A Birdy Day - Highlands

by - 17:14 on 11 June 2008

Would I accompany a chum who was taking part in a British Trust for Ornithology bird survey? Any excuse for a big walk in the hills. Oh yes, he’d been allocated a high-level square or two in the Cairngorms.

There are two aspects of the central Cairngorms. One is when you look south from the high ground and see a rolling plateau, gouged out in places and with snow marking the edges of the steep corries. It’s both grand and a little intimidating. So for some it’s best to look the other way, where you can see snow fences, chairlifts, a funicular railway and a high-level shopping experience at the Ptarmigan Top Station, which boasts of being ‘the highest shop in the land’ and where you can ‘choose a memento of your mountain experience’. Perhaps that’s comforting and reassuring, even though the birds don’t see it that way. All they know is wild winds, weathered granite and the urge to brood their chicks. So, up close to the developments, they hang on for as long as they can. Ring ouzels sing from the ski-tow cables, snow buntings snaffle insects in the lee of the snow fences. Ptarmigan and dotterel hunker down on eggs, hoping that their clutch won’t be seen by hungry gulls and the crows, who 'tidy up' after humans and follow them into these high places in unnatural numbers. 

So we were sitting, eating our sandwiches, when this bird man comes over to us and warns us that a ptarmigan nest lies a little below us. And, he says, there’s a couple of dotterel back that way. Wait a minute, how come he knows where the birds are? We’re the ones supposed to be surveying. Easy – he’s from Springwatch, the BBC’s celebration of birdy goings-on. www.bbc.co.uk/springwatch

After first securing a guarantee from him that Bill Oddie, the presenter, was definitely miles away, we spent a few minutes watching Springwatch watching spring. Funny old job, we reckoned. But had it not been for the kind representative from the tv show, we would have missed a pair of dotterel in the count – though I was sure I’d heard them calling. Anyway, our thanks to the team who discreetly let us know.

So it was just miles of lonely spaces really, in one direction at least. And two dotterel, trying to get on with their lives, in spite of the proximity of a leisure and ski development, a lot of casual visitors, serious walkers, some bird counters and a film crew. Just another day in the central Cairngorms, on the interface between tourism and wilderness.  More at www.visitaviemore.com

Male snow bunting

 

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