Mopping up the Scots

Just to round off my Scottish holiday, which has dominated the blog of late, here are a final bunch of pictures and a brief discursion on the genitalia of the Ear Moth.

The first picture, as you will have detected, is not of moths but seals, those cuddly creatures which do so much, along with Beatrix Potter books, to anthropomorphise the animal world with not altogether helpful results.

Such is the power of modern cameras, even small digital compacts like mine, that this photograph revealed something I couldn't even begin to spot with my - admittedly ageing - eyes. All I could see, from about a quarter of a mile away as dusk , were some just discernable shapes on the distant rocks, possibly a tad lighter than the rocks themselves. The first photo is zoomed in and the second zoomed even more.

Then there were Colonsay's wildflowers. I have already gushed about the harebells, thyme and tormentil on the sheep-graze, grassy pastures behind the dunes, but there were also rarer treasurers such as the orchids above and below. I think they are Heath Spotted Orchids but please correct me if you know better.

I have already shown pictures of the lizard we met, which had out granddaughter merrily singing Old Macdonald had a Farm, but here are some better quality ones, available now that we're back home:

Ditto with that lovely butterfly, the Dark Green Fritillary, which skimmed around the marram-covered dunes; two pictures of a male first and then a female, topside and underwings:

Finally, not moths but seashells. The beaches were covered with lines of these at tidemarks, beautiful little things in all manner of colours and shapes. 

We spent a happy afternoon looking for the little pink cowries which wash ashore from time to time. Here is our haul.

I realise that I have run out of my time and probably your patience and so will delay my Ear Moth genitalia thoughts until tomorrow. Can't wait...