How many birding trip reports begin with the words “this was not a birding trip“? Certainly lots of mine have. Usually because the trip was a family holiday with some birding moments snatched from family time. This three day trip to the Cairngorms in mid-winter did not come into that category. There were birding moments, but this time they were snatched during a winter skills course on the Cairngorm plateau. We would be hiking, using crampons and ice axes and improving our map reading, compass and navigation skills. Joining my brother Alex and I, would be our brother-in-law Bryce, Alex’s nearly-eighteen year old son and his friend and neighbour Steve. We began at the valley bottom in the west Cairngorms, where there were a few centimetres of standing snow:
As we climbed, the snow cover became consistent and knee deep:
As we slogged up towards the plateau we stopped at an exposed ridge. The wind had carved a gully from the snow and ice and it was here that we would practice our crampon and ice axe skills. The wind here was fierce, around 70mph, whipping snow into our faces:
As I waited to climb the ice, I glanced down and I thought I saw a movement against the frozen walls of the lower gully. It was difficult to make much out in the hurricane of wind driven spindrift, but then a moving black line caught my eye. I had seen that before. “Ptarmigan!” I called and I tried to give directions, shouting into the wind to get the others onto a white shape on a white background. Fortunately three more Ptarmigan walked up into the gully to join the first bird, before they began feeding on exposed heather tips. Having checked with our instructor that it was safe to move further down the gully, I crept closer only to disappear up to my waist in deep snow. It provided camouflage if nothing else!
The camouflage of the Ptarmigan was much better than mine. A male and three females were present, the male with a dark eye-mask, the females without. One female (the far-right bird, below) had just started growing a few darker breeding plumage feathers on the breast, but apart from that these birds were the same colour as their surroundings, beautifully camouflaged in white:
After feeding for a few minutes, the 4 Ptarmigan walked up the side of the gully and took off, suddenly revealing their all-black tails. The male bird is far left, the three females are together on the right:
In glorious late afternoon sunshine, but with hurricane strength winds, we began our descent. By the time we had reached the lower slopes the water bottle in my backpack had frozen:
Neil, our instructor, pointed out a saucer-shaped lenticular cloud forming above the large cloud at 9 o’clock, left of centre in the picture below. These clouds are carved from the wind as stable air flows over an area of turbulence, created by the mountains themselves:
I found this fantastic poster about lenticular clouds online, “Come see the lenticular clouds of the mountains“!
We over-nighted in a bothy, effectively a shed without water or electricity, but it did have a wood burner which kept the temperature just above freezing.
Overnight it snowed heavily. It took an hour to get our vehicle down the steep track from the bothy, though a calling Crossbill was a nice bonus.
Unfortunately there had been too much snow. So much in fact, that the road to the ski area, our planned start point of the day’s hike, was closed. Neil adjusted our plans and we set off up Meall a’ Bhuachaille, a much milder hike than the one we had anticipated. The snow covered landscape was a delight. This old Scot’s pine stood out, dark in a white panorama:
Steve, my brother’s neighbour, is a professional tree man. I was impressed at his ability to look around and identify pretty much everything arboreal. This is how birders must appear to non-birders when it comes to identification, I mused. Steve showed me how Scot’s Pines have needles in pairs that twist around each other:
We left the trees in the valleys and began climbing up:
We were standing at this spot, above, when I noticed a small flock of birds feeding on the snow, high above us. My optics were still in my pack, but what species of passerine would feed up around 1000m (3,000 feet) and in the snow? Snow Buntings would be my first guess. However, when the flock took to the wing a few moments later, they all proved to be Bullfinches! 8 males and 1 female had been feeding on exposed heather tips, in deep snow, quite a way above the treeline. 
We headed further up, practising navigation and taking various types of bearing:
Regular scanning of the horizon (not always easy when trying to keep a sound footing walking uphill on snow) eventually produced a large soaring raptor. I was hoping for Golden Eagle, but the broad wings and short white tail of an adult White-tailed Eagle became apparent as the bird headed towards us and passed directly overhead. The photo below was taken with my standard landscape lens:
Below, the view down to Loch Morlich… 
… where we eventually ended up. The northern corries looked fabulous from here, pristine white and bathed in late afternoon sun:
The Cairngorms in winter are fabulous, but lethal. There were 5 deaths on the plateau in the three weeks before we arrived. Navigating in white out conditions is a real skill, getting lost in white out conditions is often fatal. I would want to be at least twice as good at navigation as I am, before I attempted a winter hike on the plateau. The scenery and the birds are pretty special though and this course was a great start at learning the skills needed to see them both safely in winter.
Spectacular! Really enjoyed reading this.
Thanks Ben. It would be great just to go birding up on the plateau in winter, but I’m going to work on my navigation skills first!