Backies Walk

One of the walks we used to do fairly frequently before moving to our new house was to cross the Golspie Burn and then climb steadily through fairly dense forestry into....

 ...the croft lands of Backies township. Today, regrettably, we had to drive to the start of that walk, and the weather wasn't too special.

Along the way, as well as noticing the large number of trees felled during last winter's gales, we found two more seasonal 'firsts'....

....yellow pimpernel, a flower which we've only found occasionally before but which seems to be having a good year, and....

....the remarkably similar but much more common tormentil, with its characteristic four petals.

We also spotted this rather fine fungus, growing on a dead gorse branch, and....

....yet another roe deer. Over the winter roe deer seemed to be an endangered species, now they're everywhere!

There was a good reason for our walk to Backies: we've been missing the free-range eggs from one of its crofts. Happily, there was a plentiful supply today, stored in an old fridge.