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| Winter Corrie - pastel sketch on paper |
Winter Corrie of Driesh is favoured by climbers for snow and ice routes that are more accessible than some isolated cliffs in the Southern Cairngorms. The corrie is gouged from the rounded slopes of the Driesh above and is a dramatic place where waterfalls turn to ice and gullies create a white intaglio on grey rock. It is a place that holds many memories for me because I learned the skills of mountaineering here some forty years ago. Ash handled ice-axes, strap-on crampons and an old, pudding bowl of a motor-bike helmet were the 'de rigeur' back then. On one occasion my brother and I were climbing below the main rock buttress when a whistling sound came from directly above. Thinking that it was a falling rock we both dived for cover, hugging into the rock face. Whoosh, the thing rocketed past our heads and we both turned in dizzied amazement to see the rock had wings, it was a Peregrine Falcon. Today, as I climb up the very alpine looking Scorrie of Driesh by following the north-east ridge, the corrie is bathed in glorious sunshine. Finding a spot overlooking the cliff and out of the biting wind I sit and sketch to let memories flood in with the rays.
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| Sketching today |
The progeny of that 'angel of rock' must have recognised me, for the protracted 'kee-kee' screeching of a Peregrine came from the deep corrie confines and echoed over the violet-blue shadowed snows. Verbal abuse was all that came, for the bird did not fly to entertain. A survival story indeed, because this place is very popular with climbers who might disturb such a bird through all their clamberings and the place is often avalanched by the great cornices that teeter over the corrie lips. Presently the corrie sports a massive blackened scar caused by a rock slide which in turn had been triggered by a falling snow cornice and you can see it in my sketch. Talking of the past, I had the miscalculated idea of using my vintage strap-on crampons today just to try a bedevilled notion that they might be lighter for walking with than the modern step-in variety. Accursed notion true enough, as one threatened to fall off and the other broke at the hinge on the steepest part of the Scorrie snow ascent. I was left with the vertiginous downwards view of half a crampon in lonely isolation six metres below me and the other half dangling under my boot, bravo Dave! A very cautious, one footed down-climb allowed me to pick up the bootless crampon and reattach the hinge to try again. A few wallops with the ice-axe did little to improve the metallurgical structure of the steel crampon frame but made me feel better that some life saving intervention had been effected. The top of the ridge was reached where my sketch is taken from, but the crampons flopped around on my boots for the rest of the slog up to the rounded summit of Driesh and eventually at the end of the day, during the midst of the awkward descent on icy snow plastered to the head-wall of Corrie Fee, they broke again. Fun and games followed thereafter but, by following the bucket sized footsteps left by someone else, managed to get down.
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| Ptarmigan hen (note the feathered feet and sharp claw) |
The Ptarmigan trail led me to one white feather near the top of Little Driesh and further on, an old igloo cavity was found in the snow with droppings lining the bottom where one bird had bivouacked in the recent blizzards. The trail was hot in this cold, Arctic landscape and the distant summit of Mayar would hold the final secret as to the whereabouts of the snow white Ptarmigan. From Driesh to Mayar is about two miles along the watershed col between the neighbouring glens of Clova and Prosen and most of the high moor is covered in thick snow with the occasional island of rocky vegetation melting through the crystals of white. One wee scrape of green tundra gave a returning Golden Plover refuge from the sea of white all around and, before it was seen, it was heard with a thin piping call that flooded the landscape in that familiar sound of the summertime highlands. The outline of fast, curved wings drifts with vagrant destiny towards the Shank of Drumfollow and vanishes like its ghostly call. My thoughts of association dream towards the other Cairngorm visitor due to arrive in May, the Dotterel and some of these summer breeders rest here before travelling on to the higher plateaux.
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| Ptarmigan cock |
Ptarmigan are very elusive creatures in both summer and winter plumage when feathers and background merge perfectly. The wings nevertheless remain white and the tail black, while the body plumage changes into the cock's grey granite and the hen's mottled tan colouration. The corniced snow near the very top of Mayar had nine portholes and the titanic struggle to find the actual occupants of this strange icy tenement was started by scanning with binoculars over the snow and rocks, but nothing. Then a white feather with its secondary down feather attached at the quill point, characteristic of any grouse species, was found and then another on the terraces of vegetation laid bare by the solar thaw and yet more dropping clusters but no birds. I had to search that wee bit more fastidiously and eventually the glint in its stock still eye was all that I caught, but there she was cowering in a crevice betwixt snow and granite, totally motionless. Unblinking she is five metres away and tame to my approach, not even a feather fluttered. As my eye got accustomed to the shape and scale of the bird, the cock bird was espied lying down on the other side of the snow bank, his granite grey summer plumage is just beginning to appear through the winter whites. I note that he can cover his red wattles by frowning a wisp of feathers from the eyebrow over them. Another adaptation they use for visual anonymity is to creep in a slow motion walk avoiding rapid moves and this can be a bit funny to watch when the bird is concentrating on you, while it guesses where to place its feet.
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| Ptarmigan snow holes |
As I wander quietly between the rocks and snow, both cock and hen begin to feed on the scarce vegetation by plucking at the shoots of Mountain Crowberry, Cross-leaved Heath, Bilberry and Three-leaved Rush that form, in effect, tended beds of sustenance for the birds. Their snowy bivouacs are just below the east facing cornice in a steep drift. This would indicate that the birds have allowed the snow to bury them over as it drifted on the westerly wind to settle in the lee of the cornice. Laid out, in a similar fashion to some French nouvelle cuisine, are the vegetarian, pelleted droppings of the Ptarmigan at the bottom of the hole and some have a delightful garnish of downy feather. In reality, their droppings insulate the bird's feathered feet from the ice and with habitual residence collect into a compost heap which might give off some warmth. I love the way that the snow holes are all in a perfectly horizontal orientation.
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| Ptarmigan snow holes |
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| Whiter than white, Ptarmigan and Mountain Hare |
Another Ptarmigan, only the third one seen in this small colony, shadows a Mountain Hare and skulks behind the boulders to keep an eye on me and, curiously enough, the hare. The larger colony in the Broad Cairn area has about twenty birds and because they are territorial I suspect that little inter-mingling between colonies occurs. After donning crampons to inspect the snow holes I venture to the top of Mayar where the chill breeze has veered into a blustery gale force and visually wander over the view towards the mountains of Glas Maol, An Socach, Cairn Toul, Ben Lawers, Lochnagar and Mount Keen. From here the snow stretches for miles like a white, linen tablecloth to Glen Shee and in mock Arctic explorer mode I cannot resist setting off towards Dun Hillocks and to the middle of a snow encrusted nowhere to sketch. Snow is never really white until the sun glares its light in pure reflection from its crystallised surface, so tinting violets, blues, creams and greys create form and carve order into a wash of marble white. Snow can be black with morbid memories too and one is red with the stains of tragedy when I remember climbing over blood in Raeburn's Gully on Lochnagar after two climbers had fallen, and they fell from where I succeeded, but only just with some luck.
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| Driesh and Mayar from Dun Hillocks - pastel sketch on paper |
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| Sketching today in sunny nowhere |
A determined Raven flies into the strong
wind and is truly struggling as he increases his wing stroke rate and
eventually is forced to dive down to skim over the snowfield where the wind
speed is slightly less. Its jet wing tips scrape the icy surface and leave a violet
trailing shadow on the snow. Earlier on, another fast moving shadow on the
Ptarmigan snow slope had me calculating sun zeniths and relative positions. At
first I thought optimistically of eagle but as my head and eye twisted like a
rear gunner into the sky's glare, a Raven was there darting around like a beach
kite in the wind and soon there were three black shapes released onto this
stark white and vivid blue landscape.
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| Raven and Dun Hillocks |
A tiny, dark island of
heath gives a focus on this white sea and, as explorer of icy wastes now, set
my bearing towards it. One mile further on and it is what I expected, an unremarkable,
half frozen, soggy mound of moss strangled Crowberry heath, but I did
discover something. Like me, it had attracted the attention of other beasts by
just being there. A Red Fox faeces scat is plopped on top of a Sphagnum moss
cushion and like a display of crown jewels is there for all to savour and
dribbled over a drape of Cladonia lichen tangled moss are more stinky poops, thin and
black with wispy ends like a Stoat's and a rear foot of hare is torn from an
absent owner with nothing more to give. In effect this bare oasis is acting
as a mountain message centre or, in fashionable parlance, a community hub.
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| Glen Clova |
So the day ends, as it had started, with the low Sun bejewelling the colours of the glen from a void of brilliant ultramarine blue and in its passage to a space cold night the Moon rises in a silent counterpoint. As darkness prevails, the Ptarmigan will scrape into the cosy snow to watch the Red Fox scurry past in frosty haste and then listen to the Stoat in ermine as it rubs its black tipped tail against the crackling ice, but both pursue that cosy 'nest' and does the white Croaker ever sleep in peace under starry skies - the black Corbie surely knows and that is no.
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| The Scorrie of Dreish |
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| Raven, wing tips touching icy snow (detail from a previous photo) |
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| Stoat tracks bounding up a snow slope |
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| Northern Cairngorms of Cairn Toul, Braeriach, Ben Macdui, and Cairngorm. |
Notes;
My new book 'Wildsketch' is available from Blurb Bookshop
All sketches and photos done on the day and are copyright.
Croaker - Gaelic derivation from the Ptarmigan's call.
Corbie - local and traditional Scots for Raven.
Video;
Ptarmigan feeding
Map of the area
David Adam web-site