Page 36 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #05

TRACKING SPRING
CYCLING HIGHEST
SPRING IN ALTITUDE
because local youths burned down the NUMBERS 1,525 (IN FEET)
wooden ones,” Mark told me.
From Baron’s Haugh, I was Stirling bound.
844 12
I stayed at the youth hostel and had supper
with ‘Discoveries’ writer Stuart Blackman.
DAY9SATURDAY29APRIL MILES RESERVES 2
The route from Stirling to Pitlochry took me COVERED VISITED
into Perth and Kinross, the self-proclaimed
“Heart of Scotland”. Just north of Crieff,
Beinn Liath. A caravan park at Dunfallandy 10 5 PIECES OF SPECIES
I saw a sign saying, “Slow Down – Red NEW BIRD
Squirrels”, and then the road through Glen
TICKED OFF
Cochill passed beneath the 600m peak of
– just the other side of the River Tummel MAMMAL MAMMAL CAKE
from Pitlochry – was awash with the delicate 1 PUNCTURE
pink of lady’s smock. I might have overtaken SPECIES SPECIES CONSUMED
flowering hawthorn, but clearly I had a way to SPOTTED (DEAD) TOO MANY 1 SEVERE
go to catch the cuckoo flower. (ALIVE) TO COUNT DRENCHING
DAY10SUNDAY30APRIL
Without doubt, my favourite day’s cycling, 2
as I skirted the edge of the Cairngorms on 40,000
my way to the youth hostel in Glenmore, NEAR
a salmon’s leap from Loch Morlich. It was
mostly on cycle tracks, and even though I CALORIES BURNED MISSES
reached my highest point of the trip – the
462m Drumochter Pass – the ascents were
all gradual so it was an easier ride than the
morning I spent rollercoasting the Peak over the Black Isle to the home of nature DAY 13 WEDNESDAY3MAY
District. A close encounter with a red grouse, writer Kenny Taylor, where I was spending I headed first north to join the A836 (joyously
three roe deer sauntering across the track in the night. He suggested we take a trip to freewheeling for 20 miles, or so it seemed),
front of me, the occasional roadkill mountain Chanonry Point, an excellent location for then through Thurso to Dunnet Head. Now I
hare and a tawny owl caught napping by my bottlenose dolphins. Despite it being a falling was closely monitoring the hawthorn, none of
sneakily quiet approach on two wheels were – not rising tide – we saw one anyway. which was in flower – I’d beaten it, I thought
the main wildlife sightings of the day. exultantly, suggesting it had moved more
I’d arranged to spend that evening at the DAY12TUESDAY2MAY slowly than 1.9mph. What caught my ear was
nearby Rothiemurchus pine marten hide with From the Black Isle, I had to cross first the the occasional willow warbler, however. How
Cath Wright of Speyside Wildlife – nothing Cromarty then the Dornoch Firth, while far north would I hear them, I wondered?
especially spring-tastic about pine martens, of trying to avoid spending too much time on Cycling up Dunnet Head itself, I found one
course, but it felt like too good an opportunity the A9. At the Dornoch Firth I caught sight on a gorse bush 500m from the edge of
to pass up. The appearance of a female gave of a large bird hovering like a cumbersome mainland Britain. While dubbing it our most
me my third trip tick. kestrel above the estuary. I feverishly grabbed northerly songbird was hardly scientific, there
my binoculars from my saddle bag and could not have been many rivals.
DAY11MONDAY1MAY confirmed my hope – an osprey, and fishing Warden Dave Jones gave me his guided
I headed for Loch Garten well before too. It dived once, and came up with nothing, walk. “When I’m doing them, I say ‘Turn
the crack of dawn in the hope of seeing but the second time it flew with something right at the tree’,” he said, bending down to
capercaillies but it had been a bad year in its talons. Along with perhaps the marsh spread the leaves of a plant growing a few
for them, according to the RSPB’s Chris harrier food pass, the single best wildlife inches off the ground. “It’s my idea of a joke
Tilbury. The ospreys more than made up encounter of the trip. – this is juniper. It grows horizontally not
for it, however, the female putting on a I cycled on to Golspie, from where I took vertically, because of the wind.”
splendid dog-fighting display with a crow. the train up to Forsinard for a night at the Dave offered me a lift back to Thurso as I
I took a long cut to Inverness over the RSPB’s new field centre. The Flow Country was taking the train back to Edinburgh that
hills past Lochindorb and into the Findhorn is an other-worldly landscape of flat peatbogs afternoon. Having been no more than half an
Valley. I crossed the Moray Firth, and headed and alien conifer plantations. There was no hour late for any of the appointments I’d set
one else around, and up using pedal power, it was perhaps
with its tumbledown inevitable that my return via rail should prove
“ A CARAVAN PARK NEAR PITLOCHRY hotel, the place less reliable. A delay forced me to miss my
reminded me of a
connection at Inverness, and I was bundled
,
WAS AWASH WITH LADY’S SMOCK – I’D one-horse town in a into a taxi for the rest of the journey south.
t
Hollywood Western,
OVERTAKEN HAWTHORN, BUT I HADN’T and I half expected JAMES FAIR is environment editor of
to see tumbleweed BBCWildlife.This month he also writes
CAUGHT THE CUCKOO FLOWER.” blowin’ in the wind. about Tasmanian devils (see p46).
ing
g 2018
p
36 BBC Wildlife S Spriing
Spr