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Barns Ness

Tilly and I went for a walk at Barns Ness yesterday.  This is an area just along the coast from Dunbar.  It is one of the four sites which forms part of the grazing survey I am helping with.  Sheep having been grazing here, and certainly the larger of the three paddocks, where the sheep have been contained, is full of flowers.  Lots of lady's bedstraw, wild thyme and bird's-foot-trefoil, which we used to call bacon and eggs, when I was a child!  The mix of scent from the lady's bedstraw, and lots of white clover, was spicy, sweet and delicious.

 Barns Ness is a popular spot for fossil spotters.  Tilly and I walked along the beach, and in the rock pavement I could see signs of coral fossils.  I know absolutely nothing about fossils, but it is a thrill to still be able to see something that lived millions of years ago.
There is a lighthouse at Barns Ness.  Its first beam shone out across the Forth on 1 October 1901, and was eventually de-activated in 2005.
A little further down the coast is the brooding box of Torness Nuclear Power Station.  Roll on 2023, its proposed decommission date.
 
This is what the grazing project is all about.  Exquisite butterflies, and bees buzzing from one flower to another.
 This is a lovely little collection of wild thyme, eyebright and lady's bedstraw.
and not forgetting, a beautiful example of the flower of Scotland!

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