Treshnish Farm: 25th June 2020 #30DaysWild

Treshnish escaped the worst of the thunder storms, thankfully, and it has been sunny most of the day in spite of the forecast. We had errands to do this morning which took us over the hill road to Dervaig and down to Croig. Farmer went to the Post Office, first time he has been to the shop in 3 months, while I went egg-dumping*. I have only been once in that time too. We are so lucky having all our food shopping delivered to the road end. *New hens laying now so whilst we have no guests we have a surplus of tiny eggs!

We walked the dogs on to the Point, leaving Jan behind this time, so it was a lot more relaxing. The field beyond the Haunn Cottage, imaginatively named 'Beyond Haunn' is mainly traditional unimproved grassland and poorer ground. The poorer ground is a strange mixture of dry areas on top of rocky outcrops and damp almost boggy patches so there is a good mix of plants. Bog asphodel everywhere, huge swathes of it, and on the edges of the rocks Stonecrop, Mountain everlasting, Thyme, Birds foot trefoil and lots of grasses going to seed.

We haven't seen Six spot Burnet moths for several years at Treshnish until I saw one fleetingly a week or so ago, so it was very exciting to see LOTS of them today, in this field and on the Point itself.

The steep south facing bank (cliff) used to be a carpet of Heather but something changed and the heather died back, we think possibly a beetle. The last time we walked there we were glad to see that it seemed to be regenerating from the bottom and coming back, but the dying back process has allowed lots of pollen rich plants to move in, like the Bedstraw and Birds food trefoil and huge patches of Bloody cranesbill interspersed with Fragrant orchids.

The warm still air was heavily scented with Lady's bedstraw and Fragrant orchids, and there were so many Butterflies. As well as the Six spots, we saw numerous Dark green fritillaries, Meadow browns, Common blues, Small heaths, a white one I didn't identify, a Snout moth and a couple of Chimney sweeper moths. It was a magical sight - everywhere we looked there was something flying around!

I walked home and Farmer went off to put two lamb escapees back on the other side of the deer fence so they could be reunited with their mother.