Thursday 10th September

Just back from a few days in Spain, where I remarkably sighted not a single butterfly and very few notable birds apart from an azure-winged magpie and one large looking lark that was hanging around the scrub in the storage area at Faro airport.

There were a lot of fantastic South American trees in the Alcazar Gardens at Seville that I wouldn't seek to identify but there was quite an interesting example of a feeding frenzy of hungry carp.

The day after however my attention was drawn to one particular tree that I instinctively thought I would be able to identify, and unless I'm much mistaken it's a young Montpellier Maple:

Montpellier Maple

Returning to normality, did the bike ride to New Abbey yesterday in very overcast conditions.  There was a healthy gathering of house martins hunting flies over Lochrutton Loch, but no longer any signs of swallows though it seems a little early for them to return home to Africa.

On the way back past Kirkconnel Flow, I noticed a large amount of a pink flowering plant that I'm sure i have seen many times, but could not put a name to. It doesn't warrant it's own mention in my Book of Wildflowers, so again it was thanks to the folk at Dumfries and Galloway Wildlife and Birding that I can tell you (if you didn't already know) that it's Himalayan Balsam.

Himalayan Balsam

Around the garden, peacocks but only peacocks are still enjoying the remaining buddleia.