Bog Myrtle & Peat

Having  met the grouse keeper at the Thrumster Estate near Wick, I felt as though I could happily return to Galloway with a head full of new advice and encouragement. I was given hints on everything from drainage to grit, and even had a diagram drawn for me illustrating how best to catch the stoat who is working the wall by the new wood.

It was a terrific holiday in Caithness, but I couldn’t resist looking forward to the return journey when I planned to stop in and visit another member of the grouse family, high up in the Cairngorms. Amazingly, snow is still lying thick enough on the slopes of Cairn Gorm for people to be out skiing, and when I drove up to the pistes for a look on the way north, I was amazed to watch a pair of white winged ptarmigan fluttering low over the hillside above the carpark.

Ptarmigan have to be some of the most fantastic birds in the country, and I was delighted to shoot one on the rocky summit of Beinn Spionnaidh near Cape Wrath last autumn. The delicate grey shapes flew like lightning into the fog and my jaw hit the floor. Taking the opportunity for a quick walk into ptarmigan country on the road south yesterday, I headed up the hills towards the mighty summit of Cairn Gorm with my camera ready.

Many Scots believe that the Cairngorms have been fairly well spoiled by huge numbers of tourists, but if you choose your moment and walk wisely, you still get that fantastic impression of isolation and solitude found only in the most remote corners of the Scottish highlands. I took a few steps off the path as a long crocodile of neon-clothed walkers trudged up the side of Fiacaill a’ Choire Chais and instantly felt like the only person alive.

There were signs of ptarmigan everywhere, and I even found a small collection of fluffy grey feathers amongst the boulders. It didn’t take long to scramble up over five hundred feet from the track, but then the snow set in and I was forced to beat a hasty retreat back down to the car. It seems amazing how altitude affects the vegetation on the hillside. Within a hundred yards of climbing, the knee-high heather shrank into a short, boulder studded carpet. Lichens and dry mosses emerged from the rocks, and gangly starfishes of juniperus communis nana spread through the dry undergrowth. It was a different environment altogether, and even those brief moments on the hillside taught me alot about the differences between red grouse and their more extreme counterparts.

I will certainly head back up to the Cairngorms later in the summer for another chance at photographing ptarmigan: they may not be the most flambuoyant or attractive gamebirds, but they have a magic that all others lack.