Scilly, Part IV

 Wednesday, 6th July

On the 6th we decided to venture further into the island, and set off broadly in the direction of a circuit around Porth Hellick, Higher Moor and Holy Vale, with a return down Rocky Hill Road, where we had heard tell of Kangaroo Fern. We must have spent a bit of time in Hugh Town (I think we were lunch shopping), as Tim spotted Musk Storksbill on the side of a bit of rough ground/pavement edge. This completed our Erodium set; a satisfying feeling.

We came across a few plants, and the expected Greater Tussock Sedge in Higher Moor, as well as a few insects, including Rush Veneer. My photos of that are too out of focus to even post. Fortunately we bumped into a man who knew exactly where the Kangaroo Fern was, otherwise we'd probably have walked past it. 

We also had a lot of Rose Chafers, one of which we had seen earlier in the week.

A stand of Grey Alders were being dismantled by some cute Striped Alder Sawfly larvae.

Remarkably, we still had some energy to do an hour of rock pooling in the late afternoon, having been told that the closest pool to the beach is a good spot. It was still open to the sea at this level of the tide, but we found a couple of things, including the much-anticipated Star Ascidian.

Thursday 7th July

Today we decided to go to St.Agnes, though not before we finally got Smaller Treee Mallow, a species that gave us the serious runaround. Having been looking for a Tree Mallow, but a bit smaller, Pete finally bagged it after we had resolved that it was nothing like "a tree mallow". In fact it's a small herbaceous plant. which is probably a Tree Mallow by dint of being a Lavatera, which it isn't any more (spoiler alert - it's a Malva)

St.Agnes - not the most productive, but we caught up with Lampranthus deltoides finally

sand bar

Apparently I didn't take any pics of the nice patch of Yellow-horned Poppy , which is a bit of a shame. Here's some Sea Holly from Gugh instead.

We did visit the fantastically-named Wingletang Down, but to be honest there wasn't much to see there, with all the fancy clovers being apparently long-since over. Everything was dry as a bone into the bargain.

Best of the day for me was Goose Barnacles, attached to the bottom of a buoy near the sand bar.

Then a bit of mothing in the evening again, which also turned up Tubular Water Dropwort. 

Dolicharthia punctalis, a nice SW specialty

A bristletail, as yet unidentified

One of a few rowdy Cockchafers

Friday, 8th July

A last day (almost) to home in on target species with laser-like focus resulted in about a 50% hit rate on our list, with some records clearly having been not-to-be-repeated one-offs. You can see in the above track a failed attempt at what look like they must have been spoil heap plants at the end of the road, followed by a successful attempt on House Holly Fern in Porth Minick. We also managed to jam into a much-awaited Bermuda Buttercup along the road. It was the only one of the trip! Equally we found two plants of Small-flowered catchfly, one of which was still a bit green. The flowering, sadly, was clearly long over.

The weather was horrible throughout - yet somehow we muddled through.

Saturday, 9th July

Saturday morning was going to be all about sorting the luggage to be picked up and then maybe a brief local tour before boarding the ferry.. That's what it was going to be, at least, until I got a message before seven that there was Prickly Stick Insect to be seen across the road! We did have a half hour while our host changed out of his jammies, so luggage was hastily thrown together, breakfast was downed and we set off for a last quick feast of invert loveliness.

Prickly Stick

Privet Hawk

Four-spotted Footman

We set off toward the Garrison to look for a plant in Newman's Battery, which turned out to be a private garden, and not to apparently have the plant anyway. We did, however, manage to catch up with another dew plant - the mysterious, and much less common than we were led to believe, Heart-leaved Iceplant.

And that was that. Two of us gave it an hour up top on the ferry before settling in for a snooze. Pete quickly retrieved his car and was on e road, leaving Tim and I to pick up a few plants that we'd scooped gen from Seth's blog on - Pink-headed Persicaria, Rosemary, Krauss's Clubmoss and Canary Herb-robert were very quickly in the bag. Since my car was in the park and ride right by Guval Church and Tim needed to be back at the bus station it would have been rude not to.

By two the next morning I was safe and sound in bed in the Kingdom of Fife. Had it all been just an elaborate dream? Well, there are (some) photos. Time will tell whether there's enough on the islands to go back for. But then we didn't get sunfish. And I didn't get Wilson's. I reckon it's worth another visit.

And the obvious question? 176 species. So far.