Four Habitats - 2

From the pine plantation 1 we walked out onto Ferry Links 2, an area of grassland on a sandy, calcitic soil. where the first flower we found was...

....a lone but perfectly-formed wild pansy.

Sadly, there were few insects out, and it wasn't until we were about to leave the links that....

....we spotted the first butterflies, four in all, all common blues.

From the links we moved out onto the open beach 3. As is 'normal', we had it entirely ourselves, this on an August Bank Holiday. We remarked that the tide line was devoid of flotsam beyond the elongated piles of seaweed, a few small shells, and numerous bird feathers, mainly from gulls.

At the entrance to Loch Fleet a flock of about fifty eider was bouncing around in the contraflow along the edges of the strong current flowing in to the loch, mostly juveniles.

A large flock of oystercatchers was resting on our side of the channel while, just offshore...

....three terns and a couple of gulls were harassing a diver which had caught something. At the distance, it was difficult to identify the bird but it may have been a juvenile guillemot - which would have been good news as we haven't seen a guillemot in ages.

Retracing our steps through the woods we crossed the road to where there is a view of....

....the inner basin of Loch Fleet 4. This is shallow and tidal, low tide exposing a large area of mudflats mostly exploited by gulls.

Beyond the background of Balblair Wood the heather was still bright on the slopes of Silver Rock (centre) and Beinn Lundaidh (right).