Ribbons of Lace

As mentioned previously this is the second of two blogs that has been tossed around for a bit before publishing and dates from Sunday, 16 June 2013.

Driving through the local lanes in June, one of the sights that always grabs me are the ribbons of white fluffy Cow Parsley flowers that coat mile after mile of verge. The white inflorescences of the Cow Parsley when viewed en-mass like this, gives the impression of being miles of white lace stretching ever onwards. Just like someone has dropped a roll of lace that has kept unwinding into the distance, as they try to catch the reel and tame the escaping lace.

Ribbons of Cow Parsley – 16 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Cow Parsley flowers are born in complex umbels, where the main spokes of the inflorescence bear groups of smaller spokes, seemingly held together by a ring of purplish bracts. The florets are then at the end of these smaller spokes, which produce this gently rounded structure. The flowers are made up of five uneven sized petals, the largest of which is at the top of each floret, giving them a distinctive pentagonal shape. Then the florets on the outside of each of these tiny umbels have had this central petal further enlarged, so as to give these small umbels a pentagonal shape as well. Put all of these tiny flowers together and a large rounded umbel is produced, mixed these with a pair of white anthers that rise above the each flower and an amazing fluffy lacy effect is produced.

Cow Parsley Lace – 16 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato More!!

Having pulled my hair out and bitten my nails to the cuticle while writing an article for publication, I’ve been tossing a couple of blogs around for a while without actually finishing either – so here is the first from way back on the Tuesday 04 June. Enjoy!!

There are some jobs that are just perfect, especially ones that involve sitting on the top of a cliff when the sun is shinning, there was no wind blowing and the only task you have is to count sea birds that are clinging perilously to a rock face!! Wow! Sometimes the days are just brilliant!

So there I was sitting on top of a cliff at Nunnery Point, part of St Abb’s Head National Nature Reserve, where the sun was shining, and the sky was blue. The sea was almost dead calm, just a gentle roll and so very blue, like that of petals of a Cornflower. This blue changed slightly as the sea swelled gently making the blues deepen and lighten as the light reflected slightly differently from the surface. These two facts together, with the warmth of the sunshine, made the scene almost hypnotic, one that you would want to loose yourself in and so one where the call of a Siren could almost have been believed in. Even the passing of a cargo ship hardly altered the regular rolling of the sea, producing just a gentle ripple that rolled out from the ship and combined with this gentle hypnotic roll.

The Longstone – 04 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Dragging myself away from the hypnotic effect of the sea, to the task at hand – counting, in fact counting Guillemots and Razorbills. Mmm – so count the black dots against a grey or white background. Luckily most of the birds are confined to the the white areas of guano, while the grey areas that may camouflage the dark birds mainly lack bodies, but still need to be checked. OK – sounds simple enough, but where to begin and how to recognise which areas have already been counted. “Now is that the crack I counted to before or not!!” It was supposed to be so simple!! But have I counted that crowd of birds been counted before or not?

The Rock – 04 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Having practised a few times and having sorted the rock into what I hoped where easy to identify areas, I began to count again. One, two, three, four….. Hang on you’re not a Guillemot, your a Razorbill, so one, two, three …… “Excuse me, are there any Puffins here?” asks a passing visitor – oh ho hum!! “Just a few. Best time to see them is at sunrise or sunset, I think” Now where did I get to – one, two, three…… And so the day progresses. Counting gets easier, providing the interruptions are few, luckily the birds seem to be on my side for once, they don’t move around much, just a few stretches of the wings or a niggle with their neighbour, as they incubate their egg. These few stretches though allow for some amazing glints of iridescent blue within the feathers to be revealed, as the sunlight catches them. Wow! This makes the Guillemots and Razorbills more than just plain black and white birds, but gives them something special, a view just for the person who was looking at that specific moment.

Guillemots – 04 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Thoughts from a Hillside

Finally the beginning of June saw some good weather, so for the first Sunday of the month we were making the most of it and found a place in the sun, part of the way up a hill, over looking Loch Leven and the associated  RSPB wetlands. Here with the bright blue skies and sunshine, the temperatures were warm enough to make the water shimmered gently in the afternoon heat. With the temperatures rising gently, it might mark the final arrival of spring, now that June is here and summer is not supposedly not far away.

Loch Leven Wetlands – 02 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Sitting on the hillside looking down towards the lake, the trees are now all in leaf producing a mixture of greens from the spring green of newly emerged leaves through to the dark rich greens of summer. The bank of green was highlighted by the occasional Bird Cherry that was covered in long white inflorescences and the odd Rowan with umbels of cream flowers. In front of the trees the Bracken has begun to unfold their new fronds and hide the dead brown stalks of last year. Scattered amongst these spring green fronds were the bright blue flowers of the Bluebell, producing distinctive contrasting patches of colour.

Sheep Sorrel Carpets – 02 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

In patches where the Bracken had recently been cleared, the ground was covered by carpets of Sheep Sorrel that were now covered in reddish orange flowers. When first looked at the flowers of Sheep Sorrel look like small brightly coloured pustules, as they crowd round the central stem. But in fact they are actually simple flowers, lacking properly developed petals that en-mass produce this distinctive reddish orange carpet. The area was then highlighted by clumps of Wavy Hair-grass, with their rich green needle-like leaves, topped by the the metallic spiklets of flowers that will shortly open out to shimmer and shine in the sunlight.

Wavy Hair-grass – 02 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)