To Backies for Eggs

We walked up to the old crofting township of Backies this morning in bright sunshine but with a forecast of imminent rain. Many of the fields which have been down to meadow this year are already harvested and the silage piled in large rolls wrapped in black polythene.

The roadsides verges are now dominated by long grasses, some already yellowing, and there are relatively few new wildflowers able to fight their way up through them, though this one, just under a metre tall, had managed to grow through and produce flowers of spectacular purple. We think it's a comfrey, though it's a late starter and may, from its brighter colour, be a hybrid called Russian comfrey.

There are also more toadstools appearing, some in bright colours, this being one of two which must have shot up through recently mown lawn in one of the very neat houses which are scattered throughout the crofts.

We were in Backies to collect half-a-dozen of our favourite eggs and on the road near the corner we came across what we take to be hedgehog poo. We hadn't seen one of these poor beasties in ages, not even flattened on the road, until a couple of nights ago when I saw one scampering across the playing field opposite our house, sadly in the late evening when a photograph would have been difficult.

Also near the egg cupboard, Mrs MW saw a large dragonfly zipping along the road, something rather bigger than the four-spotted chaser and two damselflies which has been the very disappointing count for us so far this year. So we made our way home via the skating pond in the hope of seeing one there but by the time we reached it the rain had arrived, and dragonflies don't like rain.