Scillier and Scillier

Hello Dear Readers,

Part two of the Scilly trip, as promised.  On Monday we went to the island of St Agnes for Mark to do another Wildlife Trust talk and for us to finally start on our collections.  Here is Megan carrying the plant press around in the field.

After some hot dusty plant collecting work we found the pub near the harbor and sat for about an hour, drinking and relaxing.  It was such a hot day that I even braved taking of my stuffy boots and plunging my feet into the glacial waters.

That's as far as I got, but Mark went knee deep, and Elisa went up to her waist!  Apparently after a while you don't feel the cold but I wasn't going to stay in there long enough to find out.  It sure was pretty to look at though, look how BLUE!!!

There was even a lovely blue butterfly on the island which we saw all over the place.  I managed to catch two in the act, but what I like about this photo is how you can clearly see the difference between the dorsal and ventral views of the wings.  You wouldn't know they were the same butterfly if you saw them separately
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The butterflies were on the island of Breyher (pronounced like Briar Patch) where we went on Tuesday.  This was probably the smallest island we went to, only 1.5 miles long and 1 mile wide.  The most exciting part of being here was searching for the dwarf pansy.  It was a beautiful flower (damned hard to photograph though) but it was also hilarious watching a whole group of botanists butts in the air admiring this little gem.

Here is one of my best attempts at photographing it, with my 10x loop for scale.  The pansay is the little purple splotch...... you can try clicking to make it bigger, but I don't think my macro setting was really up to it.

Wednesday was a "free day" in that Mark didn't have to give a talk, so we did some more serious collecting around St Mary's, with plenty of time for fun of course.  Megan explored some exciting rocks (in some exciting home made leg warmers to protect her sunburned legs).

And we climbed to the famous preacher's rock, no mean feat for someone like me who is a bit skittish of bouldering after that nasty accident when I was a camp councilor....

We hiked out to the site of neolithic burial chambers and settlements, here even before the Romans came.

And our real free day on Thursday was spent finding PUFFINS!  We took a boat that specifically promised we would see puffins and seals and they were not wrong.  They live mostly on the uninhabited (by humans anyway) islands of Annet and Samson.  This is probably the best shot I had of the birds, but they were everywhere.

 Kate had a handy monocular since the puffins are a bit shy and tended to fly off as we got close.

This seal on the other hand seemed almost too happy to pose for use as we came by. Not shown in this photo is the baby seal that was swimming nearby, perhaps that's why (s)he? was waiting around.

Friday was our last real day of work so Thursday night we had a bit of a celebration in the Barracks by lighting a bonfire in one of the old gun wells.  We had a grand old time finding dead wood in the nearby foresty area and burning as much as possible.  We grilled meat and veggies, invited the ornithologists over (they were looking for shags.  Honestly, it's the name of a bird!) and had a grand time singing songs (that was me and Kate) dancing around the fire in our bras (that was just Kate) and listening to tunes on my iPad (that was me).

Friday we spent on the island of St Martins and made a feeble attempt at collecting, but by this point we were all totally knackered.  After hiking out to see the famous Scilly Ant and giving up our search for the Scilly bee, we took to the beach, as it was probably the nicest day we had.  

 Kath made the mistake of lying too long in one spot so she got covered in sand and turned into an exquisite mermaid princess, complete with seaweed wig and merkin, as you do.

Clockwise, starting from me, Kath, Elisa, Megan, Kate, and Jacquie

Nothing left to do after this but catch the ferry the next morning, wait till 5 pm in Penzance and take the 6 hour slow train to London (thank goodness for iPads and knitting) and arrive at 1 am in Paddington station.  Phew!  What a great trip!

So much more has happened since then but this post is already long and photo heavy so it'll have to wait till next time.

Cheers!