Farmer and I headed off on Sunday to the very north of Scotland to look for a special flower. Luckily I knew where we needed to look!
Back in 2013 when we were invited to join the Coronation Meadows Project and I went to the launch at Highgrove, there was a small group of people from Scotland and we all huddled together waiting for Prince Charles to arrive.
There was only one other farmer as the other Scottish meadows represented there were managed by Wildlife Trusts or Councils. He came from Caithness and his meadow had the rare Scottish primrose, Primula Scotica. I hadn't ever seen one. Every year since then I have hoped that somehow we would be able to go and look for them. Unusually they flower twice, once during lambing time and then again in late June, early July.
I remembered Mr P the farmer from Caithness and looked up his phone number online. I spoke to him a few weeks ago, and he said he would keep an eye on the links and let me know when they were flowering. I had to take a chance and book some accommodation anyway which I did last week, thus avoiding S's idea of sleeping in the van. Thankfully it paid off and on Wednesday last week Mr P sent me photographs of it flowering.
Primula scotica/Scottish primrose is tiny, the flowers are less than 10mm across and they don't usually grow more than 4cm. We arranged to meet Mr P this morning and he kindly showed us where to look, and we found lots! Some were taller than 4cm, as was this one, probably about double that height. We spent nearly 2 hours wandering around the field once Mr P had gone, lost in a tiny world of miniature purple primroses and other damp floral jewels.
As well as the Scottish primrose, we saw Common twayblade everywhere, Kidney vetch, Tufted vetch, Black medick, Wild thyme, a white variant of wild thyme, Fragrant orchid, Early marsh orchid, Fairy flax, Marsh lousewort, Globeflower, Eyebright, Marsh marigold, Cowslip (over), Grass of parnassus, Cleavers, Birds foot trefoil. It was like walking on a painting everywhere you looked was another glorious combination of colour and texture and form. It was so interesting, not like our fields at all. It is semi-machair, very sandy but with boggy areas too. Very little grass! They graze it with sheep, and sometimes cattle, from early September until December and then again briefly in April.
By the time we left there it was quite wet and our feet were sodden. But I was (we were) very happy! We had lunch in Thurso at the YNot cafe. After that we decided to go to Dunnet Head in the hope that the cloud would lift and dry off and we might see some Puffins. It is the most northerly point in Great Britain apparently and has wonderful views, but we couldn't even see the end of the car park.
We pottered back along the coast, stopping for me to photograph some tin buildings I had photographed before, sat on a rocky beach where Farmers's eagle eye found a single Cowrie, and we watched fluffy Oystercatcher chicks.
Later we picked up gf pizza takeaway from the Melvich hotel for supper, took it home to the lighthouse and afterwards went for a walk in the clouds. We found lots of very very small Scottish primrose on the steep banks near the lighthouse, which are heavily grazed by sheep. They were much smaller than the one I have blipped, some barely a cm in height.
All in all a truly lovely day, in spite of the weather.
