Mm Links July 2013 Week 4
Good morning and welcome to week four of the MM links competition.
You have had my past history as a dentist but now I am a full-time botanist. As I said last weekend I was going to spend a few days in Northumberland. This summer of ours continued even in the north and our days were sun-filled, and temperatures soared too. A day was spent on Holy Island, or Lindisfarne, where St Cuthbert (one of my monikers) was ensconced in the 7th century. He was one of our earliest conservationists looking after the interests of Eider ducks. A day was spent looking at the flora of the island with its own endemic orchid, the Holy Island Helleborine, but unfortunately it also suffers from a pest plant known as Pirri-pirri-bur which attaches itself it to all items of your clothing in order to distribute its fruits.
Time was also spent climbing in the Cheviots but it was uncomfortably warm and relatively unproductive. Some of us took a day off from recording and took a day trip out to the Farne Islands. Here we spent many a fruitful hour, David Attenborough-style, having close encounters with all manner of birds. Puffins were still there aplenty with bills filled with sand eels which glistened blue in the occasional sunshine. Pleasures abounded with close encounters with Shags with their chicks in various stages of development. Inner Farne was filled with thousands of Arctic Terns and it was a privilege to get up close and personal with them and their chicks. Also here was a strange plant that grows nowhere else in Britain, the Scarce Fiddleneck.
Weather-wise it has been a very strange summer, and one that we are not use to, such that I almost ended up with heat-stroke when we visited a fen on a very hot afternoon. Thankfully I recovered fairly quickly after a long soak in a cool bath, but it made me wary over the next few days, such that I supplemented my hat with an umbrella.
May you all enjoy the warmth and sunshine of this most unpredicted summer and good luck with the links.