We walked along the beach at Littleferry today with the tide low exposing miles of sand which we shared with just one family of four and their collie. We can't understand it - many of the other small towns and villages along the North Coast 500 are packed, the locals complaining about the overcrowding - see BBC report here on Durness' problems - yet the Golspie area seems deserted.
The only other person we met was a lady walking from the Golspie caravan park, where she told us that few of the statics are occupied, though she said that this was because all are privately owned and not for hire.
The beach itself was fairly deserted of remarkable wildlife too, though we did find two of these slug-like animals, each about 3" log, which we have since tentatively identified as sea hares.
The machair too seemed quiet, with significantly fewer insects on the wing. Amongst the butterflies we saw plenty of common blues, a few meadow browns, and some of the pretty small heaths; the larger butterflies were conspicuously absent.
The white gentians are still in flower but many more plants which look like gentians....
....seem to be taking their time. They also have a paler leaf colour and, if one looks closely....
....the buds are darker, almost chocolate in colour. Perhaps these are a different gentian, more like the usual violet one, or.... could these be a new species of chocolate gentians?
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