7th December 2009

First Snow of Winter

On a morning in November this year people around Inverness, and in some cases from parts of the City, saw the tops of Ben Wyvis covered in snow. It was a magnificent backcloth to the Beauly Firth and beyond. Some other hills to the west of the City also had their first snow such as Glen Strathfarrar in the photograph It seemed more than fitting that, on the same morning, skeins of Greylag geese came from the north, perhaps direct from their breeding grounds in Iceland. The fresh snow seemed to be a sign that winter is on its way and there will be great changes in the bird and animal world in the Highlands. What will be interesting is whether the run of relatively mild winters will continue. It does not seem long ago that Ben Wyvis was about to be developed as ski-ing centre because the continual run of cold, snowy winters meant it was viable. There was even talk of a funicular railway similar to the one in the Cairngorms. Plans were well under way with the compromises on both sides from the developers and conservationists as after all it was an important National Nature Reserve. The mild winters started and the plans were, and probably will remain, shelved.

Some of the winters only a few years ago were indeed quite cold and one winter temperatures within a few miles of Inverness went down to minus 25 degrees centigrade and private water supplies froze. Rivers were frozen over in parts. Wildfowling in the firths around Inverness was legally banned as low temperatures persisted and the wildfowl such as the ducks and geese were in a poor condition. Large tracts of places like Udale Bay were covered with miniature ice flows as the tides rose and ebbed and froze. In some years large areas of countryside such as the Dirrie Moor below Beinn Dearg, just north of Garve, were often under snow. The hills are above 3,000 feet and the moor itself quite high so this was not unusual but it was the sheer length of time that the snow laid. The red deer moved down and for weeks and weeks could be seen trying to feed right on the roadside over the moor. The alpine birds of the high tops such as ptarmigan also moved down the slopes but even they with their specialised feather covered feet had difficulty in finding food.

The last few winters have been milder but birds and animals are still faced with some difficulty in finding food and keeping warm. Many birds move to the firths where there is ample food between the tides and there are strange sights such as lapwings, hooded crows, oystercatchers and mallard feeding almost shoulder to shoulder. The aim is to take in as much food as possible between the tides when the very rich food of the mud and sand flats are exposed. Another effect of the mild winters has been the fact that dippers have stayed in territories in the rivers around Inverness. These dumpy water birds are unusual in that they will sing their rippling song between October and July. It is rather strange to hear a dipper singing in the middle of winter. Presumably this is intended to mark their territories until the spring arrives. Contrary to popular belief the only animals that hibernate in winter in the Highlands are the bats and hedgehogs. Red squirrels and badgers, for example, do not hibernate as such although their activates may be curbed. There is even some debate about the hedgehogs as they come awake if there are mild spells. Ironically mild winters are not good for butterflies and moths as their parasites flourish.