Wild Snowy Owl Chase at Glas Maol

Snow Cornice on Monega - pastel sketch on paper

From the age of twelve I had a Snowy Owl, an adored big female with glassy, yellow eyes that would stare you down no matter what way the wind blew. After many years spent in a damp, garden shed I had to put her out of her obvious misery. The arsenic tainted body was dumped with a pinch of sorrow into the council bin. Today, as a twisted sort of an apology to the taxidermist, I am on the hunt for another as a living trophy of my fascination for all things that exist in the mountains. Two weeks ago, reports of a transient Snowy Owl on the summit of Glas Maol trickled in and as one was seen on Ben Macdui last year in March the probability that this was the same bird was high. I love a wild goose chase and as this had all the characteristics of being a complete and utter waste of time, the gauntlet of common sense was thrown asunder as I embarked on a Don Quixote styled adventure filled with optimistic delusions that a ghostly white owl would appear from the snow patched mountains of Angus.

Sketching today 

The Monega right of way is a high level path, the highest mounth crossing in the country, connecting the glens of Isla and Shee. Similar to the more famous Jock's Road that threads its way between Clova and Shee, both routes terminate in Braemar. It is notoriously named on a sign near Tulchan shooting lodge as being the 'only official route' in upper Glen Isla, something that has galled access campaigners for many a year. My trusty, two wheeled, black steed is chained to the sign post like a suffragette, declaring that someone is here stamping around on their hallowed ground which has seen some raptor persecution incidents in the past, including one poisoned and one shot Golden Eagle. That authoritarian command of the Monega sign is one that I have always refused to comply with over the years, until now and what have I missed.....one of the most splendid mountain experiences in Angus. The shapely Monega Hill ridge, at just under Munro status, towers over the glens of Canness and Caenlochan to provide a magnificent, airy and exposed vista leading up to the snow necklaced Glas Maol, the highest point in Angus at 1068 metres, or 3504 feet in 'old money'. 

Creag Leacach - pastel sketch on paper

The Monega crosses some ground that is very exposed to the weather and it was used by drovers to bring sheep and cattle from the highlands to the lowland markets many years ago. It is also reputed to have been used by whisky smugglers but that era has been washed away by the tears of the moor. Nowadays it is used by shooting vehicles to transport deer stalking guests to the plateau but an insight into its history can be sensed by stopping at the half-way shelter on Little Glas Maol. Four walls of dry stone construction, now tumbled, would have kept the worst weather at bay and no doubt many a traveller would have laid their plaid down as a bed and been grateful for the howf's elemental hospitality and I am sure that any whisky smuggler would have kept quite cosy overnight with a wee nip or two from the liquor cask.

Sketching today on Glas Maol

Returning to my quest, instead of Quixotian wind turbines on the horizon in my sights, I peered at anything that looked like a white owl on the landscape including zillions of quartz boulders and the remaining lumps of snow that lingered throughout the day in the warm sunshine. Unfortunately, no white head with burning yellow eyes turned all the way round, as owls do, or dazzling white wings tilted in my delusional favour. No, without doubt the bird had long since flown. Lanced through with unwise disappointment, I combed over the top of the rounded mountain for pellets or feathers or liming marks and found nothing owl like, except one mysterious, white lime streak down the trig point. Truthfully that could have been from any raptor, but in 'Don's' eyes it was indeed Snowy Owl poo because of its pure white colour and the unique taste of Cairngorm vole that suffused through the 'toothpaste' on my finger, mmm. The day had not been wasted after all, I had indeed found Snowy Owl genetic material, resulting in yet another coup for my amazing, 'tongue in cheek', field work skills.

Half-way shelter on Little Glas Maol

Don Quixote says, Snowy Owl poo!

'Seek and ye shall find' is a very appropriate saying and one of my most uttered biblical adages and goes alongside, 'Ask and it shall be given you' and 'Knock and it shall be opened unto you'. Well this afternoon the Golden Eagle found me on Monega, just as the thought of giving up on looking out for the bird loomed large in my mind. I am a very reluctant descender from high places and prefer to hang around in the mountains until the light is fading just in case something shows up. The ridge is a perfect profile to provide an updraught for a soaring eagle and my bird came in for a closer look, then with nosiness satisfied it spread long primaries to loft higher and higher until, in a tremendously long stoop, launched its anchor shape beyond the next ridge in seconds. Another episode of backward glancing and reluctance to descend came up trumps, for it came back and then headed for the glen where I had witnessed an event involving a couple of fighter jets earlier. 

Fighter pulling g's, an American  F15 on NATO exercise

The nation creates national parks to protect its creatures surely, then it gives a 'carte blanche' for military jets to carry out low flying exercises within that park where protected eagles fly, nonsensical surely.  One fighter climbs at the head of the glen in time but the other leaves it too late, going too deep into the glen near the cliffs. He has to climb desperately to avoid the steep sides by pulling g's on full throttle with afterburners blasting, the noise was deafening and from my point of view above the fighter, it was a very close shave. Evidently low flying exercises can create a collision risk with large raptors or disturb nesting locations in this Cairngorm national park area and in my opinion should be banned, simply go elsewhere.

Nosey Goldie

Golden Plover pair, male left

I love to end up in a new part of Angus and one that is a fresh discovery to me, after all Scotland can still open up many surprises from its precious landscape. Here on the high plateau, the moor is termed as tundra heath because of its deporporate growth. The exposure to wind encourages the vegetation to hug the ground and the short, pointed leaves of Stiff Sedge form crisp blankets between the eroded boulders creating the perfect habitat for a high mountain specialist bird that arrives here in mid May, the Dotterel.
Adenda; six Dotterel reported here by another observer four days later! 
A pair of Golden Plover have already claimed territory on the lower grassy slopes and at my approach they run, then stop to look, then fly to return back again, only to repeat the whole episode to the accompaniment of their sad, piping calls that help to confuse where they actually are on the moor by throwing their voices. Changes in pitch and delivery direction of the calls are controlled by a pair of birds to seemingly confuse a predator; the male calls in one pitch and the female some distance away replies in another pitch, bamboozles me at least.  

Updraught soaring Golden Eagle

Like modern sculpture installations decorating the domed top of Glas Maol are the intrusive remains of many terrestrial ecology studies, which roughly means that a researching scientist or its minion will hammer wooden stakes into the delicate mountain surface in order to count specimens within a given square metre or they isolate a section of vegetation from grazing animals by bending some plastic water pipes to form a dome then cover it in black netting. The obvious conclusion of this invasive trash left on the mountain is to find out that vegetation grows more when protected; wow, worth a Ph.D in anybody's money.

Cairngorm tundra sculpture

After waiting on more action from the glowing blue tin of all things good, nothing came except that godly feeling of enough, and at the end of the day's ten mile walk I leap, nay creak onto my now unchained suffragette of a steed (nick-named 'Rockyanterior' at the request of my aching backside thus replacing Don's horse named 'Rocinante') to pedal off in pursuit of yet more windmills of deceit; the world it seems is full of them. 

Golden Eagle, how streamlined

Ptarmigan pair on Glas Maol summit

Blackcock in Larch 

The Ranting Soap-box;

I suppose most folk would term me as a bird watcher, someone who runs around the countryside ticking off various bird species especially rare ones or ogles at raptors like eagles, fair enough but I would prefer someone who gains an insight into nature from observing or sharing in that bird life. Anyway, I suppose being out and about in and with nature sums it all up, but my love for some birds has been tested in the biblical sense recently. 

The lessons of life can come in various guises at times and this week I learned that I too can hate some birds. The fisherman hates the sawbill, the shepherd hates the eagle and the game-keeper hates the hoodie craw but in my case I 'hate' the Herring Gull that ate my Goldfish. For a year now I have been mothering five fish in my garden pond. Over the winter, when they were at their slowest and lowest, four of them developed a disease called fin-rot, three died leaving me with the two largest fish, the first ones introduced to the pond. One of them had a touch of fin-rot but seemed to be improving with the warmer weather and my favourite one was unaffected until the other morning when it was eaten. As I drew the curtains back in the morning, a flurry of white feathers and splashing in the pond confronted me but it was too late for the fish. The gull's partner in crime and witness waited on the house roof frowning cheekily until my anger shooed it away. One fish remains. My wife shouts, 'Shoot them' and my son replied, 'Mum, we don't have a gun' and I said, 'The buggers, would you believe it'. 

It all goes to show that until something directly affects yourself or your family or livelihood you will not understand other peoples attitudes that previously might have seemed outlandish and bigoted before that 'lesson' is delivered upon you.  

Notes;

All sketches and photos are done on the day and are artist 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.

nip - measure of whisky

pulling g's - gravitational force multiplied

howf - rough shelter

David Adam web-site

Map of the area