An in between whale watching trips day today, so we headed for Applecross in the hope of finding some of the easiest ptarmigan in Britain. Only easy because the spectacular road, full of hairpin bends and steep inclines, goes up to 650m (around 2000ft) and you don't have to climb the mountain on foot to see them. However, get there in low cloud as we did and these highly camouflaged birds become a lot more difficult.
We parked up near the top of Applecross Pass and followed a track which led up to a mast, just because it seemed the easiest way to do it in the conditions that we were forced to endure, scanning the rocks as best we could in the circumstances, but with little hope in our hearts. However, finally after about 1km and an ascent of little more than 100m we spotted two shapes on the rocks that eventually moved and revealed themselves to be a male and female ptarmigan. They stayed there for about 10 minutes before finally flying off into the murk never to be seen again. A very atmospheric experience, or at least that's what I tell myself, far better than seeing them on a sunny day!
Spot the ptarmigan.
I'm sure that something moved!
No it was just the wind.
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