Glastonbury Thorn in Buchan



Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) flowering in the hedge at Invernorth.

Just as I was photographing this a flight of about nine swans flew over, trumpeting loudly as they passed low over the fields. Whenever Grey Granite sees blackthorn blossom  she is reminded of the legend of the blackthorn on Glastonbury Tor which is said to have sprung from a staff, belonging to Christ, brought to Britain  by Joseph of Arimathea after the crucifixion. All the blackthorns in the country are reputed to be off shoots of this one plant.

The Wastart springs to life

The Pouk is running high and there are still many temporary lochans and dubby patches on the cliffs.The grass has not yet started to grow.

The first coltsfoot flowers of the year are always to be found near the Swine Burn. Later they will be replaced by kingcups.

A warm (16.5c) sunny day with a warm breeze from the SW and we enjoyed a walk over the dubby  Wastart to the Pinkie Shore. It was windy enough to be a 'dirty British coaster butting through the Channel on the mad March breeze' sort of day. In London last week, Grey Granite had seen violets and primroses in full flower but doubted that this would be the case on the Wastart. A search of all the usual places for the first violets drew a blank but there was one solitary primrose in  a sunny but inaccessible place on the cliff at the eponymously named Pinkie Shore. There were masses of colts foot flowers by the Swine Burn and lesser celandines in the grass close by. The grass has not yet started to green up. The clump of saffron yellow crocus by the Furling Gatie is in full flower, Grey Granite notes that this clump, presumably from a garden throw out corm, has steadily increased in size over the last twenty or so years . All along the coast there was great bird activity, several eider fly pasts, and cork like eiders bobbing on the waves along with cormorants and gulls. We sent a flock of curlews up as we crossed the first field. There are cattle out at Poukburn. Rufus celebrated the beautiful day by dashing madly up and down the sides of the Pouk and other nameless burns barking at the water which is still running fast.

Celandines

This morning we walked through Philorth Woods where the carpet of snowdrops is being replaced by the  yellow stars of lesser celandine, fully open in the sunnier places. The wood now smells strongly of garlic and in places was raucous with the cries of nesting rooks.

Daffodils

This afternoon we found a clump of fully open daffodils at the dyke side opposite Peathill Kirkyard. There was also a single primrose in flower in a favoured sunny spot under the corner of the  dyke at School Croft and occasional coltsfoots in the lane between the manse and the old school,  perfect examples of the benefit of a favourable microclimate. It will be some time before the primroses are flowering at the exposed Pinkie Shore

Sweet Thames Flow Softly

Grey Granite has lately returned from a week spent in London a city of contrasts. Her impression is of hustle and bustle, claustrophobic numbers of people, unrelenting traffic and aircraft noise. She clearly is no longer suited to urban life but brings home images of long tailed tits by the Thames at Chiswick, a male yellow brimstone butterfly in the grounds of the National Archives at Kew, camellias and magnolias in Kew Gardens, where there were also screeching flocks of wild green parakeets. Walking by the Thames she came upon the Kew Riverside Two Lipped Door Snail Reserve and thought this to be quintessentially English. In the graveyard of St Anne's Church on Kew Green, where she was vainly searching for the grave of Joseph Hooker, Grey Granite found huge patches of strongly scented sweet violet (Viola odorata) and clumps of dog's mercury (Mercurialis perennis). Grey Granite was greatly disturbed by the  contrast between a  bundle of dirty rags by an old pram in a side porch which turned out to be a human being living rough and a notice in the main porch appealling  for help towards the £1500  cost of maintaining the church for a week.

Returning to Buchan, breathing fresh clean air, and hearing great skeins of geese pass over head and seeing the buzzards circling over Cairnbulg Castle woods Grey Granite felt that she had been restored to her true habitat.

First butterfly of the year

March 1st,  first day and of meteorological Spring and to celebrate a rather ragged small tortoise shell butterfly tempted out of hibernation by the warmth of the sun.