Willows

Yesterday Grey Granite read that willow catkins are invaluable in providing pollen, not nectar, for the earliest bees of the year. Today she went out in search of willows. Given that the temperature is 4 degrees C there were no bees visting the beautiful silky willow catkins in Strichen Road Park.

There is interesting information about bees on:

http://www.wildaboutgardens.org.uk/wildlife/insects/bee-bumble.aspx

Snowy Sea Buckthorn

Grey Granite found this beautiful sea buckthorn bush, clustered with berries growing in the hedge along Boothby Road. When she saw them yesterday the sun had just started to catch the upper branches, melting the snow and illuminating the berries so that they seemed to glow. According to Millken and Bridgewater writing in Flora Celtica, (Birlinn 2004) the berries are eaten by birds such as fieldfares however, whilst the roses and elders in the same section of hedge have been denuded of fruits, the buckthorn remains apparently untouched.

Walk in the park

Grey Granite was very dispirited by the snowfalls yesterday and last night. By this morning sufficient snow had accumulated to make walking an effort and Spring seemed to have receded . However, on a whim, she varied her route home from Tesco and walked through James Ramsay (Strichen Road) Park. As she crossed the park a blink of sunlight caught a group of elder bushes. The bushes hung with opening catkins and the remains of last year's fruits. More than this a small flock blue tits was feeding on the bushes, the sunlight catching their plumage. The birds seemed quite unaware of being watched as they moved from twig to twig. In the shelter of the trees clumps of daffodil leaves have reached about 7" high and are clearly showing flower buds and a myriad of small seedlings, as yet unidentifiable are showing through. Winter is, after all, passing.

Wastart Walk

A cold walk over a deserted Wastart to Craig Ogston, little colour, few signs of life on land. At sea a necklace of eiders, small rafts of half a dozen birds bobbing like corks, the showy males appearing to outnumber the douce females. Oyster catchers, noisy and conspicuous on the rocks near the Caffie Hole and the occasional fly past of gannets and cormorants.

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.