Article for 2010 Mar 29
Part of the “Easter 2010” series.
2010
2010 Mar
Mar 29 Mon “Frog Marsh March” 
The household walked up a valley near Newtonmore; it’s known as “the Glen” locally. The valley was a U-shaped valley making the transition to V-shaped with the help of a shallow stream called Allt a Chaorainn, a tributary of the river Calder, itself a tributary of the Spey.
We saw buzzardy aquiline birds in flight. Mum claims to have seen deer on that mountain yonder. Kelly (the dog) flushed a grouse from the heather.
For me, the two wildlife highlights (for want of a less cliché word) were having a cricket landing on my woolly jumper
and a frog/toad in the bog/road. The amphibian evidently liked me, because it let me take cool close-ups of it and even to stroke it! I wasn’t holding it in my hands (as the photos will testify); I was merely lying in the dewy heather pressing buttons on my camera, and stroking the frog/toad.
