Dunes and Tombs.

Once again Sligo called us. This time to the dunes at Strandhill which is a renowned area for Orchids and other plants as well as

Six spot Burnet moth.

        a habitat for butterflies, lizards and apparently Natterjack toads.

Home made southern fried chicken.

After first having our picnic of  Southern fried chicken and collecting the next days dinner( mussels) at our usual place, we then proceeded to the dunes.

Marsh Helleborine.

We were not disappointed, although we have seen most of the Orchids that these dunes are the habitat for, we had not seen them before in Ireland. We did  however see two Orchid that we had never seen before,

                                                        the Pyramidal Orchid

Frog Orchid.

and the Frog Orchid.

Harebells with Pyramidal Orchid

The dunes are teaming with flora as well as moths ,

Ringlet.

Marsh Fritillary

                     butterflies and birds.
We  failed to see any lizards, or the debateable Natterjack toad.

Spotted was a lovely red fungi, but without spore counts it is impossible to be sure exactly what it is, and yellow tailed bumble bees.

The larger dolman.

From the dunes we decided it was time to visit the nearby Carrowmore tombs,

these are definitely worth making the effort to see,

Stone circles marking grave sites.

dating back 5-5800 years they are believed to be the first of the passage tombs to have been built in Ireland and is the largest site of megalithic tombs in Ireland, they are one of the four major sites here.

Dolmen.

There are over sixty tombs, thirty of which are visible,


10m high Cairn.

 arranged facing one  central  Cairn. We didn't spend nearly enough time there as we had the pressing need to get home to pick fruit before the wild birds ate the lot,

The birds did leave us some.

unfortunately they have beaten us to it with the gooseberries, they kindly left us just a couple of pounds.


The raspberries and redcurrants are well covered with netting, the blackcurrants, which the birds could have real feast on have largely been left alone,

Too many blackcurrants again.

thankfully a friend visited us the day after picking and was grateful for a bucket full of currants, the birds have eaten most of hers.
 So far I have bottled ten jars full, with another ten pounds waiting to be processed and twice that amount waiting to be picked.

We are also having a bumper crop of raspberries, they however need little in the way of preparation, just a quick wash and then frozen, we have frozen well over ten pounds with plenty more to come plus we also have an Autumn variety which crops later.

Moules mariniere, fresh from the sea.

The garlic has done very well again, it has been  dug up and is now drying out. We wont have to buy any garlic  this year. The first onions have also been harvested and are also drying out before I string them.