Signs of autumn spotted on trip round Loch Ordie
LAST Sunday, 23 September, signalled the equinox when night and day are approximately the same length. After some unseasonably warm weather, recent days have become colder and we've noticed signs of autumn on our outings.
We travelled to Dunkeld and did ten miles from Cally car park on a circular walk to Loch Ordie. You are walking on the countryside trails of the Atholl Estates.
The tracks take you through mixed woodland and past the small lochs, lochans really, at Mill Dam and, on the return leg, Dowally and Rotmell. Trees were already on the turn up here; beech and, a personal favourite, the silver birch.
There are few autumnal sights to equal its covering of tiny yellow and bronzed leaves shimmering on a sunny day with a gentle breeze. Our route lay along the side of Deuchary Hill (1670 ft) and, now in open country and at elevation we were able to see Pitlochry in the far distance.
We had our lunch stop on the shores of Loch Ordie not far from The Lodge. Some small boats were moored nearby. Ordie is a pretty loch, sheltered and with alder, scots pine and rhododendron along its margins.
Further on some of us spotted a pair of deer. I suspect they may have been of the Sika species which I've seen up here before. Sika were introduced to parks in Scotland from Asia in 1860 but escapees have established themselves in the wider countryside. I read somewhere that they interbreed with our native reds. (OS Landranger Sheet 53).
It was considerably colder when the Monday Walkers set out the following week to tackle three modest peaks in the Sidlaws; Auchterhouse, Balluderon and Craigowl, all at about 1000 plus ft.
At six miles this is not an especially long trek but the switchback nature of the route affords plenty of exercise for leg and lung.
The start and finish point is at the Balkello Community Woodland; a plantation established during the years 1993-98.
It consists largely of scots pine, oak, rowan and whitebeam. Within a few miles of Dundee this wildlife site with its nature trails provides an excellent facility for Dundonians wanting some country air. Atop Balluderon sits a plaque to the memory of Syd. Scroggie, poet, philosopher and man of the hills who died a year ago at his home in nearby Strathmartine.
The views from the tops are generally splendid encompassing the Tay estuary, Fife, Angus and parts of Perthshire but by the time we had reached the microwave station on the summit of Craigowl so strong had the wind become that the effort of remaining upright demanded all our concentration.
As we descended though the wind dropped and the sun appeared. The end of the walk gave us an unanticipated bit of excitement. Since last we were in this area the vegetation around the car park has increased somewhat in size and density to the extent that several of us became disorientated and lost within fifty yards of our vehicles would you believe?
However all drifted in over the next few minutes to hoots of merriment from the more competent members of our outfit. (OS Landranger Sheet 54).
Between these walks I was up, with companions, at Bachnagairn in Glen Doll where we were chewed by midgies and later saw a garron (mountain pony) transporting a stag's carcass off the hill; a sight I'd not witnessed before.
We were also on top of Sturdy Hill in Glenesk on a grey day. It was up here that I had my first sighting this year of a skein of geese, in "V" formation, winging their way from the Arctic regions to Montrose Basin; their plaintive wailing evocative of the season.
By the time this goes to press a dozen of us, mostly Monday Walkers, will be far from Brechin. We're off to Coniston in the Lake District for a few days. We'll see what the Cumbrian fells have to offer at this time of year.
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Weather for Brechin
Wednesday 08 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 1 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 25 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 3 C to 4 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: South west
