East Tempar Track

The East Tempar track (5th April 2020) -

There is plenty of nature to see and hear on a walk from West Tempar to East Tempar and then up the East Tempar track.

On setting off we spotted a bird of prey very high in the sky. I got the binoculars on it and it was doing aerobatics including fast glides. I couldn’t see it very well as it was a long way off but its speed and semi-stoops made me think it might be a peregrine. Keeping my binoculars on it as followed its antics until eventually it came low enough to see it was a buzzard, perhaps one that had been reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

At East Tempar the ploughed field has lapwings and looking over to Dunalastair water it is obvious that the Whooper Swans are still here. They seem to be leaving migration a bit late. If you are closer to Dunalastair you can hear the distinctive whir of the wings of Goldeneye flying low over the water.

Ascending the East Tempar track there is a huge and majestic beech on the left with the typical barren ground underneath. This is partly because it is so dry below the tree and partly because decaying beech leaves inhibit the growth of other plants. On the right are stumps of dead trees where in summer you may see barn owls at dusk. The burn has undercut the bank and last year sand martins made their nests in the resultant small cliff. Here too, the fishing fraternity have planted trees next to the water to shade it and in the face of rising temperatures due to climate change try to keep the water cool for Salmon and trout. Warm water cannot hold so much oxygen and salmon and trout need plenty of oxygen.

Further up the track on the right is an old lime kiln with a bird cherry growing out of it. The hillside is rutted with old limestone workings and the tracks that were used to remove the rock. The limestone (Dalradian) was roasted in the kiln to generate lime for the fields. It has the effect of neutralising acid soils and flocculating any clay thereby improving drainage. Two further old and gnarled bird cherries are to be found on the left of the broad grassy track that was once a village street. One of these trees was populated by about a dozen fieldfares not yet bound for a Scandinavia. They flew off giving their distinctive cha cha calls and through the binoculars I could make out the grey rumps.

As you pass through the first hillside gate if you look left towards the plantation you will see an area where there is a small outcrop of the famous Schiehallion boulder bed. This is a unique rock that was created by floating ice raining pebbles of pink granite onto the sea floor. The granite came from a source rock in Greenland that no longer exists, having eroded away. Once on the sea floor the granite became consolidated in the sediment and eventually hardened by the compression of the Caledonian Orogeny.

As we proceeded up the track, I’m glad, to say the curlews called and two pairs of lapwings swooped in black and white flashes, calling in agitation. I’m glad not because of their agitation but because they are there! Lapwings have declined drastically in Britain in recent years. Lapwings always appear agitated because they are vigorous defenders of their nests which are on the ground.

From the second gate up the track there are splendid views of Loch Rannoch, the river Tummel and Dunalastair Water. In the distance are snow capped hills in the vicinity of Ben Alder. (See the video).

As we returned from our exercise I heard the yapping call of a Raven. I spotted the bird hopping on the ground near a ewe and then onto the ewe’s back. It is lambing time and ravens will eat the afterbirth and sometimes attack the newly born lamb. This ewe had not given birth and got up and walked away but there are lambs in the field below.

The field with lambs also played hosted to a pair of greylag geese and half a dozen black-headed gulls whose raucous called are very distinctive. While watched them two common gulls flew over - they have a very different yapping call and weren’t afraid to use it.

The walk back along the road (by the way, on the entire walk not a single car, plane, chainsaw, lawnmower, leaf blower nor any ma-made machine disturbed the silence) robins sang wistfully, blackbirds fled with staccato alarm calls and mistle thrushes hopped in the field. In the large trees at West Tempar the West Tempar tawny owl, which is a notorious insomniac, was hooting. On arrival at the house blue tits were investigating a nest box while a tree creeper crept up the silver birch.

And so it was that the government permitted exercise was taken today. It was not without interest.