Snowy Owl, Ben Macdui, August 1996

James McGill and I knew Mark Ponsford and co. had seen a Snowy Owl on the Cairngorm plateau in late July 1996, and we both needed it. Then in mid-August we found out that two guys, Dennis and Ed, from Cardiff were looking for another two to make up a crew for a long weekend’s birding in Scotland. I was year-listing and needed all the Scottish specialities for my ‘Big Year’, so was instantly up for it; so was James once he knew we would have a crack at the owl. We had twitched the Double-crested Cormorant in Galway the previous autumn with Dennis, so it was a good chance for a catch-up too.

Saturday 17th started with a dip on a Black-winged Pratincole at Monikie CP near Dundee, but the sight of over 300 Little Gulls was spectacular! The rest of the day was spent at Loch an Eilein seeing Crested Tit and sifting through flocks of crossbills to pick out one or two Parrots. Then dawned Sunday the 18th and the trip up Cairngorm was on. The top chairlift wasn’t going because the wind was too strong, so from the middle station we took on hiking up the steep ridge to the right overlooking Coire an t-Sneachda. In hindsight the longer, more gently sloping route might have been better, as the ridge proved too much for Dennis, who turned back halfway up, which was a pity for him. The youngsters, Ed and James, were still raring to go, so I steeled myself to go on. It was tough going, but only for a short while until we reached the plateau. On the tops we found a recent feather puddle that had once been a Ptarmigan, which was useful encouragement. A bit further on we found some live Ptarmigan too, so at the very least I had got a valuable year tick out of the day.

We approached the boulder field where Mark had seen his owl. The scenery was breathtaking! In front of us was the looming bulk of Ben Macdui, the bright sun behind it only making it look darker and more forbidding. Behind us was the sunlit dome of Cairn Gorm itself, and to our right the plateau stretching out until we could just make out where the gash of the Lairig Ghru cuts through the mountains, with serried ranks of peaks further back. To our left was the head of Glen A’an, a tongue of valley chiselled into the mountains by a glacier and, from where we stood, a dizzying sheer drop of some 800 feet down to the intense blue of Loch A’an. I almost forgot the search for the owl in taking in the sheer beauty of the place.

We had been there a while and midday had just come and gone when I realised Ed and James were waving excitedly. I ran across to them and somehow arrived with both ankles intact. Hundreds of pale rocks were strewn across the boulder field: we had scanned through them time and time again until Ed suddenly realised that one had two big yellow eyes staring straight back at him! It was an adult male Snowy Owl, huge and almost pure white, with just a few faint coffee-coloured bars towards the tips of the tertials. We were actually (and unintentionally) a bit close to it, so we backed off and tried to make ourselves smaller, but it flew. Luckily it only went about a hundred yards and landed on top of a rock formation where it sat for the next hour, magisterially surveying the scene below. We scuttled over to find a large rock from behind which we could observe it at relatively close quarters without disturbing it, and pointed it out to a group of walkers, one with binoculars, who had walked underneath it without noticing!

A majestic bird in exhilarating surroundings – it is quite simply my favourite British birding memory.

We took the longer route back down, though my knees were still aching by the time we were done. Back at the ski centre we found a bar open with Beck’s at a quid a bottle – that’ll do nicely! It only dawned on us on the way back down the mountain that the bird Ponso had seen in exactly the same spot had been quite heavily marked, so was very likely a female …