Bird's eye Primrose

Bird's eye Primrose Primula farinosa growing close to Haweswater Tarn, Silverdale.

I thought I would make Gus's woofing alarm clock work for me this morning, I got up at 6 and we were soon out walking to Gait Barrows in search of a Duke. But it was a bit too cloudy first thing, and there were no Dukes, indeed no butterflies flying. So I had misjudged it again - yesterday too hot, this morning too cool.

But I'm glad I was there early, for when the sun did show itself, it was still low enough to illuminate the tiny primroses with their even tinier dew drops. It may be difficult to get an idea of scale from this macro, these are much smaller and more delicate than their yellow primrose cousins. The individual flowers are hardly more than a centimetre across, the inflorescence perhaps 3-4 cm.

Scarcer plants do not always have the prettiest flowers, but this little primrose is an exception. This is a plant of northern England, where it is found mainly in areas flushed with lime. At Haweswater it grows on marl, a limey sediment that is accumulating and gradually filling up the tarn. It grows with the black bog rush, at one of its very few Lancashire localities.

After our morning walk, I did the second of my wetland bird survey visits this season. And after that, we spent most of the day tidying the garden, while Wifie was on the second day of her Tai Chi weekend.

A photo from our walk along the Kent estuary here.