FlowersAmong the many and more beautiful of our common wild flowers that grow beside the Tweed are the marsh marigold, or kingcup, loosestrife, purple and yellow, ragged robin and devil's-bit scabious.
The beautiful and rare include seven orchids: the purple dactylorrhiza - illutrated here, northern marsh and twayblade (in damp meadows and woods}; lesser twayblade (on heather moors); heath spotted (on acid soil); bird's nest (in beechwoods).
From June to August one might, with less than amazing luck, see the duck (but not the drake - the drake has absconded) leading a flotilla of up to twelve ducklings buffeting themselves like mad against the current; a memorable- sight. Buzzards can be relied on to appear, usually at a great height, mewing.
Short-eared owl, peregrine falcon, sparrow-hawk and kestrel are also often seen. And from autumn to spring great flocks of geese, pink-footed and greylag, fly from and back to the frozen north, spread against the sky in arrowhead or zig-zag order and calling to each other as they go. They too are unlikely to be overlooked.