.rspb.org.uk.

These New Years are never full sketching trips for me but I usually manage to get a good amount done, often going out alone before others are up, or making quick drawings on group walks then adding watercolour in the evenings. Almost always we've had some snow but this time it was wet. Every day. For a lot of every day. It didn't stop us but it did make us all a bit less keen, and my paintings a bit more soggy.

Inversnaid Bunkhouse

Day 1
Sunday 29th December 2013

Afternoon walk in the hour before dusk. The Arklet Water in absolute tumult. The falls by Inversnaid Hotel a torrent of white. A rope swing dangled over the tallest fastest fall, suicide for sure.

There were tits and chaffinches and two roe deer which spooked away from me then stood to watch from a respectable distance. A collection of ruins, more moss and winter bracken than stone, marked where families once made their lives. A board told that they were deserted in the late 1700's. It also showed a short section of 'hollow way', but try as I might I couldn't find it. If you read Robert Macfarlane's Holloway, as I recently have, you too will be eager to experience them.

rope swing is at top left of this section of the falls

spot the roe deer. (hint - white bottom)

old bottle found in the leaf litter - "PROPERTY OF CANTRELL & COCHRANE LTD. NOT TO BE REFILLED"

Day 2
Monday 30th December 2013

With Jennifer and Andy, a mile north along Loch Lomond shore to Rob Roy's Cave. One of his caves. The biggest spiders I've ever seen in the UK are there in the dark. Their egg cases beautiful silken teardrops that hang by thread from the walls. The largest egg cases are nearly three centimetres tall. The empty cases become shriveled husks.

We walked another mile to a point where the woods briefly cleared and a ruined homestead was by the shore. Old oaks grew from the stones.

A dipper flew from stone to stone along the water edge, always a step ahead of us, always moving on at our approach. Siskins were flocking through the trees, probably a hundred or more, mixing with all the common tits - blue, great, coal and long-tailed. A treecreeper was with them.

Feral goats browse the woods around Inversnaid, and have done for a hundred years or more. They have black-brown coats and long and curving (not fully curling) dark horns. You sometimes smell them before you see them, not an unpleasant aroma, remarkably like goats' cheese, which I suppose makes sense. Recently a decision has been taken to reduce their numbers due to finding that the condition of the site (a SSSI) was deteriorating and rare flora were at risk. So far the population control has been in the form of culling but discussions are underway aimed at relocation instead.

around Rob Roy's Cave

near Rob Roy's Cave, trees and bracken full of siskins

Loch Lomond

spot the spider

silken spider cases in Rob Roy's Cave

spider egg case

spirit of the forest

possibly Peltigera polydactyla... ? Confirmation welcome.

 a Cladonia species, maybe C. coniocraea... ?  Confirmation welcome.

smell the goat

Day 3
Tuesday 31st December 2013

A gentle walk with Jennifer and Sam. The length of Loch Arklet on track then returning by road as dusk was falling. Me stopping to sketch then running/fast-walking to catch up.

At the far side of the loch were six swans a-swimming, joined soon by a seventh to complete the carol. They were yellow-beaked Whooper swans and we could hear their gentle trumpeting when we stood still still and silent. On our way back their numbers had swelled to fourteen, singing the song twice.

The 'aqueduct intake' at Loch Arklet's east end is a fascinating structure. A steep-sided reduced-size colosseum, filled with water. I did a sketch and added watercolour later. Near to the intake a stonechat pair perched on fenceposts, the male smart with his mahogany brown head, white collar, rufous breast. The female overall browner, but still beautiful to see. Delicate little birds.

lunch and sketch spot, over Loch Arklet

Loch Arklet watercolour

(Whooper) swans a-swimming, Loch Arklet

watercolour

the fortress

the fortress

miniature colosseum? / prow of a ship?

pencil & watercolour

Day 4
Wednesday 1st January 2014
People who aren't obsessed with bi... I mean aren't overly interested and involved with birds, won't know that some of us keep a list of the number of species we see each year. A 'year list'. I suppose it's a bit like collecting. It's interesting to compare year-to-year results and fun try to beat last year's record.

It's nice also to take note of the first bird seen on New Year's Day. My first for 2014 was bullfinch - a pair, one male, one female, feeding on seedheads outside the bunkhouse. Second was a robin. Both the bullfinches and a robin were been there each of our four Inversnaid mornings.

After breakfast (bran flakes and sunflower seeds) I took my provisions and walked a short distance into the hills along the RSPB Garrison track then doubled back to spend the remaining daylight hours walking the perimeter of Loch Arklet. Total distance to circumnavigate is about 9km. The road to Inversnaid runs beside the north shore of the loch, and a good new path runs beside that. The remaining two-thirds of the loch is unpathed, a combination of shingle, peat, bog, moor, a little slope-scrambling and a little stream crossing. You come to mini sandy beaches that seem like they should be joined to a Hebridean sea. The wind was blowing at me my whole way along the southern shore and the rain was blowing at me for half. Birdlife was fairly sparse, probably partly the weather.

These are all the birds I saw, mostly around the wooded bunkhouse area and on the RSPB reserve:

Bullfinch
Robin
Great tit
Wren
Crow
Hooded crow
Buzzard
Coal tit
Blue tit
Chaffinch
Goldfinch
Redwing
Blackbird
Siskin
Redpoll
Cormorant x 1
Dunnock
Heron x 1
Canada goose x 2
Goldeneye x 1
Snipe x 1

21 species

Mr bullfinch

spot the hooded crow

holes on RSPB reserve, dug to aid tree-planting?

fur by fence - predated animal or snagged on fence as creature crossed over?

this is cracking peat

Loch Arklet

deer print in peat, Loch Arklet

Hebridean beach?

pencil sketch, rain not allowing me to add watercolour

Day 5
Thursday 2nd January 2014

On the final morning I went for an hour out into the rain. I found the Clach Buidhe hollow way from day one - only a very shallow, one-sided pathway. I sat with my watercolours and tried to capture the view to Bens Vorlich and Vane across Loch Lomond. The rain was trying too, trying to remove pigment from paper. The rain won.

rain painting

rain painting, Loch Lomond

2013 - December BTO waterbird count, Linlithgow - Philpstoun

My monthly BTO WeBS count along the Union Canal, Linlithgow to Philpstoun.

Tuesday 17th December 2013 

Start time 9am

End time 11.50am

approaching Philpstoun, the lovely Shirvalee at berth

Weather fine after heavy rain on preceding days. The flood field does now have a small pool in it but nothing like in previous winters, pre-draining.

The count:

- waterbirds were pretty scarce but lack of quantity was made up for in quality - nine beautiful crisp goosanders and a kingfisher kingfisher kingfisher! There on the canal behind my house and studio when I set out at 9am, there again or still when I returned around noon. Sometimes difficult to spot, rust-red chest blending into dead winter undergrowth when it perched. Then when it flew its metallic blue back flashed like a jewel.

spot the kingfisher.

Actually, that's a crisp packet. It was almost immediately after I'd taken this photo that I spotted the real kingfisher. 

- Fieldfares and redwings all around, as last month. Larger flocks now, at least 100 fieldfares and 50 redwings, taking full advantage of the red berries of canalside hawthorn hedgerows. 

N.B. If you haven't tried hawthorn berries you should. They have a nice nutty creamy texture and taste. Take care not to crunch on the big stone in the middle. Don't eat them all though, the thrushes need some.

fieldfare and black ash buds

hawthorn heaven for fieldfares (and maybe you too)

fieldfares and Forth Bridge (rail)

All water birds eligible for count:

moorhen - 2

goosander - 9

kingfisher - 1

black headed gulls present, not very many

Nothing on the flood field

All birds seen:

Black-headed Gull
Blackbird
Blue Tit
Buzzard
Carrion Crow
Chaffinch
Dunnock
Fieldfare
Goldcrest
Goldfinch
Goosander
Great Tit
Greenfinch
House Sparrow
Jackdaw
Kingfisher
Magpie
Moorhen
Redwing
Robin
Rook
Wren
Yellowhammer
Unidentified geese flying over

24 - species

In the woods, heavy flow:

  

A Very Happy Sprouty Christmas To You All

Scotland by Rail - Dunkeld & Birnam. kingfisher, follies, salmon, an Oak

Thursday 12th December 2013
Departed Linlithgow 9.25am, Stirling 10.37am.
Arrived Dunkeld & Birnam 11.33am.

Stirling station

A glowering black blue bruised sky was pressing the landscape low as I waited at Stirling station. The Wallace Monument was dark when my train pulled out. The Allan Water, a favourite walk for me, my mum and my brother Roan, from Bridge of Allan to Dunblane, was in pounding high torrent.

Beyond Dunblane, briefly north then a steady north-east until Gleneagles, the Allan Water is still alongside. Here it meanders, carves deep curves through a wide and gentle U-shaped valley. As we proceeded the sky gradually lightened from "is it dusk already.." to a more usual heavy overcast. I watched the river and surrounding land. Two crows flew up. Two lapwings joined them, spooked by the train I think. A buzzard slid from a railside fence post. Twenty five or more pink footed geese on a green grass field, a bit later another group of similar number lighted on fresh ploughed dark clods. A bridge takes the train over that miniature hidden valley - blink and you miss it. I always think to make an expedition to find and explore it.

Dunkeld & Birnam station

Birnam

The two platforms at Dunkeld & Birnam station are low, really low. There are a couple of two-step mounting blocks on each but jumping down is rather fun. When you come out of the station - don't panic. That's the A9. It's full and fast but we rail users have an underpass - turn left and a sloping path leads down and under. There's a little burn and on it was a dipper. It stopped its splashy foraging, looked, thought, decided, and flew. Whirring away from me upstream, flying only a couple of inches above the water.

Beatrix Potter loved Birnam. She holidayed here with her family in the second half of the 1800's and wrote her original Peter Rabbit letters whilst staying in a rented home on the Dunkeld side of the water. Birnam village green is a little wooded park. Sculpted creatures forage among the bushes. These are for you Jennifer:

bunnies

fox

I got a cakeaway from the cafe in the Birnam Arts & Conference Centre - cherry scone and a latte. I browsed the shop and exhibition and didn't, this time, go around the Beatrix Potter museum. The coffee was in the nicest 'to-go' cup I've ever seen. Here it is, with another nice thing, The Birnam Oak, in the background. The Birnam Oak is ancient, a relic of the medieval Birnam Wood that once grew all around these hills and valleys and played such a part in Shakespeare's Macbeth. A red squirrel scampered down its trunk as I left.

The Birnam Oak

Wildlife

I didn't see as much wildlife as I had expected. Partly due to the weather -overcast and often drizzling- and partly, probably, because I was always in woodland. Woodland is great habitat but it's difficult for the watcher to spot things in. There's so much cover! I saw tits, chaffinches, woodpigeons, corvids. I heard bullfinches softly calling and heard then saw a V of geese overhead. I still can't identify geese by call. Don't know if they were saying 'pink-pink' or 'wink-wink'... They flew over, northbound, until out of sight. They must have turned because almost immediately they were back above me, heading south.

There was also a kingfisher. What a bird! I saw its blue flash. Mostly that's all you see but this time I was lucky. It perched a few tens of metres away on a low-hanging branch then flew, across the river but not much farther off. It perched again, now on a sticky-up black stump. I got this photo through binoculars and cameraphone before it whizzed downstream.

spot the kingfisher

A big salmon was in the water, the best view I've ever had. I don't know about fish but I know it was a salmon. It was probably about two feet long and covered in lots of crusty white marks, like scabby growths. It also looked like its jaw had a portion missing. The National Park & Preserve Alaska (!) say this is a fungus - "Fish protect themselves from infections with a thick layer of slime that covers their scales. When that slime layer is removed, the salmon becomes vulnerable to fungal infections. Typically the slime layer is removed by improper handling from an angler, from commercial fishing nets, and/or other the physical hazards of migration."

spotted salmon

spotted salmon

I saw another salmon, dead, lying by the path. In fact just half a salmon. A second was down on an islet, flesh partially pecked away.

half a salmon

half a salmon

My inspiration for today - Cameron McNeish

The inspiration for this particular railway day was a mention by Cameron McNeish in The Herald Magazine. He writes a great little half page column ever Saturday, map and walk description, somewhere in Scotland. On 7th December it was a walk near Dunkeld and decided to follow it. The problem is that Cameron doesn't work sketching time and stopping-to-look-at-every-bird-tree-fungi-and-stone time into his schedule, so his 5 mile in 3-4 hours walk would probably take me double! I didn't manage his circle, skirting back through the trees of Craigvinean Forest and past the folly and waterfalls of The Hermitage (though I did see follies). My walk was from Birnam upstream on the south-becoming-west shores of the River Tay for about 4km then back by the same route.

The art

I stopped twice to paint. First only a mile or so into my walk, just west of the views across to Dunkeld Cathedral. I was attracted by the black eyes and mouth of a folly on the opposite shore - screw my eyes half shut, in the way of artists everywhere, and I could see these as the darkest areas of the scene. Firs and deciduous trees towered above and their reflections towered below. I sat here and worked on two pieces. The first, an A5 pencil underdrawing then watercolour on top, was rained off and is still to be finished. The second is closer to finished. Watercolour only, no underdrawing. Started, and nearly completed in the rain.

The sound of shooting was echoing through the hills most of the time I was sat painting. I find it difficult to understand that anyone can take pleasure in shooting animals. Towards two o'clock it stopped. Perhaps time for their sandwiches. Pheasant and hare anyone?

the things we used to build, such folly

Later I found two perfect glass bottles peeking out gem-like from a pathside bank. An old dumping ground. Here they are cleaned up. My favourite is the one on the left. I'd like to know what they may have contained..?

The second painting was an hour before the train. Dusk was firmly upon me when I saw a reflected scene of Dunkeld Bridge - all blues except four yellow bridge lamps and their corresponding water columns of sulphur. I had half an hour leeway so I sat down again to paint. Coloured pencils and watercolour.

Dunkeld Bridge

Dunkeld and Birnam are lovely places to visit. There are walks in all directions, river and hill and woodland. Dunkeld & Birnam railway station serves both villages. I didn't cross the bridge to Dunkeld this time. That will follow in a future post.

who needs New Zealand, Roan du Feu?

the things we used to build, such folly (2)

beardy lichen

riverside ruins

How to get there by train

Dunkeld & Birnam is one and a half hours by train from Edinburgh, an hour and twenty minutes from Glasgow and an hour and fifty minutes from Inverness. Regular trains throughout the day. Timetables on ScotRail website here.

creatures discuss

Pitmedden walk - to Udny Green. Castle, buzzard, sleeping man

The first day of December, 2013


Staying with our Pitmedden friends, between a fancy dress horse show with my cousin's daughter and the village Christmas lights switch-on with our hosts and their children, I managed a morning to myself, walking, birding, painting.


I did the Pitmedden - Udny Green circle. Starting through the woods of Pitmedden Gardens; onto tall old beech avenue (lots of these round here, feeling ancient); the road towards Udny Green past Udny Castle (stopped and sketched it in watercolour and pencil - the main plan for my walk); round the green of Udny Green, past Studio on the Green and Eat on the Green; along country road and across field to the little hedgerow tunnel track that leads back to Pitmedden Gardens woods. Stopped just before the House to do a watercolour of pool, reflections, lime kilns and fallen leaves.


On the road to Udny Green a buzzard flew down, far off, landed on the verge and started to peck a roadkilled rabbit.




A roe deer bounded away from me across a newly ploughed field, bright white rump completely obvious against dark brown soil.

A bit later a second buzzard, or the same one, flew directly towards the narrow stand of trees that I was beside. It didn't spot me until the very last minute and I watched it get closer and closer until yellow razor beak and piercing eyes filled my binoculars.

A fieldfare chacked in a beech, the only one I saw or heard all morning.
Skeins of geese, or individuals, flew overhead several times, as they do all the time in the north-east in winter.



By the path near the kilns a man was dozing with his alsatian. It wasn't dozing. Luckily it was friendly, but I didn't know that as it barked and bounded towards me. Owner and I walked along towards the kilns together, talking of local castles.

Then lunch, then carols, then Santa giving out free chocolate. Fireworks to finish.