Visiting Inchnadamph on 2nd June, we walked up the Traligill valley to find some wild flowers.

Wild?

Oh yes.

We know that we’re too late for the main show of mountain avens, but we’re hoping to see some orchids and, further up the valley, a burnet rose.

Mountain avens taken last year on 12/5/24 by the roadside at Inchnadamph:

Mountain avens this time in Traligill:

Just past the hostel and couple of houses, the view opens out to a grassy meadow and four wych elms along the limestone crag to the left.

There’s about two dozen red deer sitting in the field, relaxed and comfortable.

They’re the professional lawnmowers that make sure that new trees and many new plants can’t exist in this vast area; pretty much as far as the eye can see.

Except for inaccessible crags, of course.

On our right is the Traligill river, and quite a few sand martins are flying along it, looking for flies, I guess.

It’s difficult to count them as they flit about, occasionally chirping.
Walking on, we’re really heading to the exposed limestone about half a mile ahead.

At the old tin shack, there doesn’t seem to be any swallows; a surprise as they normally nest in there.

Looking inside, there’s a couple of nests, but no sign of any birds unfortunately.

Almost at the conifer plantation, we turn right and head towards the valley; normally dry at this point as the water has gone underground.

I want some elm tree photos: we’ve already passed quite a few along the wet part of the river, but there’s three more over here, one of which is becoming mythical.

It’s a pretty magnificent tree, apparently growing out of solid rock at the base of a small limestone cliff.

Right next to it, there’s a hole in the ground with an underground stream; out of sight but easy to hear.

I have it on good authority that a troll lives here, and judging by the hole being bigger than I remember it, the troll has definitely been eating his Weetabix.

The main tree looks lush with fabulous summer foliage and I get some more photos.

There’s a few really nice orchids along the grassy bank; not as many as I’d expected to see, and I speculate that the cold nights in spring might have held them back a bit.

One of them is (I think) a marsh orchid sub-species, and I was hoping to see it, as the colour is really lovely.

So we pass the footbridge to the caves and carry on as if we’re going to Conival.

Two more cuckoos fly over (or the same two again?) and not only say “cuckoo” but also add that peculiar quacking sound afterwards.

Chatting to some walkers, we say that we’re going to look for a rose and they say they hadn’t noticed it.

Mere amateurs!

Eventually, we got to the sharp left where the path starts to go up the mountain proper, and no sign of the burnet rose.

At our tea-drinking committee meeting, sitting on rocks by the burn, we’re joined by a dipper for a while, but none of us could work out how or why we’d missed the burnet rose.

Heading back downstream, we’re three quarters of the way back to the footbridge when the rose appears, as if by magic, right next to the path.

We join the ranks of mere amateurs as we can’t work out how we missed it on the way up.

Anyhow, target acquired!

Almost back to civilisation, there’s the distinctive sound of a stonechat clacking, and a little brown bird in front of us.

Then there’s two.

Two fledgeling stonechats, no discernible markings without binoculars.

The herd of deer are still where we left them, but wandering about a bit now.

And we’re back to the sand martins too, as we head for home.