With the promise of a fine but breezy day today, we took the car about five miles inland this morning, up into Sutherland's rather bleak moorlands, to a crofting township called Farlary, where we can walk easily up the gravel track to the Kilbraur wind farm and then back through one of the crofts where the owner has laid out paths through a mix of habitats.
On the open moorland the first flowers of the heather family are out. This is cross-leaved heath, always the earliest, but bell heather is also starting though not the ling. In the damper patches....
....we found the insectivorous round-leaved sundews, this one just coming into flower, and....
....in the wettest patches, another insect-eater, butterwort. However, as always, the show was stolen by....
....the orchids. This looks like northern marsh but there were only two of these in flower, while....
....some of the damper areas were crowded with heath spotted, the first we've seen this year. Their flowers vary from almost completely white to....
....white with purplish spots through to....
....quite spectacular pinks.
At first sight the Sutherland moors may appear bleak but, if one looks closely, at this time of year they're a paradise of grasses and wildflowers.
With the promise of a fine but breezy day today, we took the car about five miles inland this morning, up into Sutherland's rather bleak moorlands, to a crofting township called Farlary, where we can walk easily up the gravel track to the Kilbraur wind farm and then back through one of the crofts where the owner has laid out paths through a mix of habitats.
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