An Early Winter Chill

On a grey day, with a building southwester and the temperature struggling to reach 12C, we walked along Golspie's beach this morning in the company of a few sea birds, including curlew and oystercatcher, and a sprinkling of dog walkers, before.... 

....returning along the links where there was a little more to see, although nothing that was novel.

Some plants manage to flower right the way through the season, with pansy probably the most persistent, followed by....

....bird's foot trefoil, the bacon and eggs plant, though of both of these we saw only a thin remnant. 

I do not understand what is happening to the white gentians, such a pretty flower if they have the chance. Some have simply died, others have remained a yellow-green and made an attempt to produce some blooms, but none looks happy.

The only plant that is in rude good health is the ling, though even it is fading under the first chills of an early oncoming winter. I don't know what a 'normal' autumn is like in Golspie but even the locals are commenting on how unseasonably cold it is: when I went out into the garden to feed the birds this morning the thermometer showed a miserable 8C.

I said we had found nothing novel on our walk - but perhaps we did. I can usually find a caterpillars identification after a hunt on-line but this, rather fine specimen has eluded me. Maybe it's something very, very rare.