Summer 2013 and Spring 2014 The small villages of Al’Ayn and Ash Sharayjah perch on the side of a deep ravine; both carefully hoard the winter rainwater that runs off the rocky, rolling plateau behind small dams. The water is then run round narrow, cliffside terraces in the ancient falaj system of irrigation channels. Many of these are now…
Tag: Plants
Dungeness B
The dawn sky is a wash of saturated purple and vivid orange like an overdone postcard; the sunlight edges the curved hulls of the fishing boats, warms the waves of shingle to a russet and whitens the windows in the small wooden houses. The view just before sunrise. Boats, winches, sheds, containers, all manner of boxes; coils of rope,…
Hunting Pinks
The wheat and oil seed rape has dried to a soft gold in a blink. The huge fields are somehow less mundane than when growing dull, deep green. The tangle of tall rape below Farningham Wood holds an abundance of house sparrows and linnets together with a smattering of corn burnings. The sparrows have finished breeding in the nearby…
Up Fackenden Down
The change in the meadows at Fackenden Down over the last two weeks of June is marked; the fragrant orchids (Gymnadenia conopsea) are in their prime in mid June but tiring by the end of the month whereas the pyramidal orchids (Anacamptis pyramidalis) were emerging and now are at their best. Some are a deep purple in the evening light. Fragrant…
Lovćen Mountain
Lovćen is a mountain within the heart of Montenegro’s coastal range, rising abruptly from the dark maquis and olive-clad hills between the coastal towns of Kotor and Budva to descend more gently inland to the old capital of Cetinje. The mountain is the most accessible of them all, as there is a road running round the base…
Orahavo and Kucka Korita
The village of Orahavo with its small, grass high, hay meadows is enveloped by the shrubby hornbeam forest that is characteristic of the low limestone hills. Above, by the side of the winding road to Kucka Korita, there are small glades in the woodland full of plants and butterflies. The breeding birds are quieter now…
Chasing Apollos in the Rijeka Cijevna Valley
The Rijeka Cijevna (River Cijevna) runs down a wild, steep-sided valley and forms the boundary between Albania and Montenegro to the east of Podgorica. There is a small road that follows the river up the narrowing valley passing farms, a small school, an even smaller church and a disused border control booth; the road crosses the river…
Beyond Bukumirsko Jezero
The last few kilometres of the winding road from Podgorica to Bukumirsko Jezero (Lake) has been recently cleared of snow and debris by a small bulldozer. The lake is reached down a stony track which runs to some small summer farms (Katuns) and wooden cabins; it looked, surprisingly, quite small and dull even in the…
Plavnica’s Fields of Gold
The morning is hot sun and the meadows at Plavnica are now tall grass and a profusion of wildflowers. The few cultivated fields down the long winding tracks, which a few months were waterlogged and a part of Lake Skadar, have been recently ploughed and harrowed; one has lines of black plastic sheeting laid to both protect and…
The Prokletije Mountains
The tourist town of Plav, surrounded by blossoming plum orchards and set next to its pretty lake, and the smaller, more prosaic Gusinje sit beneath the Prokletije mountains within a broad valley joined by the meandering river Ljuča. The mountain range forms a natural barrier with Albania to the east and Kosovo to the north. Like…
Around the Lakeside Village of Dodoši
On the last day of April, I head to the north side of Lake Skadar between Podgorica and Cetinje and the lakeside village of Dodoši. The hills are south facing and the vegetation less lush than on the opposite side; the plants here are also more advanced with wild sage (Salvia officinalis) flowering as well as tall…
Into the Kučka Krajina Mountains
The road to tiny Bukumirsko Jezero (Lake) high in the Kučka Krajina mountains, runs north from Podgorica for some 40km, passing the small villages of Ubli and Kržanja. The road on April 29th is blocked by a lens of lumpy snow on a north facing section about five kilometres from the lake; so I never make it…