In the summer, there was not much conservation work. Summer is the season of flowering and thus in summer, the volunteers spent most of their time on recording the types, the numbers and the location of the rare plants for monitoring their growth. The major rare plant they are working to protect is the marsh gentian, a rare plant of wet heathland that has declined markedly this century. Before summer came and from April, they made wire cages to cover the new leaves of the plant for protecting them from treading by the rabbits and other animals.

Early August, the plant finally flowered. Their delicate blue flowers did not come easily.

Then in mid August, their flowering has almost finished and volunteers removed the weeds surrrouding them and hoped their seeds could be dispersed and there would be more flowers next year.

I never like snakes, especially the poisonous ones. However, the volunteers of Buxton Heath are fans of insects and reptiles such as adders (the only poisonous snake native to Britain and are protected animals in Britain, see the left picture below) and slow worms (legless lizards and are protected animals in Britain, see the middle picture below).

April - May is their mating season when they come out from hibernation. The volunteers recorded and monitored the number of adders and slow worms during that period. They also created some basking places for these animals - tin sheets (see the right picture above). Whenever they found them, they were always excited while I usually just glanced at them and walked away.  

Last week, I have done something I could not believe myself - I cut off the gorses along the bank, just for those adders and slow worms! The reason is that they are cold-blooded but we human beings are warm-blooded (full of love). They hibernate from September to March and they need basking (sun bath) for keeping their bodies warm. They are living along the bank in Buxton Heath. If we do not cut off the gorses, they may grow so densely to block the sunshine reaching them. Anyway, I have done something good for them and for their offsprings even though I do not have a heart for them (the left and the middle pictures below show the gorses bushes before and after my cutting respectively).

Sheep were found everywhere in the Highlands. They were so cute.
One can also easily find the prickly purple thistle which is the emblem of Scotland (see the first picture on the left above).

Dunvegan Castle has been the stronghold of the Chiefs of MacLeod for nearly 800 years. The castle represents a typical example of the clan system in the Highlands of Scotland. Clans identify with geographical areas originally controlled by the Chiefs, usually with an ancestral castle or manor. The clan chief had duties in relation to clan members, which included providing help and support (including the allocation of smaller parcels of land) and, in the absence of any other legal framework, resolution of disputes and exercising justice. The clan chief could also demand that clan members join him either in defending clan lands or on raids on adjoining territory to extend clan lands or steal cattle. Each clan has its own tartan patterns. The clan system was the effective means of government in the Highlands from around 1000 AD until it was essentially eliminated by the British in 1745, due to partly the monarch’s wish to establish his authority and partly the influence of the Lowlands to the Highlands.

We had experienced hospitality and friendliness in Portree. Our accomodation was about half hour’s walk from the town centre. One day while we were leaving our accomodation for the town centre, a taxi suddenly stopped by us. The driver was an old man full of grey hair. He offered to give us a free ride. In his own words, “for showing our hospitality. I am going to the town centre anyway”.  Still, we were grateful for his kindness.

The pier of Portree was very pretty under the blue sky. There we met a local resident who pointed to us a seal emerging from the water (see the first picture on the left below). He said the seal came close to the pier and scared off the mackerels which he was trying to fish. We had a short chat. He was very friendly and showed us where we should visit in the Skye.

In the city centre, there was a Victorian market.

Not only one, but two brave men were found standing in the middle of the stream, just for fishing, bracing for the rain and the currents.

Loch Ness is the largest body of fresh water in Britain, holding more than all the lakes and reservoirs in England and Wales put together. It is 39km long, average depth of 132m. A cruise in it did not enable us to find the Loch Ness monster, but to reach the Urquhart Castle.

The beach with the old houses at the backdrop, is fascinating. One can simply sit there, watching over the tides going up and down, immersed in it. The beach scenes at the movie “Chariots of Fire” were also filmed there.

St. Andrews is the golf sport’s spiritual home and headquarters of its governing body. The old course there is one of the oldest golf courses in the world.

St. Andrews University, founded in 1413, is Scotland’s first university and the third oldest in the UK. It is a small university with 6799 full-time students in 2006/2007, representing about 40% of the total population of St. Andrews. The university has four faculties: arts, divinity, medicine and science. With divinity as a separate faculty and in the absence of social science or business faculty, one can see this university is focused on humanities. One of the famous alumni of the university is Prince William.

The new Scottish parliament building in Edinburgh was opened in 2004 following the devolution of power from Westminster to Scottish parliament. I was interested to see the building to find out what had made its final construction cost exceeding initial budget by 390 million British Pounds. Regardless of the appearance of the building, its location with the Arthur’s Seat (a hill) at the back has already won its credit. At the time of my visit there, there was no parliament sessions and anyone was welcome to visit its assemby hall and other meeting venues. It is indeed an open parliament.

Holyroodhouse (palace of Scottish monarch) is another interesting place in Edinburgh, not for its architechture, but for the legendary and tragic life of Mary, Queen of Scotland (1542-1587). She became queen of Scotland at 6 years old. At 15 years old, she married King François II of France. After her first husband died and at 22 years old, she married Lord Darnley who became arrogant and had attacked her and unsuccessfully attempted to cause her to miscarry their unborn child. One year after her second marriage, Darnley murdered her private secretary, David Riccio in front of her because he was jealous of her friendship with Riccio. The next year Darnley was killed and the killer was believed to be Bothwell who then became Mary’s third husband. Then she was imprisoned by the Scottish lords and was forced to abdicate the Scottish throne in favour of her one-year-old son. She then fled to England but was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth I of England for 19 years and was executed at 44 years old. Elizabeth I wanted to remove Mary because Mary was next in line to the English throne after Elizabeth who was childless. In the eyes of many Catholics Elizabeth I was illegitimate, making Mary the true heir.

Now is early summer. Heathers start to grow and insects start to become active.

The Heathers

Heathers are actually small woody shrubs.  They are the most frequent plants on heaths, covering usually about 30-50cm deep.  Three common heathers can be found in Buxton Heath:

 ling heather (has a flowering spike of pale pink flowers)

 bell heather (flowers are deep purple, bell shaped and hang downwards)

 cross-leaved heather  (leaves are in fours up the stem - if you look down on the stems the leaves look like a cross)

Orchids

   Although orchids are commonly used for decorating the home and offices, various species are easily found in heatherlands. Buxton Heath is no exception. 

Sundew

 Sundew look attractive - bright red, but they eat insects! You cannot blame them - they live in wet bogs which have very little nutrients. Their weapons are their sticky tentacles. When an insect is stuck in their tentacles, they exude digestive enzymes and dissolve the insect.

Ragged Robin

 Ragged robin has five petals deeply divided into four lobes giving the flower an untidy, ragged appearance.

Cottongrass

  The seed heads of cottongrass are covered in a fluffy mass of cotton which are carried on the wind to aid dispersal.

Yellow rattle

 The yellow flowers of yellow rattle occur in spikes. After they die, brown seed pods remain. When these pods are shaken, the ripe seeds inside rattle, hence the common name.

Silver-studded blue butterfly

  Silver-stubbed blue butterfly is so named due to the silvery blue metallic spots on the underside hind wings.

Dameselfly

   Damselflies are resting on the new pond made by us. We have especially added some sticks in the pond to give them more resting place. (Damselflies are similar to dragonflies, but all four wings of damselflies are near enough equal in size and shape whereas the hind wings of draonflies are usually shorter and broader than fore wings. Also, when at rest, most species of damselflies hold their wings along the length of their abdomen whereas dragonflies hold their wings out from the body, often at right angles to it.)

Living each day is a miracle. I feel lucky I am now living and studying in the U.K. and can be so close to the nature. I met many nice people here.

Look at the sky - life is a miracle.

Look at the roadside - life is a miracle. In summer, Cow Parsley has turned the bare ground to white flower bed.

With summer coming, Daisy and Buttercup are everywhere. Their bright white and yellow colors are telling us they should not be ignored. Do not forget me, said the Forget-me-not - blue flowers in blossom.

Daisy:

Buttercup:

Forget-me-not:

There are more and more, names known (yellow flowers below are Laburnum and violet flowers below are Wisteria) or unknown to me. Life is a miracle. Living each day is a miracle.

The mission for this visit in Buxton Heath was to dig a pond for the breeding of the dragonflies.

I had never expected that digging a pond was sooooooo difficult! The hardest part was to dig out the surface mud which was so deeply and intricately connected with the roots of the plants down into the surface. The clever way to do this was to use the sharp end of the shovel to cut into the mud and make a square, and then use the shovel to lift up the cubic shape of the mud. Sounds easy? Not at all. First you needed to have enough weight to make the sharp end of the shovel go into the mud. Although it was mud, its hardness was comparable to a rock! So the best way to overcome this was to jump your feet onto the shovel and so using your entire body weight to push the shovel down into the mud. Well, although I knew this was the best way to do it, I did not follow it because… I knew if I did I would slip over the shovel and fall over - the surface area of the shovel was very small and I was quite clumsy at this kind of “stunt”.

If digging the surface mud was so difficult, digging the non-surface mud should be easier, right? Yes, less difficult, but… still difficult for me. The non-surface mud was softer and less intricated than the surface mud, but nevertheless heavy, plus the weight of the shovel, god, I wish I could ask help from Giant Goliath.

If digging mud was difficult, maybe transporting the mud dug-out with a barrow would be easier. That was what I thought at first. So when the volunteer who worked with the barrow took a break, I volunteered to transport the mud with the barrow. My god! It was so heavy that at first I could not turn around the barrow which was pointing at a backward direction and then I could not make it move even for an inch! What made me feel ashamed was that that volunteer was an old man and he had moved the mud with the barrow back and forth for several times. (In fact, one of the volunteers who participated in digging the surface mud was also an old man.)

Due to the hard work of the volunteers (except me), we finished the pond-digging in about an hour. But we did not need to fill up the pond with water. It would fill up itself with water in one day - the water from the neighouring mud would slowly diffuse into the pond. Amazing.