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| Misty Glen - pastel sketch on paper |
My efforts today were encouraged by the forecast of a temperature inversion over the hills where a layer of misty cloud sits below clear skies on the higher tops. It was not to be and my chosen high top was just not high enough, even although there was a brightening of the mist above that tantalisingly reminded me of how close the inversion level had come. So instead of skimming over the clouds, I was swimming through them with every inhaled gulp saturated with condensing droplets of high humidity mist. Eyebrows dripped with water as manic blinking tried to clear away the cataract of grey glooming in front of me. Every sound was heightened with the calm mist and that sense eventually became my guide when I inevitably got lost.
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| Sketching today |
The ghostly beat of a Teuchat's wing left waves of sound through the greyness and as the black feathered tips thrust their deviating course over the moor that wheezing, air swept flap lazily vanished, then was completely absorbed in the mists. The harsh 'curring' call from the Whaup reached a crescendo until the instrumental body fell to earth to skulk and peer over the heather steam. Somewhere in the distant out-there, a Blackcock bubbled and warbled at a lek but the sound was placeless with no direction. The thin 'tzee' call from a triangle of Meadow Pipits cut through the mists as they danced for space in the grasses beneath the heather. Even the Red Grouse flew short, up and down in seconds, landing in a guttural flurry of churring 'cabeks' so they wouldn't lose the place in this volume of opaque haar. A big, unseen Corbie mixes the moorland tune with a penetrating bass 'pruk-prowk' as it flies behind me in a spin of black deceit. The air is full of sound and fury but artistic vision is frustrated to an arm's length away and I am a conductor without a baton on these high moors.
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| Whaup in the mist |
The rank flavour of burnt peat singed the misty air and the post-apocalyptic heather burn had blackly scalded much of the hill top to reveal its essential elements of peat and rock. In the midst of the recent cinder blackness a smashed clutch of Red Grouse egg-shell lies abandoned. Dating from last year one would presume, but the sac membrane is still evident. Grouse are nesting earlier due to climate warming effect but this is just too early for this season's nesting times....or is it, because I found a similar scene in Glen Ogil last week and just have my doubts that thin egg-shell would last a whole year up on the moors. After all, up here, every antler and bone is consumed as a mineral source by a variety of creatures over time as part of the natural recycling process.
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| Red Grouse egg shell |
When you know an area fairly well the chance of getting lost is low because there are so many habituated visual landmarks to reference against. Take these references away and the possibility of getting lost multiply into scary inevitability and, hey-ho, that is what happened. The deer path leading away from the estate track usually takes me down to the head of the glen near a steep crag but somehow that path ended in a fog engulfed quagmire and scenes from 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' rushed into my disorientation. The wee phrase of, 'That's new' was constantly added to my dictionary of unfamiliar topography. I wandered in a dither back and forth over the hill-side looking for some familiar features but nothing felt right. A heather-clad hummock became the back of a stag that moved as it grazed and the camera was rushed into disillusioned focus. My invented path took me into new territory and in my foggy blindness discovered the terraced course of a burn and a well used deer path, 'That's new' and so it continued and like a babe's first blinks at the world, every shrouded feature was a revelation.
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| Heather burnt moor |
Fortunately, a dot of rationale was never far away and the familiar sound of a waterfall, that could only be in one place, percolated through my lost brain cells and a smug sense of being in control, all the time really, was issued by the brain team - delusional bunch and never to be trusted. Foot by foot, 'That's new', became 'I know that boulder', until the panic waned and I realised that I had gone too far along the estate track and overshot the usual deer path. The next day's headline of, 'A fifty-seven year old man was rescued from his stupidity last night in Glen Esk and despite having a map and compass failed to use them in atrocious conditions', became, 'Let's go home, I've had enough'.
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| Fox Moth caterpillar with parasitic maggot |
This tiny yellow maggot had had enough too and was escaping from inside a Fox Moth caterpillar's body and, by the way, the caterpillar was acting as if it may have a few more wriggling maggots inside it devouring its innards. This maggot is typical of Apanteles glomeratus, a parasitic Ichneumon Wasp that lays its eggs within the caterpillar by inserting a long ovipositor into the body. As the caterpillar hibernates these maggots consume the innards yet leave vital organs intact so that the caterpillar is still alive and fresh to eat. The wasp maggots cluster around the dead caterpillar husk and eventually create a silky structure of chrysalis cocoons before hatching as adult wasps. No need to say 'yuck'.
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| Misty Red Deer |
Nearly always, there are some Woodcock in the glen and my ambition today was to photograph them, fat chance. These superbly camouflaged birds rise from your feet silently and usually fly directly away from you, with a rear view showing curved wings only. I missed a great chance when I put up a pair and one came back on itself to join the other but instead of using the camera which I had left switched on, I turned it off again through dozened fumbling. Another chance came when one of the flushed birds returned to land on a hillock nearby and by carefully creeping towards this rounded temple of Woodcock temptation - I found nothing and nothing had flown in escape, they are indeed the brown ghosts of the glen.
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| Woodcock 12/4/14 |
I did finally get a distant photo of blurred excellence which I will not deem to bore you with, but as a bonus, a dead Common Snipe was found. The bird had been predated and lay on the deer path, maybe a Stoat had nabbed it as the neck was well chewed and the breast meat consumed with one wing torn off. The bill is amazingly structured with fine reinforced buttresses running from the head and on the lower mandible tip, fine indentations knurl the surface. These indentations are nerve sensory structures that allow the bird to feel what the bill is in contact with when it is probing mud for food.
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| Common Snipe bill |
Earlier on, I had found a freshly killed Red Grouse with its head and wings ripped off, a pile of neatly excised intestines and a trail of feathers that led me back to a strike patch where a plucking of feathers had pillow fought with the heather. Now my bets would be on a Golden Eagle striking a showy bird on the ground, then processing the kill before flying off with the ready meal, but there are other predators in the area that might mete out the same result and I am always amazed at how effectively this dissection is carried out without rupturing the prey's gut.
And from the towering crags above laced through with clinging mists, the yelping Earns cower o'er a nest of boney kows, those bugle calls from distant past now lost in rock embowered falls. Rising before me two eggs to be, of oval white I see, an illusion hatched by the Adder's silvered gloom, yet no, my fancy will not reveal at all, that which you desire to be. That which you desire to be will come in time, but in its own hour, and then on wings of gold shall soar to haloed heights, and never seen again. So spoke the Kelpie from the burbling gush below, with a hundred hurried revelations rushing, listening. Listening to whispers upon whispers pouring voice over voice, trapped and lost to the mists of time.
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| Predated Red Grouse |
Well, starting a walk in the afternoon is part of the added luxury hour that has come forward and means that wandering can run into the gloaming hours, the best part of the day in Scotland. This late start was met with a drab curtain of hill fog skirting the foot of the hills and ended the same way, but there was a glowing equine star to brighten the dreichness. Fergus, the stalker's garron, had been competing in horse trials near Aberdeen and had been shampooed into a bright white for the event. He strode from the trailer and trotted with determination up the hill-side, chin held to his neck and mane flowing he was transformed into a white charger but not for long, he headed straight for the mist swirled mire and rolled in it - best claes aff an' auld eens on, braw.
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| Red Kites near Edzell |
I recently attended the Angus Council meeting about the massive Nathro Hill wind-farm application, where 17 turbines each 135 metres high would stretch across the Angus hills near Glen Lethnot. This area is regularly used by eagles and other raptors such as the Red Kites in the area, for foraging and is close to the Special Protected Area for Golden Eagles. I wrote a representation (listed under links) about the landscape visual amenity and, more importantly, the devastating effect these turbine blades could have on raptors. This representation was submitted to the Scottish Government and to Angus Council and I am glad that in the latter's case they mentioned this subject in their consultative report; the council as a consultee objected to the wind-farm. To my surprise, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds ultimately had no objections to the wind-farm, even although the company behind the project predicted rotor strike deaths to these Golden Eagles during the life of the wind-farm. Hey, but that's OK it's renewable energy.
Speaking of Red Kites, which were re-introduced to Scotland, twelve of these birds and four Common Buzzards have been mass poisoned at one location in the highlands during the past week. They are beautiful to watch, do little harm to game birds and feed mainly on insects, worms, small rodents and carrion scraps. Again, in my opinion these recent raptor poisonings are related to sheep farming to control predators, including raptors such as Raven and White-tailed Eagle, before the lambing season. One hill shepherd that we spoke to recently cited the Raven as a big problem, attacking the weaker new born lambs by pecking out their eyes and tongues seemingly.
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| Red Kite |
The Ranting Soap-box;
In my opinion, petty people with divisive obsessions are the bane of existence, having suffered a few examples of this in the recent past. Their obsession with divisiveness becomes overpowering in their quest to justify their feelings or to achieve or protect their aims. It can be one person against another or it can be a group of people against another and usually in these petty cases there is always 'another' who sings to a different tune and is declared renegade.
A divisive obsession is not the same as someone trying to reveal the truth by argument or give a contradictory opinion, it is an act that jealously destroys, is unconciliatory, frequently slanderous or libellous and never aims to resolve by listening to facts. Petty people often seek to involve neutral parties in their quest to achieve their divisive obsession against another.
Personally, I have never been fond of joining clubs, they all seem to share a mind where mine will not go, therefore I do not readily expose myself to their nonsense. Once an outsider, always an outsider and because of that character pedestal, one is subject to all sorts of criticism. For me, direct criticism is good, it is who I am as an artist and I have to self-criticise or fade away into artistic hypocrisy. I seek criticism that moulds, creates, enlightens but when that criticism is fashioned erroneously and falsely against me, my hackles justifiably rise and they rise even more when that criticism is used to defile a bond with something that I preciously treasure and care for passionately. Not a good thing to suffer especially when it is done behind one's back without a word in defence being uttered. If that pedestal was unreachable then one could understand the scratchings at its base, but it is not out of reach at all.
End of Rant.
Notes;
All sketches and photos done on the day and are copyright.
Please be aware that it is illegal to disturb nesting eagles or other raptors and you may do so inadvertently in your journeys into the highlands. I do not recommend searching for any of the species mentioned in this blog because this may cause undue disturbance to them. With my knowledge of the areas described in this blog I can locate and observe protected species at a respectful distance usually from about 1000 metres for short periods of time only.
Whaup - Scots for Curlew.
Teuchat - Scots for Lapwing.
Corbie - Scots for Raven.
Earn or Erne - Scots for eagle but more specifically an old name for the White-tailed Eagle.
kows, coos - heather stalks.
Kelpie - Celtic myth creature that lived in water. Roseina would say when we were young and playing near the river, 'Watch out, or the Water Kelpie will get you'. That reverence is still there!
haar - har, mist especially thick sea mist.
heather burn - heather is burnt to encourage new growth for grouse feeding.
dozened - thick minded, pronounced locally as doze-int.
David Adam web-site