Blogging at 21:15 on Monday 1st April from intended overnighting spot N 58.46169°, W 03.44708° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:58.46169%2C-03.44708
We were on his territory and so I had no solid grounds to be irritated, but incredibly irritated I found myself anyway. At about 4.50am, a cock pheasant positioned himself on a piece of raised ground about 5m from my bed and started his stupendously strident glack-glaah call, accompanied - of course - by the customary clapping of wings. He wrenched me from my sleep. I hoped he would make his point and move on: but he didn't. At almost precisely 90 second intervals for the next 20 minutes he repeated his territorial / harem-acquisitioning display. I snapped. At 5.10am I was out of the truck - fully naked - fronting up a comparatively tiny bird. In fairness, I thought he looked quite impressive: I doubt he thought the same of me. In any event, my ranting charge won out and he retreated to the cover of some nearby woodland where he unconcernedly continued with his strident display.
I can confirm from the encounter that last night was indeed very cold. Nearby waters bodies were frozen over, vegetation was covered in frost, and - most significantly - I realised I needed to be back on the truck and back in bed in order to ensure adequate blood supply to some fairly vital organs.
Emma (who never sleeps well) remained totally oblivious to the gladiatorial episode.
Other than that, the camp proved awesome. Some hashtag-free normality had seemingly resumed.
The journey today has once again been mainly about covering ground but we did stop off for another very long lunch at a pretty pleasant system of forest tracks that almost demanded that we run them. We obliged, in spite of a persistent mizzle, dreary skies and the biting cold.
Tonight's intended overnighting spot is a place called Achanarras Quarry. We stumbled upon it quite by chance after spotting and following a promising looking track. It's a site of special scientific interest impressively managed and interpreted by Scottish Natural Heritage. Its (international) importance revolves around the prevalence of the fossilised remains of fish and invertebrates that perished something approaching 400,000,000 years ago. It's a pretty cool place. Within certain good-practice guidelines, anyone can tip up and give some pretty serious fossiling a go.
The prospect of being the first human ever to set eyes on a creature entombed in stone for 400,000,000 years engaged Emma completely. It became her whole-world obsession... for about three minutes. A few cracked stones, a dearth of fossilised remains, and one pair of blue hands later saw us returning to the truck and its onboard heaters for a steady night watching the world go by, reading and recreational arguments.
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