wildlife - Aaron’s Notes

On the Rocks

Asleep at the helm … a not-so-subtle Brexit reference … the wreck of the RMS Mulheim which ran aground in Gamper Bay near Lands’ End in 2003, when the chief officer tripped, fell, banged his head and passed out. She was eventually broken up and thrust into Castle Zawn where she remains.

A particularly dull photograph of the Long Ships Lighthouse on Carn Bras off Land’s End. That is … until you look at it full size and see the Scillies on the horizon. A full 28 miles away but clear as day … never had such visibility here.

Enys Dodnan … home of the handsome, fearsome black-backed gulls.

Slit arch at Nanjizal Cove.

Beautiful, filthy waterfall on to the beach.

On the inland route back to Sennen we foraged for deliciously ripe sloes, filling our empty lunch box with future christmas cheer. The fennel vodka is already maturing … nom nom nom.

Incredibly intense cornflower blue … cornflowers at the side of the path, Centaurea cyanus.
And eventually, safe back in harbour … long before sunset for once.

Old Dog

A Gatekeeper, Pyronia tithonus, a girl down from the moor.
I am gradually acquiring a very basic repertoire of common butterflies. So far, this year I have learned 5 new tricks. Good dog.

Almost as numerous as the Red Admirals — the Peacock, Inachis io.
It’s not nick-named the butterfly bush for nothing … Jeez.

A Small Tortoiseshell, Aglais urticae and then lastly a Speckled Wood, Pararge aegeria, up from the valley.

Luxuriating in a beautiful echo of summer down here.

Swamped

Just wandered out to get an image I needed of the sky and found the buddleja covered in butterflies, including this beautiful Painted Lady, Vanessa cardui. I didn’t know they were migrants too. Along with the geese and the cuckoos and the robins and the starlings and the …

I’ve got a horrible feeling that if we ever did stop all freedom of movement we’d die of lonely silent hungry thirsty brain-dead BOREDOM.

Gunwalloe

I’m not sure what it is but there were lots of these beautiful little things on the cliffs above Church Cove.

Now that I can identify: Atropa Belladonna. I assume the berries are unripe, I’m sure they go black but the blue and red were incredibly intense.

Down at Gunwalloe Fishing Cove, an exposed seam of quartz is breaking down.

Having dutifully applied my flying ointment (see above) I rode the air and looked down from a great height and saw … errr … or not. Scale independence.

… found a dragon trapped inside a rock … sort of … if you tilt your head and squint a bit.

And in the graveyard of St Winwalo’s Church, the saddest of stories in a few terse lines. Life really does hang by a thread.

Sunny Safari

One of a few Rose Chafers we saw patrolling the brambles, beautiful jewel-like scarabs (their vivid green produced structurally by left-circularly-polarised light rather than pigment, he said), Cetonia aurata, on the cliffs between Cape Cornwall and Sennen Cove.

There were clouds of butterflies in the fields behind the cliffs but the only one who was vain enough to pose for long was a male Gatekeeper, Pyronia tithonus.

And a herd of magnificent time-slipped English Longhorns.