Littleferry Beauties

We were at Littleferry this morning to enjoy the summer wildflowers and were not disappointed. Some of the pleasure came from meeting old friends, like....

....the common toadflax which only occurs in one quite small area in the dune grass. We have its purple and pink equivalents in our garden but they are surpassed both by the size and vibrant colours of these wild blooms.

Of even more note was the finding of....

....this flower, once again in a fairly confined area. It's autumn gentian and what is particularly interesting is that we saw not a single one of these last year - it's a biennial. More, this is a subspecies which has white flowers (Gentianella amarella septentrionalis), rare enough to be classified as near threatened under the vascular plant red data list for Great Britain.

I was thrilled with this shot of a blue, thinking it was also a rarity, the small blue, but it isn't: it's a female common blue.

Not all of the walk was so happy. This is a moment's silence for two gannets washed up dead along the tideline.