Winners & Losers

In pleasantly sunny weather, a brief wander into the croft land above our house late this afternoon gave a snapshot of the winners and losers in the damp start to this summer. One definite winner is bog asphodel, which has a....

....wonderfully delicate flower but can be poisonous if eaten by lambs, causing serious kidney problems and a photosensitivity to light which can result in them losing their ears or going blind.

At present a loser, cross-leaved heath is usually abundant by this time of year. It's normally a pink-purple colour, but one of the plants was producing flowers which were almost white.

Occasionally one comes across a plant which is a loner. This large-flowered hemp nettle, Galeopsis speciosa, has appeared from nowhere, having none of its species growing anywhere near it. One does wonder how it arrived here.

The local butterflies continue to be the most serious losers. This is a dark green fritillary, one of two seen, while the only other species on the wing were a small heath and what might have been a forest brown.