ITS probably just coincidence or serendipity but whenever we go to Braunton Burrows in north Devon its believably hot. As part of a camping trip in early July whilst the better half sat on the beach I took the opportunity to go exploring the dunes, as the temperature soared.
The sand piles up into huge dunes held together with marram grasses. This site is a national nature reserve and is a wonderful example of dynamic dunes communities where the shifting sands with poor soils and often drying conditions makes the growing conditions for the plants quite challenging. There are also damp hollows with diverse marsh vegetation, including marsh helleborines, that were yet to flower.
Once past the grasping brambles the vegetation opens up with a spectacular show of flowering vetches, particularly restharrow, with evening primroses, Viper's-bugloss and pyramidal orchids:
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| Common centaury |
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| Sea bindweed |
A couple of mid-July lovelies from the Somerset Levels a few weekends ago: a green veined-white butterfly and a darter (common?):
The hobbies were on the wing and the grebes appeared to be still interested in nesting, surprisingly late and also slightly precariously...
WE quickly visited Gavarie, but were not very impressed by the village. In order to hunt for birds of prey though we drove up a local road going west, although it turned out that this was cut off due to a landslide. The road runs along the foot of a huge cliff where the birds can often be seen soaring on the thermals.
The flora on the steep hillside was interesting and the plants on the cliff were typical of high altitude species.
Looking across the deep river gorge a tame marmot stared back at us.
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| Pyrenean Saxifrage |
