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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 -
by Beryl - 10:34 on 27 August 2016
The island of Wyre was the destination for the Group’s final outing of the year, on a still, mild day with occasional sunshine. John Crossley, the BSBI county Recorder was with us and keen to get a good list for a 1 km square (as part of the recording effort for the Atlas 2020 project). A passing islander suggested that we had ample time to walk the length of the island and back before the next ferry. She did not know we were botanists and that looking at all the plants along the way would make that impossible!
Some waste ground by the pier was productive; we compared the finer points of three species of Sow-thistle – Perennial, Prickly and Smooth – growing together, and there was a good variety of other weeds of cultivation there too, including Bugloss, a species not seen often nowadays and, it turned out, a new record for the island. Ambling up the single-track road from the pier, we found another weedy patch, with Common Ramping-fumitory flowering nicely, also Wild Pansy, Corn Spurrey, Knotgrass and lots of Common Hemp-nettle.
Cubbie Roo’s Castle was next, its walls adorned with a little fern, Wall-rue, a rare plant in Orkney. We also found it on the walls surrounding the nearby medieval chapel, where it had not been recorded before. The walls, banks and ditches of the castle are manicured but even so supported some plants we saw nowhere else, including Wall Speedwell, Field Forget-me-not, Marsh Cudweed and, in a little pool, Thread-leaved Water-Crowfoot, Common Duckweed and Common Water-starwort. Here a passing, very friendly collie dog took an interest in proceedings and ran off with a mouthful of Starwort. Patches of semi-natural grassland survive on steeper parts of the slopes surrounding the castle and these had three sedges – Glaucous, Carnation and Flea. The fruits of these were ripe and clearly distinguished the first two otherwise similar species.
After a look at ditches and marshy hollows with Bog Stitchwort, Marsh Marigold, lots of Water Horsetail and an occasional Blue Water-speedwell time was running out and we headed pier-wards. By this time we had recorded 90-odd species. Would it be possible to get a 100? The competitive spirit kicked in: with searches of roadsides, wet hollows and a narrow strip of saltmarsh the target of was easily surpassed, with a final total of 110.
Botany Group at Cubbie Roo's Castle
Marsh Cudweed at Cubbie Roo's Castle
Thread-leaved Water Crowfoot
Wall Rue - Cubbie Roo's Castle
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