Tuesday, 11 August 2015

Foreshore Flowers

We had more than our fair share of Kilchoan sunshine yesterday - 34mm in all - but the forecast was right about the timing of its arrival so we were out early, taking a short wander along....

....the rocky coastline to the west of our house. It's a favourite walk when we haven't much time to spare, the joy of it being that it always has something new to offer.

We sometimes wonder whether the variety of wildflowers is in part due to seeds being washed up. This one, of which there were about five plants growing in close proximity, has been tentatively identified as common skullcap, Scutellaria galericulata, but the various websites seem to suggest it likes fresh water, whereas our specimens would almost certainly have had their feet in the sea at high tide.

We think this is a geranium called bloody cranesbill, Geranium sanguineum, and this species is reported as growing quite happily at the seaside - though the position this specimen and chosen was very exposed.

The thrift has had a good year, with many plants still in bloom, even those....

....which had perhaps persuaded the oystercatcher pair choose this pinnacle to build their nest - see earlier post here. The base of the nest seems to have been lined with the stalks of thrift plants, but they had included one small pebble - a plaything for the chicks?

Climbing back to the road we passed one of the many patches of bracken which fill so many of Ormsaigbeg's croft fields where, although it was about to start raining, we saw the one butterfly of the day, a meadow brown.

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