We walked up Golspie Glen this morning in bright sunshine, with the new leaves in fresh greens on the trees and a mass of wildflowers in bloom which weren't out a few days ago.
I find identifying wildflowers hugely frustrating. I should just appreciate them for their beauty but, for no logical reason, I want to know what they are. Some, like wild garlic and....
....wood anemone, I know, but when....
....I find something new I have a problem. Usually, I can find it fairly quickly in some of the big books we have - I have one which goes by the name of 'keble-martin' after the author, which was given to us by dear friends a long time ago and is now very well worn - but our books are in store in Essex so I resort to search engines, and finding a plant takes ages. Anyway, I did identify this one: it's white comfrey.
With two more we found, I failed. The leaves on this look very like wild garlic but it produces a grass-like head. It's all over the glen and along some of the roadsides in Backies, so must be a fairly common plant, but I can't find it....
....any more than I can nail down this one, which is also all over the place, growing very close to water along the burns. It's very frustrating, which is why I end this post with....
....a bird, which I can identify. It's a grey wagtail, not to be confused, despite its colour, with the yellow wagtail which doesn't get up as far as northern Scotland in its summer migration. A pair were hunting insects along the dry bed of the burn and watching their aerobatics was a pleasure.
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