Friday, May 20, 2022
I was reading about the last near-glacial period of about 12,000 years ago when my imagination was caught by its name - the Younger Dryas. It comes from the wildflower Dryas octopetala, or mountain avens as it's commonly called. This is because parts of the flower have been found in fossilised remains from both this and the Older Dryas (wildflowerfinder.org.uk), although another source (which I've forgotten) put it in a slightly different way - that this is one of the first plants to recolonise an area once the ice sheet has retreated. That's a lovely idea. At any rate, it's a plant that loves the cold, and it's almost always found in areas of limestone. I'd read online that the path up to the bone caves was a good place to look for it, so today we walked that path - half wishing we were continuing on up to the summit of Breabag once again.
The bone caves are spooky and worth a look, although I guess some children are disappointed that there are no bones to be seen there now. Come to that, I'm disappointed there are no bones to be seen there now!
We carried on along the path that traversed the steep slopes....
.....and at last found what we were searching for. I noticed the dark green, crinkly leaves first, and then found some buds. There were only a few fully opened flowers, so I'll have to come back in a week or so.
We rested at the bottom of the cliff and "cuckoo" rang out several times - with such a hollow tone that I thought the bird was actually inside one of the caves. But there it was on the skyline, above the caves, with a meadow pipit visible now and then protesting against its presence.
On the way back down, Greger pointed out some ghostly palmate newts in a very dark and murky pool - my first newts of the year.
We failed to see ring ouzels or dippers on our walk but did record a singing wheatear, a male stonechat, two ravens, a buzzard, and a willow warbler.
