A Farlary Walk - 1

It does seem that, every time we drive the few miles inland from Golspie to the Farlary croft where there are some wonderful walks laid out for our enjoyment, a superb wildlife experience starts with raptors. Last time it was a red kite, today we had a fleeting view of a small raptor flying very low and fast across the heather. It might, just might have been a merlin: if only it had stopped long enough to have its portrait taken!

Almost the next thing we saw was....

....this unusually-marked bird, almost certainly a buzzard, perhaps a juvenile, circling above the heather.

What followed in the next few hours was a joyous walk through varied habitats which gave us sightings of one beautiful creature after another. Having moaned about the dire state of the butterflies in our garden we did see some....

....butterflies, including a tortoiseshell and several peacocks of which this was the finest, but they were hardly out in any numbers. We also....

....reacquainted ourselves with some beetles including this one, which flew across and landed at our feet on the path. I think it's a dor beetle, one of several British dung beetles.

We came across this large caterpillar as we crossed some open, ling-covered moorland. While it looks like the caterpillar of the fox moth this species doesn't usually have white patches along its side. It was lying in the middle of the path so we moved it to the safety of a heather bush.

We have seen the first normally-coloured fly agaric of the year but this looks like an orange version, sadly slightly past its best.

I have no idea what fungus this is. It's a good 4" across and looks damp. I'm fairly certain it's a pore - the only way of being sure would have been to break one off, which I wasn't prepared to do. Whatever it is it's rather beautiful, nestling contentedly in the heather.