Walking up Beinn a’Chuallaich
What a magical day we had walking up Beinn a’Chuallaich. This mountain is a large sprawling hill with several long ridges.
We started the day in Kinloch Rannoch and after a short but hard ascent we were rewarded with an amazing summit view. This fine hill is a Corbett which is a classification of mountain defined by John Rooke Corbett, who created a list of all the Scottish hills of height between 2500ft (762m) and 3000ft (914.4m) with a drop of at least 500ft (152.4m) between each listed hill and any adjacent higher one.
The snow was deep and hard going; at times we had to wade through knee high drifts. All this extra effort made for a most enjoyable outing and the walk up took around 2.5 hours. Hot flasks of coffee where stored in our rucksacks along with the essential chocolate bars.
Not only did we get great views of the surrounding scenery we also spotted Red Deer, Red Grouse, Ptarmigan, Snow Bunting and a Buzzard.
RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch
We have been out this weekend doing the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. Jackie, Laura, Jo and Justin each spend an hour seeing what they could spot.
The list was quite long with Blackbird, Blue tit, Chaffinch, Dunnock, Siskin, Long-tailed tit, Coal tit, Great tit, Tree Sparrow, Great spotted woodpecker, Hooded Crow, Robin and a cheeky Squirrel.
You can still get involved as today is the last day of the birdwatch. The RSPB website is packed full of great advice on everything from bird care to how to make the perfect bird bath.
Announcement: New photography workshop!
Our guides have been busy scoping out locations for our new Mountain to Coast Weekend Break photography workshop. This week we’ve been out with one of our photographers visiting historical buildings and ruins, geological structures, rock formations, waterfalls and beaches from the highlands to the Moray coast. We are excited to be able to offer guests this opportunity to explore little-known locations while enhancing their photography skills. To celebrate the launch of this tour, guests will be presented with a free print of their favourite shot from the weekend.
Trip report: Wildlife Safari… plus whisky!
On this bespoke trip our guests wanted to squeeze a whisky tour in with as much wildlife as possible started with amazingly close views of bold coal tits whilst crested tits, great tits and a red squirrel attended the feeding stations beside us. A wonderful sighting of 7 black grouse was next, followed by a white-tailed eagle, peregrine falcon, two kestrels, several buzzards and a dipper, with red deer, mountain hare and feral goat representing the mammals. Heading up to the coast we added common and velvet scoter, red-throated diver, long-tailed duck, great skua, little auk, among many others. Then as the light began to fade, it was off to one of our favourite distilleries, where our guests were able to discover the secrets and intricacies involved in making whisky before sampling some for themselves.