Cullaloe Nature Reserve

For our Friday Fun Day, postponed from yesterday, we visited Cullaloe Nature Reserve in Fife for the first time. Most of the reserve is reclaimed from a reservoir and thus has different ecosystems, from meadow to marsh.

White butterflies flitted on small thistle and knapweed, as did speckled wood (collage in extra). We stopped at the 'observation screen', equivalent to a hide-with-no-roof-or-seats, with openings at different heights overlooking the remaining reservoir. Here we could see mute swans, mallard, a heron and a mystery bird, to be identified anon - there are water rail but I cannot confirm this.

The path from there is an undulating  single track, occasionally muddy, through grass and reedy vegetation alongside meadow, with woodland of alder and willow on the other side, down towards the Dour Burn. This path culminates at the edge of the reserve and the route back is in reverse.

My best plant spot was this Helleborine, which the phone camera identifies as Broad-leafed Helleborine (Epipactis helleborine) but I am happy to be corrected. There were two spikes, neither well-lit, the settings on the camera rendered those photos very dark so this is the phone doing its best! I have made a collage with a close-up of the more mature flowers to assist identification.

When returning we came upon a group of people inspecting the vegetation, they were from a natural history group, so I volunteered the location of my find to the leader and he was quite enthusiastic - perhaps I should have accompanied them to the spot to hear their comments.

Having begun the trip with coffee in Aberdour, on our way home we stopped a little while in Dalgetty Bay to sit and watch the Forth, then continued home for a rather late lunch.