South Walney in early July

Viper's bugloss, Echium vulgare

Bees love Viper's bugloss and in early July there are banks of flowers of intense blues,  tall inflorescences whipped to and fro in the wind.  Nectaries deep within the corolla yield plentiful nectar and pollen,  released at lower temperatures than the white clover flowering in the grass. From May to September it offers bees a reliable source of food.  Viper's bugloss buds are pink, so the inflorescence is intense blues with hints of pink. 
In early July Viper's bugloss is striking, with massed ranks of tall flowers.

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I love the vistas of South Walney: the curvature of the shingle bank with the old pier and Piel Castle beyond. Female eider and redshank feed by the old pier and a ringed plover appears but the breeding season draws to a close.  Flowers are pre-eminent in early July.  There's a stiff wind which does not deter bees but it's too much for most butterflies.  The honey-fragrance of lady's bedstraw lingers in the air.  Purple thistles make visible their pollen as they come into flower.  There's ground-hugging centuary, white clover and scarlet pimpernel.  In the sandy turf of the west coast dunes there are tiny viola tricolor and restharrow.

Perspectives on Piel Castle and the old pier, framed with flowers.  The vibrant blues of viper's bugloss are suddenly overtopped by mulleins that seem too heavy to stand erect and lurch  over the sloping bank of shingle.  Their inflorescence of yellow flowers complemented by the yellow horned-poppies. 
Years ago, there was an art exhibition at Abbot Hall, Kendal: cacti on felt.  They linger still in my mind's-eye.  Cacti somehow taking on a dramatic persona, a comic persona.  Anthropomorphised cacti. Today, the mulleins of South Walney are the dramatis personae of the scene.  This is their moment in the sun. With that structure they can't last long but for the time being they're dynamic and, before the flocks of waders return in the autumn, the stage is theirs.

We headed in the direction of the lighthouse, passing the mud-flats- a specialist habitat that looks uninviting unless you're in on its secrets.  Bel remarked that the flora at our feet were succulents. They're adapted to survive the salinity of the mud- flats. Plants have evolved a variety of strategies: the long tap-roots of the yellow horned-poppy, the net of stems anchoring annual seablite to the shingle bank that storms can remodel.  And the various strategies  of succulents to retain fresh water in a saline environment. 
Perhaps you have to learn to love the flora of mud-flats.  At a glance, it appears drab and dingy.  It's plants grow interwoven and you have to work out which strand belongs to which plant.  With familiar plants I recognise different stages of development. Glasswort has a translucence, with wriggly segments that turn pink and gold later in the season. Now, it's in the green and as we were watching redshank and eider I realise I've photographed glasswort in the foreground. Come here in autumn and the mud-flats will have taken on a rosy, rusty hue.