Last Monday morning dawned another hot, sun-filled day. I was in Montrose and had Inka with me so I carried on to Lunan Bay which holds many childhood memories. I drove to The Corbies, a community of holiday cabins and caravans at the south end of the bay, which has been established there for nearly a hundred years.
We think of sticky willy as a tiresome weed that leaves its seed pods sticking to our clothes. It’s the plant’s way of spreading its seed and it would normally rely on passing animals such as rabbits or foxes catching the sticky burrs in their fur and depositing them along the way.
“Please slow down. Free range children and animals” greeted us as we arrived at Dalilea Farm on the north shore of Loch Shiel in Moidart. The Doyenne and I had booked a week in the chalet on the farm, looking out over cattle-filled grass parks and onto the loch. I had last spent a family holiday at Dalilea sixty years ago when it was run as a guest house.
May through to August are the best months to see a number of our larger seabirds when they come ashore to nest. The rest of the year they are roaming the seas and hardly come near land. So I take a drive at this time to see the seabird colonies at the RSPB reserve at Fowlsheugh – appropriately, bird cliff – between Stonehaven and Catterline.