chickweed and bumblebees

The botany part sees us fighting wind and rain to take a look at a Shetland-only plant: Cerastium nigrescens or Edmondston’s chickweed. It grows on the poor and toxic soil of Keen of Hamar. The place name probably refers to keen botanisys crawling on the rock debris in order to find plants. There are also other interesting species but it rains.
After a coffee break we go to a bumblebee safari. Shetland has six species of bumblebees and we manage to spot two of them: Northern White-tailed Bumblebee and Shetland Bumblebee. Bumblebees seem to be moving north but this is as far as they can go. And here as in many other places flowering plants are threatened by intensive agriculture and mowing.