Exploring Quinag: Torr a’Ghamhna
Introduction
By the start of 2024 there were just a few corners of the lowland parts of the Quinag estate that we had not visited. One of these was the woodland extending for about half a kilometre along the sea-cliff on the northern side of the Torr a’Ghamhna ridge (NC2133; photo 1, taken from north-east, across Loch a’Chairn Bhain, on 19th July 2024).
Chris Ferreira was the first to comment on its interest in his masterly Vegetation Survey of North West Sutherland (1995, volume 2, site 4.2.1, reproduced in photo 2). He was so taken by its ‘impressive and completely undisturbed habitat’ that he recommended the extension of the boundary of the Ardvar Woodlands SSSI to include it, which duly happened.
Chris had visited the site in June 1980; the only other person that we knew had explored it since was Romany Garnett, while she was working for the John Muir Trust. There was an opportunity to tackle it on 18th September and we invited her to join us.
Not surprisingly, she was still feeling raw about having been made redundant by the Trust, together with 18 other members of their staff (see her account at Quinag: severed from the landscape). However, she kindly agreed to give us the benefit of her experience and, in the event, we had a splendid day.
The ridge
Most of Torr a’Ghamhna lies in the 1km square to the south (NC2132), the lower parts of which we had explored a couple of times back in 2015 and 2018 (see Quinag-by-the-sea posted 7/7/2018). Since we had not visited the ridge on either of those occasions, we made a full list on the way there and back (map, photo 3).
Having parked just above the burn (NC214321), we climbed 50m straight up to the top of the ridge, which caused the oldest member of the party some heavy breathing. The top of the ridge is moorland undulating around gneiss outcrops at 100-110m (photo 4) and walking along it we logged a pair of stonechats, a meadow pipit and a red deer wallow.
Then there was a major diversion, two golden eagles wheeling and tumbling a few hundred metres to our west. There was time for all three of us to get good views with our binoculars, and we agreed that they were immature birds, before they plunged out of sight towards the sea. Just before we reached the top edge of the woodland, we also flushed a pair of red grouse.
Sea-cliff woodland
Having reached a point just above the woodland (NC211330), we dropped down a very steep slope to a striking north-facing crag at the edge of the woodland (photos 5-7). It looked as if it had been cut out with a giant ice cream scoop, this fanciful idea reinforced by the fact that it was covered with a variety of pale lichens (photo 8). They probably include some species of Lepraria, a so-called ‘dust-bin’ genus with powdery thalli, the precise identification of which is challenging. Hopefully, visiting lichenologists may sometime be interested to take a closer look at this feature.
The woodland itself (photo 9) is mainly downy birch, with occasional rowan, a few eared and grey willows and their hybrid Salix x multinervis, with steep bouldery areas densely covered with bryophytes (photo 10). The ground flora is the usual mix of species found in such ‘acidophilous birch-rowan woodlands’ (to quote Ferreira), but the ferns did include northern buckler-fern Dryopteris expansa and Wilson’s filmy-fern Hymenophyllum wilsonii.
There was a variety of grasses, including wavy hair-grass and wood soft-grass, together with great wood-rush, heath bedstraw, wood sorrel, bilberry and both common dog-violet and marsh violet. A few wet hollows had what Ferreira describes as a woodland mire characterised by yellow pimpernel, primrose and self-heal.
Fungi
Given the age of many of the trees, especially the birches, the presence of a variety of fungi was no surprise. They included the common birch polypore Piptoporus betulinus, and a swarm of blackening gill fungi up a trunk (photo 11) which, despite being well past their best, we recognised as a honey fungus Armillaria sp., probably the northern honey fungus A. borealis, not previously recorded from Assynt.
There were chanterelles Cantharellus cibarius under the trees, together with a bolete that had been parasitised by the sulphur-yellow bolete mould Apiocraea (Hypomyces) chrysosperma (photo 12). There was also a brighter yellow myxomycete or slime fungus Fuligo muscorum in the grassy sward (photo 13); it is an uncommon western birchwood species, for which this may be the first local record. We are grateful to mycologist Bruce Ing for naming the latter two species.
An extended lunch break
Gwen and Romany spent some time exploring woodland a little lower down the very steep cliffs, but they were not able to add much to the species list, other than a couple of hollies, which fits with Chris Ferreira’s description of a ‘herb-poor Betula ground layer’.
On their return, we all adjourned for lunch to an open area above the edge of the woodland, with panoramic views over Loch a’Chairn Bhain, from the Kylesku Bridge to the east (photo 14) and past Eilean a’Ghamhna to the islands at its mouth, far to the west (photo 15).
After a while our attention was caught by disturbances to the surface of the sea just to the north of Eilean a’Ghamhna (photo 16). We thought that they might be caused by shoals of fish, a suspicion confirmed by the appearance soon afterwards of a small party of porpoises and at least one grey seal. Our excitement was capped by the arrival of an adult sea eagle, which soared into view and circled right over the top of us (photo 17). After which we sat for another half an hour, soaking up the sunshine, quiet and magnificent views.
On the way back
Our route back to the road took us along the eastern side of the ridge, with a good view over the bay to the east (photo 18) and, beyond it, the mouth of the wooded valley of the Allt Creag an Spardain (of which more anon). A little further on, we were surprised to see signs, on a level area, of old peat cuttings (photo 19). They were a reminder that this area, now part of the Unapool common grazings, was once much more intensively used, with seasonal occupation and probably, in areas behind the bay, some cultivation.
We added quite a few plants to the tally for the southern square (NC2132) from a series of small crags and adjacent areas of boulder scree. As an example, one at NC21223291 gave us a fruiting stem of bluebell, with the tiny black dots of its attendant fungus Colletotrichon liliacearum, earthnut, ivy, a small holly sapling, English stonecrop, wood sage, wild thyme and heath speedwell, as well as the common dung-beetle Anoplotrupes stercorosus.
Moths
A little further south, Gwen disturbed an adult chevron moth, and soon afterwards she and Romany (photo 20) came across two colourful moth caterpillars, those of broom moth (photo 21), drinker (photo 22), followed by that of a ruby tiger, all typical moorland species locally. Other animal life noted on the way back included an old fox scat on a tump and, as we dropped down to the road (photo 23), a nymphal meadow grasshopper Chorthippus parallelus and an adult female of the heavyweight four-spotted orb-web spider Araneus quadratus.
It was not a high-scoring day from a botanical point of view, with 44 species from the sea-cliff woodland in NC2133 and 52 along the ridge in NC2132 on the way there and back. However, as a day out in Assynt, it ranked amongst the very best.
Ian M. Evans, Romany Garnett and Gwen Richards
All photos by the authors