Daisy-girded battlements

After my blip yesterday of cattle under Stirling Castle's high walls, I was passing the same site this evening. I've been waiting for an opportunity to take some photos of the stunning display of ox-eye daisies growing on the opposite side of the road to the cow field. The banking of the verge is less than two years old, having been built up as part of a major road realignment under the Castle ramparts. So the massive 'crop' of daisies had either resulted naturally as a response to soil disturbance or as part of a deliberate seeding as part of the road scheme. I suspect the latter, given how densely they have grown this year. This is all still part of the jousting field that I wrote about last night. The hayfields across the Carse of Stirling from mediaeval times right up until the Second World War would have been rich in such flowers, before agricultural intensification reduced the biodiversity of our countryside so dramatically over the following decades. Planting schemes like this might be helping to restore some areas of flower-rich habitats that help support invertebrates, birds and mammals. Stirling's 'On the verge' project is another local project with similar objectives.