Glen Maye 1

Not a fin in sight - but flowers and birds  galore!

 

Tuesday 25th June, 2013

 

Sunday's email from Dorothy said "How about a Tuesday start from the Raggatt. Trevor is hoping to see Sharks on the way to Glen Maye."  The weather forecast was good and this is one of our favourite walks - the only sad thing was that we had no little black Schipperke to keep us company.  Danny has developed Idiopathic or “Old Dog” Vestibular Disease, which has affected his balance.  His condition is improving but I doubt whether he will be able to cope with a long walk again. 

 

It was a warm morning and we had only walked a short distance before we needed to stop and take off a layer of clothes.  The route starts off along sheltered farm lanes which were overgrown with grasses.  The banks were sprinkled with white hogweed flowers and pink campion.  We weren't quite sure about the crop with the yellow flowers in one field but decided that it was most likely to be rape.  It was definitely a member of the crucifer family.

 

 

 

Looking down at the ground, I saw some pineapple weed (Matricaria discoidea).  It is an interesting little plant - an immigrant from North America.  Nobody knows whether it got its common name from the appearance of its flowers or from the sweetish, slightly pineapply scent of the crushed flowers.  After reading about pineapple weeds, I discovered that the flowers are edible, although bitter, and the plants have various medicinal qualities.  I may be brave enough to eat one if I come across them again on our wanderings.

 

 

 

On the path up the back of Peel Hill we were accompanied by a number of small heath butterflies (Coenonympha pamphilus).  They are one of the smallest of the butterflies that we have on the Island - a similar size to the the common blue and holly blue - with a wingspan of just 30 to 37 mm.  They were rather active and hard to photograph and have an annoying tendency to rest with their wings upright instead of spread out - so it is difficult to photograph the upper side of their wings.  When we reached the point where our path met the path down from Corrin's Folly, I saw two mating small heaths in the long grass.  The photo shows them larger than life-size.

 

 

 

Then we walked over the ridge and looked eagerly for the basking sharks which had been seen in the vicinity recently.  The sea was anything but a surfer's paradise.  There was hardly a ripple to disturb the surface . . . and there was not a fin in sight.  The basking sharks often float just below the surface with just two tell-tale fins emerging from the water.  If you are knowledgeable about the species you can calculate the length of the shark from the distance between the dorsal and the tail fins.  Someone told me how to do it once, probably Trevor, but I have forgotten. (PS  I looked it up.  It isn't complicated - you just take the distance between the fins and double it!)

 

 

 

We turned south through a gate on to the the path leading to Glen Maye.  The path along the cliff tops was very overgrown with flowering grasses.  There were a few patches of white pignuts near the beginning of the path but I was more interested in the extraordinary variety of grasses which are really quite beautiful.  I could have spent hours examining them but I was already getting left behind the rest of the group.

 

 

 

I have a book about grasses, ferns, mosses and lichens but still find it almost impossible to tell one from another.  But I am fairly confident that the following photo is of  Holcus lanatus L.

usually known as Yorkshire Fog.  I had just assumed that the common name was derived from the usual meaning for fog - but apparently in North Country dialect "fog" means any coarse winter grass that grows after the hay has been cut.  It may have come from the Old Norse fogg, meaning a long, limp, damp grass.

 

 

 

I was hoping to see some pink thrift (Armeria maritima) on the walk.  The flowers on the first plants that we came across had already faded but the old "everlasting" flower heads looked quite pretty mixed with the blue of the sheep's bit (Jasione montana) and the pale pink English stonecrop (Sedum Anglicum).

 

 

 

Another feature along this stretch of cliffs was a number of large patches of hogweed, not the alien giant variety which we encountered last week, but its more benign native relative - the common hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium).  I didn't feel that common hogweed deserved a whole photo just for itself, but the plant in the lower right corner was prepared to share with a view of the cliffs - looking back along the coast.

 

 

 

A little further on we passed some pretty patches of thrift which were still pink.  The taller reddish flowers growing with the thrift are common sorrel (Rumex acetosa).

 

 

 

More stonecrop and friends.  Stonecrop has a special significance for me.  I remember it from our first walk along these cliffs.  We took a bus to Glen Maye to view a house to let and walked back to Peel.  I never forgot the stonecrop even though I had no idea what it was called in that summer of 1990.

 

 

 

 

We were entertained by some large gulls, flying overhead and making an unusual noise.  They were greater black-backed gulls.  I don't know whether we were too close to their nesting site for comfort or whether they were trying to steal eggs or chicks from some other gull nests.  They are rather large and fearsome birds so we moved along quickly until Tim pointed out a little bird sitting on a sprig of gorse.  I took two photos but the camera managed to focus on a single sprig of grass between me and the bird.  So I got two photos of a sprig of grass with a blurred bird in the background . . . and then the bird flew off.  Luckily we came across an identical bird (probably the same one) a little further along.  This time I got a reasonable photo which confirmed my opinion that it was a male stonechat (Saxicola torquata) - even though he was singing a rather pleasant little song rather than their usual alarm call which has been described as sounding like two stones being tapped together. 

 

 

 

I would like to think that there might be a puffin living in this hole - but it is more likely to belong to a rabbit.

 

 

 

I was excited to see another cormorant nesting site.  This one was precariously perched on the cliff face high above the sea.  They were too far away to see clearly with the naked eye.  It was just the pale discolouration of the rock face that first caught my attention.  But with the magic of the zoom it is possible to pick out six or seven nests.

 

 

 

This photo, taken from a little further along the path, puts the nesting site into context.  Trevor says that it is possible to climb down to this sheltered little beach but there is no path so the birds are unlikely to be disturbed by humans.  The cormorant nests are on the white patch of rocks above the far end of the beach, towards the top right corner of the photo. 

 

You may be able to make out some pale blobs at the bottom of the photo.  They look rather like pebbles but they are gulls sleeping with their beaks tucked under their wings.  It was a very peaceful scene.

 

 

To be continued in part 2.