Orchid Blossom Time

Earlier in the year the Japanese were anxiously watching the on-line forecasts for the first blooming of the cherry blossom - see an example here - so they could go out and enjoy the spectacle.  We do much the same, except that our excitement is for the flowering of Ardnamurchan's wild orchids.  The first were out by the CalMac pier the other day, but they're coming into flower all over the place - like these ones we saw at Sanna yesterday, and the Raptor reports a host of them at Bay McNeil.

Unlike cherry blossom, wild orchids come in a variety of shades and shapes, and they don't flaunt themselves, so there will have been people walking around Sanna, as we've done in previous years, without even noticing these beauties in the long grass.

Better still, unlike the cherry blossom, the orchids just keep coming.  I'm not very good at their identification, but the first two may be northern marsh orchids, or a hybrid, and this may be an early marsh, but later in the year we have several other species to look forward to.

As if orchid-admiring wasn't enough, there was lots more going on at Sanna. The township's lime-rich machair offers the excitement of snail watching and, it being spring and if you're very lucky indeed....

....a chance to see snails making more snails.

Then, as a bonus, there was what Sanna is so justly famous for, its miles of empty beaches, with the sea rolling in to them and a variety of sea birds to watch as they were blown around in the wind.