Tuesday 2 March 2010

Second Day of Spring:Wastart Walk

One of Grey Granite's favourite rocks, a small erratic on the high cliff top close to Katty's Loup. Grey Granite particularly likes the isolation of the rock, its distinctive band of quartz and the small lochan reflecting the sky.
Today the sodden Wastart was bejewelled with small temporary lochans catching the afternoon sun. There were gleaming gannets, raucous corvids, soaring gulls, dapper oystercatchers, cormorants wearing their white Spring thigh patches and a pair of unusually vocal herons on the shore at Lochielair. The 'Roosty-Irony Burn' at Haven of Braco has been cleared and the sides scraped to a bare muddy mess. Boulders in the bed of the burn are stained rusty red and there is a surprising number of red sandstone boulders amongst the more usual grey stones. It will be interesting to note the pattern of plant recolonisation over the summer. A little snow remains on the sunless cliffs beyond the Pouk and as yet the Wastart remains devoid of real signs of new growth, the brightest green being water crowfoot in the Mill Burn.

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