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Photography Group One 1st May 2024
Ten of us met at the roadside Car Park in Finstown on a day with little wind and some low cloud but with the sun trying to get through. We set off to the Community Garden where we found lots of lovely colourful flowers out as well as tree buds bursting forth. The Burn was a great source of images.
Jocky Wood was painting a new picnic bench with the appropriately titled Wood Stain! He does a great deal of the work on the garden as well as his own just up the hill opposite.
Six of us then headed for Binsgarth Woods.
The track was muddy in places but the spring flowers were out all the way. There was Pink Purselaine, Wild Garlic, Wood Anemone, and the invasive Salmon Berry. Since the tree leaves were not blanketing the light, one was able to get good photos close up. The Burn had lots of interesting tree roots and hanging tyres and ropes from the kids' dare devil antics. Then it was back to the shop for rolls and along to Tom's house for a cuppa and a nice piece of cake. Thank you very much for that Tom and all the stories too.
The next meeting will be going to Westray on Wednesday 29th May for the day. Arrangement will be made nearer the time.
All in all a lovely morning, taking time to look at the flowers and listen to the Wrens, Willow Warblers, Chaffinches and Robins singing in the woods.
Keep clicking.
Walking Group One 25th April 2024
Five hardy souls collected today at Happy Valley for the first Hill Walk of the year .The temperature was cool with a North Easterly wind blowing and a hint of rain on arrival.
Off we set heading towards Russadale Quarry, spotting a Buzzard on the way.Turning into the footpath we remained sheltered from the wind all the way to the top of the hill.
The sun was out at the Quarry and a Greenshank was feeding at the edge of the Lochan. Then it was up the Peat road to the summit with spectacular views across Stenness and Harray Lochs, plus a view of the Closed Road beyond the Watch Stone. On the other side we looked over the Flow and down towards the Oil Platform and South Ronaldsay
Then it was back down after a stop for a snack and finally a walk around Happy Valley itself. The Daffodils planted by James and others were looking lovely and the Bluebells are days away from opening. Then it was on to a well deserved lunch at the Pier Cafe, having walked 4 miles and gone up 800 feet (and down again )
The next walk will be on Friday 24th May and hopefully more hills and views.
Keep moving.
BOTANY GROUP - Tuesday 13 June, 2017
by Rosey - 15:34 on 14 June 2017
13 th JUNE 2017
BOTANY GROUP
EASTSIDE, SOUTH RONALDSAY
Seven of us -Fiona, Peter, Jean, Bev, John, Beryl & Rosey met up in glorious sunshine at St
Peters carpark - particularly grateful to have missed a recent heavy down pour! We set off
on a pleasurable investigation of the flora along a path to the sea. The first vegetation was
mainly meadow heathland to the south of the church and there was much to see along the
way including field forget me not, red and white clover, dandelion, rib wort plantain, birds
foot trefoil, yellow rattle, field horse tail, ladies bedstraw, hogweed, flowering dockan, cow
parsley and red and white campion. There was a splendid northern marsh orchid growing in
isolation. Eyebright and buttercups (renunculis) were growing in profusion. One gem of
information we learned was that the sepals of the bulbous buttercup point down towards
the stem rather than up to the petals!
Nearing the beach there was lovely stretch of blue tinged lime grass -not maram grass as at
first thought by some of us. We discovered greater burdock, primrose, sea sand wort, fern
like yarrow and spear thistle. On the beach we identified orache and frosted orache, sea
mayweed, ragwort, sand sedge, sea rocket and many examples of the oyster plant in flower.
We discovered that this amazingly resilient plant had re seeded itself from much further
round the bay and is now lying in its glory much nearer to the entrance to the beach. Sadly
the sand dunes which separated the path from the beach are almost non existent here -
having been devastated by severe easterlies some three years ago.
Our third area of interest was a wetland area to the north of the kirkyard where quite a
large Winter lochlan has not dried up this year- in fact it has increased after the recent
heavy rains! There were many other plant species to be found here, not to mention some of
those already seen elsewhere -like yellow rattle and buttercup which were prevalent giving
a yellow haze to the fields & landscape. Fresh identities included shepherds purse, chick
weed, wild cabbage, pineapple weed, changing forget me not, ( named as this starts off with
white flower and after pollination they turn blue!). There was also sticky weed, stinging
nettle, marsh horsetail and many yellow iris.
At this point the clouds gave way to a few drops of rain beckoning us up the road to
Sorquoy for tea! Perhaps we could had persevered a little longer and found some rare
marsh flowers? However an excellent and informative walk and time was had by all. Our
thanks to John Crossley for joining us with his expertise!
Rosey.
Frosted Orache
Northern Marsh Orhid
Oyster Plant
The Day's Recorder
Winter Lochan
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