A Memory

I still have memory flashes, moments when a scene from my past suddenly explodes into my consciousness, like a great rocket illuminating the dark ramblings of my mind. I have fewer, which is a shame as these pictures are of special places, so I try to hold on to them as they fade, then perhaps spend a few minutes hunting to see if I have any photographs of the place that might help recall that moment.

Sandwich Bay is one such place. Our visit was on one of those expeditions upon which tourists are encouraged to go so they can say they have seen true desert, but an unusual desert in that it runs right down to the sea; and the more unusual because, in places, a high proportion of its sand grains....

....are pink and brown, not quartz as in ordinary deserts but garnets. These grains are, perhaps, a clue to why, mostly now buried beneath the sand....

....a few buildings stand rotting slowly, mummified by the heat, for garnets are associated with a particular suite of minerals, and this is the legendary Skeleton Coast of Namibia along which, in days gone by, it was possible to wander the shore picking up diamonds.

In The Garden

Considering we are now well into June and, therefore, into 'summer', things are not good in our garden. For a start, the number of insects is dismally low, with only a few of our many flowering plants attracting attention. So, for example, the chives, which are in glorious flower and would normally be covered in insects, currently attract only this one type of bumblebee.

The flowers which seem most attractive to the few flying insects we have are, surprisingly, the raspberries. I have to say I am both pleased and relieved about this as I do like my raspberries, and Mrs MW does make a very good raspberry jam.

The situation with our butterflies is dire. Each day we see one, or at most two, of which this peacock is the most common visitor. I can only think that it's the low temperatures which are restricting them: when we left the house just after nine this morning to walk down to the village the mercury stood at a perishing 13C.

At least we can be relieved that one species is thriving. Having commented some weeks ago on the total lack of starlings we now have a surplus, with hoards of young ones attacking and emptying the small birds' feeders.

In the short periods when there aren't any starlings around, we're seeing other species that haven't put in an appearance for some months, like the house sparrows. It's good to see them back.

Our 'normal' population of small birds has changed a bit. While we have plenty of goldfinches and siskins, the tit family is very thin on the ground, with the coal tits almost completely absent.

Our resident robin, disgusted at the greedy behaviour of the starlings, has found a solution to his craving for our excellent bird fat - by coming into the room where we store the bird foods and helping himself - and he's very welcome!

Sonny

We were thrilled this morning to wake up to find our new rabbit back on the path below the sitting-room window, enjoying a breakfast of grass and clover.

He's now established here so we felt we ought to give him a name. Following readers' suggestions on last Thursday's post we have decided to call him Sungura Secundus, sungura being KiSwahili for rabbit and secundus being Latin for second - so,'Second Rabbit', or Sonny for short.

A Deserted Beach

We have walked many beautiful beaches in our time - this one is just north of Tanga in Tanzania - and I claim to have been born on a beach, so....

....beaches such as the one at Littleferry have some hard acts to follow.

So we are fortunate to live so near the Littleferry beach: it's an impressive swathe of sand and usually as deserted of humans as any comparable tropical beach - today we saw just three people walking their dogs - but we do like beaches to have some wildlife along their shores.

Our local beaches' lack of life is depressing and concerning. If you search this picture you will find three gulls; and a few gulls were all we saw in the time we spent on the beach. The only other wildlife of note was, along the high-tide line, a line of corpses of....

....dozens of small moon jellyfish.

So we left the beach and wandered across the links where the northern marsh orchids are putting on their annual display. This year the flower-heads are smaller, and some areas have no orchids at all, but the hundreds of flowers are impressive.

We were also pleased to find that, in the coniferous woodland along the back of the links, the creeping lady's tresses were about to flower.

The links also had a few fungi on display, the best being this large common puffball.

On our way back to the car we diverted from the path to see if the dragon- or damselflies were active on Loch Unes but an air temperature of 15C is obviously a bit too chilly for them.

Yellows

The forestry track which I walked today was lined with yellows. With the gorse dying back, the main yellow is from the newly-flowering broom - seen to the right in this picture - while the gorse, now a fading orange, can be seen in the distance. However....

....not all the broom is a bright yellow. In the left bottom of the picture of the track is this, a rare wild broom with orange-red flowers very similar in pattern to....

....the bird's-foot trefoil usually called eggs and bacon.

One short section of this particular track is host to a plant which we've only found in a couple of other places - a yellow pimpernel - while....

....this little plant is even rarer than the yellow pimpernel, being, as far as I have found, the only wild strawberry plant in this part of the woods.

My return journey took me past the lower rabbit field where....

....a rabbit collective has developed a warren in the middle of the field. It would seem to me that the rabbits feeding here are wide open to attack by the buzzards and kites that are nesting in the pine plantation not two hundred metres away, but perhaps a wise bunny has negotiated some sort of agreement with the local raptors.

Hut Circle: A Last Visit

With the weather a little more cheerful I set off this morning to make a last visit to the hut circle before the bracken buries it until spring of next year. I was kept company while I sat on a convenient rock by....

....a cheery pipit - and it was while I was watching it that the first swift of the summer made a fleeting appearance, its scythe-like wings cutting the blue of the sky.

I couldn't find any of the orchids which were in bloom when last I walked the hut circle track ten days ago but I did find one new heath spotted, as well as some....

.....bugle and....

....this very pretty, delicate flower which, beyond considering it may be a veronica, I have failed to identify.

I also found plenty of is marsh thistle, notable for its deep colours and the symmetry of its leaves.

As I approached home this bird met me with an explosion of song, which enabled the Merlin app to identify it as a male blackcap - which, in its excitement, was hopping around too much for a good picture.

Another Rabbit

When we woke yesterday morning we found a new rabbit in the garden feeding, as Tsuro did, very contentedly on the grass and clover that covers our paths. For a few moments we thought it might be Tsuro, back from some far-away adventure, but this rabbit is much bigger, has a very different coat pattern, and lacks....

....some of Tsuro's distinctive features, like a small white blaze high on his forehead.

Before Tsuro's sad death I had seen two rabbits of about the right proportions feeding on the grass at the front of the houses in our road. This was late in the evening, around 10pm, when it's still very light here. So I'd like to think that this is Tsuro's friend.

We thought this might be a one-off visit as he was disturbed by the builders working next door, but he was back this morning so, maybe, we have a new resident rabbit. The next thing we'll need is a name for him.