The Cowal Peninsula, where we recently spent a holiday, is a rather complex mix of land, sea and also islands. The arrow on the map below points at Kames which is where we stayed.
At the southern end of the bit we were on there’s a bay with a big sandy beach. It is about a mile’s walk from a car park which is just about big enough for three cars so it is never going to be crowded. The walk down to the beach gives you a chance to enjoy some delightful flora and fauna and that’s what we’ll look at here.
We’ll start with knapweed which happens to be one of my favourite flowers.
There is ancient and fantastic woodland to pass through.
The bracken is wonderful too but there is a well-made path and you do not need to push your way through it.
Foxgloves, which I also love, grow along the edge of the path.
As you get nearer the beach area it begins to look a bit like Scottish machair scenery. The sandy soil produces other
plants.
There are harebells amongst the ragwort and other flowers.
Now harebells are another of my favourites.
There is life on the huge beach, but it was a long way from me so my much zoomed in photos aren’t special.
That’s as taken – already on an 18 times optical zoom. So below we’ll do a bit of digital zooming as well.
Aha! It’s a ringed plover. There were quite a lot of them scattered across the beach.
Right. That’s moved us on to the fauna so now we’ll return to the woodland.
This was a tiny bird, making use of a bit of man-made scenery. I’m not 100% sure but I think this is a young chiffchaff by colour but its size made me think young goldcrest. Any advice would be gratefully received.
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