The tides are at neaps, the air is still and heavy, and the sun is high in a hazy sky - this is summer at last but with a sultriness which brought very welcome rain in both yesterday's and Saturday's late afternoons.
We walked our usual walk along the front below Dunrobin castle this morning, seeing....
....the first common blue butterflies, feeding on the bacon-and-egg flowers, and....
....a very chewed-up tortoiseshell feeding on sea campion.
We've seen alarmingly few butterflies during this warm weather though as soon as we went inland we saw far more. We didn't see a single one in our garden yesterday even though we were in it for much of the day and there are plenty of flowers, such as the aubretia, for them to enjoy.
On our way back we sat on the usual bench looking out across the sea and watched what we took to be one of the local mallard pairs escorting their only chick but when they reached the rocks we realised, with some surprise, that they were shelduck.
We've noticed a pair of shelduck here a couple of times recently so we're thrilled with the idea that they've manage to nest somewhere along this busy shore - though I shudder to think, with all the dogs, crows, gulls and stoats around, what happened to the rest of their brood.
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