The road to Cougie

Off to the south higher up the valley in the direction of the pony trekking centre at Cougie at the end of the forest track, the scenery just gets fantastic

the hills are relatively well planted and wooded but there is no chance of successful forestry higher up, so there is a definite tree line.

and where there is no forestry planting the pine and birch of the ancient Caledonian Forest thinly cover the lower slopes.

this is the view back down the valley towards Tomich, hidden in the valley of Strath Glass,

The Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris, can generally be told apart from all other pines because of the orange tinge to the upper branches, and this is a fantastic old specimen, characteristic of the native Scottish population rather than imported plantings,

there is quite a lot of other variety amongst the trees and shrubs including this shrubby willow

there are also quite a few herbaceous flowering plants along the roadside such as devils-bit scabious and cats-ear

this is a close-up of the devils-bit, Succisa pratensis, a member of the Teasel family. It gets its name because its roots stop suddenly, as if the devil had bitten them off!

and this is the cats ear, Hypochaeris radicata, with an unknown pollinating fly

while this is Yarrow, Achillea millefolium,

and the bell heather, Erica cinerea

and of course there are some amazing lower plants including these rushes, Juncus

this Polytrichum moss with ripe sporing capsules,

and the Sphagnum that creates so much of the peat that blankets the uplands

There were relatively few insects about, but I did find this bumble bee working the devils-bit. It is a worker of the Bombus lucorum/terrestris complex. As B. lucorum is commoner in Scotland, and B. terrestris is a little less common up North, I would tend to put this as B. lucorum if I had to make a choice. This would be backed up by the clear, not muddy, yellow of the yellow stripes on the thorax and abdomen, and the obviously short face and relatively short tongue. However it would be dangerous to be too dogmatic, so it had better stay as undecided B. terrestris/lucorum.