Seven Sisters

Ann above Bleik and Puffin Island 

It was to be our last day in Ardenes. At 2 am on Friday morning the sun was a golden orb above the light-house. For the first time in a week the harbour was like a mirror, reflecting the sun, the buildings and the harbour wall. It looked like a whale-day was coming our way.

I was out early to use the sunlight, mainly looking at the zonation of flowers along the beach. The salt-zone is very narrow with mainly pink purslane growing there, but only a meter away there are sand dune and alpine species growing in profusion. I found orchids, cloudberry, alpine bistort and mountain avens, for example.

I'm still trying to name this,
but I think it is Alpine sow-thistle. 

By breakfast it was becoming a bit more cloudy, but still, it was warm and calm. We were all booked to go on whale-boats in the late morning, but Ann and I had time to walk up to the Met. Station on the mountain for an hour while some of the others went up the lighthouse or on the ferry.

The mountain summit gave us panoramic views over Andenes and over Bleik but it was the dwarf forest at the bottom of the hill that intrigued me most. We even heard birdsong there as a redwing gently murmured from a birch tree. Two young redstarts hopped ahead of us and willow warblers flitted silently (and appropriately) through the willows.

Spotted orchid

(On Saturday's flight home, I started to nod off and replayed the final day in my head. The baby redstarts were not quite right: the tail was red but only near the rump. They looked more like baby robins than anything else, but there was that tail. What else has a red tail and looks like a robin? Bluethroat of course. I had seen two bluethroats without realising it!! These are fantastic birds that every birder wants to see and every artist wants to paint. I didn't even take a photo.)

Alpine lady's mantle and dwarf cornel.

My favourite zone is where the trees run into the moor; the top of the tree line. I think that's because I always associate it with my childhood in the Yorkshire Dales. This is where you find wheatears and ring ouzels. We saw both on the mountain and I assume this would be the place to find woodcocks and hazel-hens. What I most dearly wanted to see was reindeer of a moose. They would be hidden in the trees, but I might just glimpse one on the top edge where the trees were tiny and the grazing was good.



The woods were full of alpine plants and so was the hillside. I could have stayed all day, but this was to be a whale-day. In fact, it was to be the whale-day to end all whale-days.