Thursday 25 June 2009

Mull Orchids in June


my hobby horse:

once again our 'enviromentally friendly' council have contracted to cut the roadside verges at this time of year. Right now the road sides are full of wild flowers in full bloom, including birdsfoot trefoil, a valuable food plant for Butterflies. In flower are a variety of Orchids; The rare greater butterfly orchid, fragrant orchids, northerm marsh orchid and many others. In the next week they will all feel the blades of the mower, before they have had time to set seed and continue the renewal of older plants. If the council waited until the end of July to cut the verges then they would be behaving in an enviormentally friendly way.

On the bird front we have had an exciting month of June witha Scarlet Rosefinch being found in a garden at Kellan Mill by Loch na Keal on 16th and this is a first for Mull and only the 12th record for Argyll. We also have had a Lesser Whitethroat at Loch Buie reported by Ashley Saunders wh was leading a group from Oriole Adventures.

We have been enjoying some beautiful weather for the last three weeks now....it's got to break sometime soon. This image is of a Greater Butterfly Orchid.
28th June...............Good news about the grass cutting. Following my 'strong e mail' I have been informed that grass cutting here on mull is being delayed until the end of July period. This is great news


3 comments:

  1. Very glad indeed to hear about the delayed verge cutting. We have always thought the roadside wildflowers one of the glories of Mull when we visit.
    I wish our local authority up here in Redcar and Cleveland could be so enlightened. Emails to coucillors, officials, wildlife trusts etc couldn't shake their belief that our verges (in many cases 10 metres wide!)need to be "tidy". They are reduced to either a soggy mush or a brown mess, depending on the weather, every few weeks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Result! stick it to the man!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Outstanding Blog,loved everything.
    John

    ReplyDelete