The countryside is ablaze just now with the yellow of gorse bushes, such a contrast in tone to the much colder yellow of the oil seed rape which is starting to appear in the fields. On our way back from Glen Esk last week we took a back road through from Laurencekirk to St Cyurus. The sun was out, the sky was blue and the gorse was shimmering on the hillsides. Shame I courldn’t stop the van and take a picture, but narrow country roads and stopping where you want to indulge your photographic urges don’t go together too well. When I did manage to stop it was to take a picture of a lonely stand of pines at the op of a field of growing crops.
Yesterday when I was out with the dogs I looked for yellow. Down by the little burn which flows past the Hatton Mill I saw some marsh marigolds (or do you call them king cups?). Just further up the burn from where I stopped to photograph the flowers, there was another flash of yellow as a grey wagtail with its bright yellow breast landed on a stone in the water. No chance of a picture though, since I did not have my big camera with me. I was quite delighted to see it, we are much more used to seeing the black and white pied wagtails.
It’s not only gorse season, the dandelions are magnificent just now. Perhaps we don’t welcome them in our garden, but a carpet of their bright yellow flowers at the roadside is a delight to see in the spring sunshine. While I was down on my kneeds patking the picture of the dandelions, it was a yellow siskin which flew by and landed on a fence in the field.
There is plenty of gorse about in Hatton too. It can make a lovely blaze of colour at the foreground of a picture. This photograph was taken during an evening walk on the road to Easter Aquarney, near the Hobshill Trig point. A rowan tree grows out of the flowering gorse, and if you look carefully enough you can see the moon in the blue evening sky.