17 Jun 25 - Exploring The Bridge Of Grudie

I had a look around the Bridge of Grudie area on the previous early evening. This site is a few miles South West of Beinn Eighe and next to Loch Maree, in the Central Highlands. Having driven past the Bridge of Grudie, I found this interesting-looking bog to the South West, which I decided to explore. However, I couldn't find any Dragonflies due to the overcast conditions. On a positive, the rain I had driven through since Glasgow had finally stopped.

One of the boggy pools I checked the previous evening (16 Jun 25)

Another view of the previous boggy pool (16 Jun 25)

Great Sundews (16 Jun 25)

This dead Dragonfly, which had fallen foul of the Great Sundew cluster, was the only Dragonfly I saw on the first evening.

This dead Dragonfly found out the hard way about Great Sundews (16 Jun 25)

It started off very overcast on the following morning in the Beinn Eighe area, but the forecast was for improving weather later in the morning.

The day started with uninspiring cloudy conditions over the adjacent Loch Maree

The low cloud wasn't helping

This was as sunny as it became: Looking over the river above the Bridge of Grudie

Another view of the Bridge of Grudie

I was hoping some sunshine would encourage a few Dragonflies to start flying at the Bridge of Grudie. This is a site for Azure Hawkers and Northern Emeralds. Neither species appear to be common here, compared to the nearby Beinn Eighe area. There were less trees to check and the area around the river was worth a look. If either species are flying around the trees, they should be easy to spot. Perhaps it was just too overcast. Initially, all I could find were the Large Heaths covered in the last Blog Post. After a fair bit of searching I bumped into this White-faced Darter and a Four-spotted Chaser. They were quite approachable due to the overcast conditions.

White-faced Darter: Female. The black abdomen with the obvious pale yellow markings and the black at the base of the wing confirm the identification, without having to see the white face

Four-spotted Chaser: This species has a large UK range as they are commonly found on my Dorset Heaths

Bog Asphodel: This was a common species in the boggy areas at the Bridge of Grudie

I had a quick look at the Beinn Eighe picnic centre car park, as well as, the visitor centre.

Views across Loch Maree from the Beinn Eighe picnic centre

I like this giant stone Pine Cone near the Beinn Eighe visitor's centre

I had to leave the Beinn Eighe area by lunchtime, as I had arranged to meet up with Jan Storie on Skye. Jan was the ORCA Team Leader on the Saga Caribbean Calypso cruise at the start of 2024. It was a good opportunity to get some more details from Jan about the two ORCA surveys that I had coming up, as I both were new routes for me. Jan knew both routes well, but she was heading South for her next Saga ORCA cruise on the following morning, so she wasn't available for either survey.

Jan and myself

Late afternoon saw me heading to the Portree Scottish YHA for the evening and to meet up with one of the ORCA surveyors, Uzume Michels.