Plant hunt by the A90

Grey Granite decided to try to find the elusive butter bur which she recalled having seen growing by the side of the A90 close to the Cortes junction. After walking along the horribly litter strewn verge for some time she eventually found the strange plant emerging from the ground. The flowers appear before the leaves, bursting from large pale green buds like spiky pineapples. The flowers are not yet fully open so Grey Granite will have to brave the traffic again in a couple of weeks time to photograph them. Walking back along the road Grey Granite was delighted to find that there is a sort of track, possibly the line of the road before it was widened, running alongside the main road but hidden as one drives along. This is being gradually reclaimed as a wild place with gorse, brambles, birches and alders colonising the space. In places there are beautiful clumps of pristine snowdrops. Closer to Fraserburgh the Philorth woods are carpeted in great drifts of snowdrops.