The week started with a great day out in one of our favourite haunts, Chapelton by the Braes of Glenlivet. We make the walk into a circular route leaving the car at the junction of the Chapelton - Clashnoir roads, walking along the road to Chapelton, along the track to the Scalan Seminary or College of Scalan on the map, across the 
fields to the ruined crofts before returning down the Clashnoir road. This is a super area for waders with lots of lapwings, oystercatchers and curlews and a total of 41 bird species were seen during the walk. Perhaps the highlight in this season of crossbill scarcity, was a group of twelve crossbills, possibly Scottish but also possibly Parrots! The party also had four juveniles, so the birds are breeding in some areas. At the end of the tarmac road you pass the distillery and the Glenlivet Spring Water bottling plant, and close by is a parking area with information about the Crown Estates Glenlivet Estate. A short walk of about a half a mile takes you to the College of Scalan, a building well hidden from view until you are almost up on it. To quote from information given on the Internet at http://www.glenlivet.org.uk/page19.html ; "Scalan (Gaelic for turf-roofed shelter) is a plain 18th century house in the Braes of Glenlivet. It is by far the most 
significant relic of the 'penal days' when the native Scottish catholic community kept the ancient faith alive in northern Scotland". More information can be found also at http://www.glenlivetestate.co.uk/history_glenlivet.html . In recent years a lot of effort has gone into restoring this building to its former glory to allow the visitor an insight into how Rectors and Bishops of the time lived, and
to show where so many students over so many years came together to study their faith. Well worth a visit. The more adventurous can visit Scalan from the other direction - from the Lecht ski road via the old lead mines. The surrounding pictures give you an idea of the location, note the heavy burning of the heather moorland for red grouse in the background, and also the inside of the building.
fields to the ruined crofts before returning down the Clashnoir road. This is a super area for waders with lots of lapwings, oystercatchers and curlews and a total of 41 bird species were seen during the walk. Perhaps the highlight in this season of crossbill scarcity, was a group of twelve crossbills, possibly Scottish but also possibly Parrots! The party also had four juveniles, so the birds are breeding in some areas. At the end of the tarmac road you pass the distillery and the Glenlivet Spring Water bottling plant, and close by is a parking area with information about the Crown Estates Glenlivet Estate. A short walk of about a half a mile takes you to the College of Scalan, a building well hidden from view until you are almost up on it. To quote from information given on the Internet at http://www.glenlivet.org.uk/page19.html ; "Scalan (Gaelic for turf-roofed shelter) is a plain 18th century house in the Braes of Glenlivet. It is by far the most 
significant relic of the 'penal days' when the native Scottish catholic community kept the ancient faith alive in northern Scotland". More information can be found also at http://www.glenlivetestate.co.uk/history_glenlivet.html . In recent years a lot of effort has gone into restoring this building to its former glory to allow the visitor an insight into how Rectors and Bishops of the time lived, and
to show where so many students over so many years came together to study their faith. Well worth a visit. The more adventurous can visit Scalan from the other direction - from the Lecht ski road via the old lead mines. The surrounding pictures give you an idea of the location, note the heavy burning of the heather moorland for red grouse in the background, and also the inside of the building.
As you walk across the fields towards the Clashnoir road, you pass through what can only be classed as a very sad sight, a whole township of buildings, long since vacated, but most still showing that not long ago, quite a large community of people lived here. The area is quite heavily grazed by sheep, possibly one of the reasons that so many lapwings, oystercatchers and curlews breed here. There must be a dozen or so ruins within the township, some of which look like they were only vacated a few decades ago. The ministers wife at the church in Chapelton is happy to provide more information about this township, if ever you are in the area.The bus pass was in use again this week, inspired by Neil and Julie's outing from the chalet the week before. This time I took the bus the whole way to the Cairngorm car park, with the aim of walking back down to Glenmore before catching the bus back home. I had intended following the recently completed Allt Mor footpath from the car park, but with a need to check the road verges and the Ciore na Ciste car park for birds-foot trefoil plants and Bombus monticola bees I followed the tarmac down as far at the path to the reindeer enclosure. I saw plenty of the "blaeberry bumble bees" and saw that the trefoil was just coming into flower indicating that a visit in June would be worthwhile to look for a small mason bee called Osmia inermis. This wee bee is a solitary bee which builds its nest under flat stones in the areas where it is known to occur. People who have studied the bees at some of the few known UK sites know that it has an amazing life cycle, never putting all its eggs into one basket, literally. The cells under the stones where the larvae are reared are sealed at the end of the summer with fully formed bee larva inside. The larva start to emerge during the following summer, but only a percentage of the new bees come out. The next summer a few more emerge and a few more during the third summer, ensuring that some bees will survive even if conditions in one of the years is not optimum for the bee to breed! Amazing. Plenty of hailstones as I wandered down the path. As I walked along the path towards the reindeer enclosure a group of visitors were making their way over to see the reindeer and I was just in time to learn something completely new. 
At the bridge across the Allt Mor is a large rock and carved into the rock are a few words linking the bridge with the reindeer and with the man responsible for re-introducing the reindeer Mikel Utsi - "UTSI BRIDGE 1979". As I walked down the path towards Glenmore the woods were alive with willow warblers and there were plenty of small clumps of wood sorrel and wood anemone flowers and in one damp area a neat little group of horsetails were just starting to emerge, they looked so good I just had to stop and take a picture. This looks like wood horsetail Equisetum sylvaticum. This group of plants are close relatives of our ferns, the plant doesn't produce flowers but bears spores just like the fern
s. Horsetails are relic plants from pre-history - "If the hero in H. G. Wells' story 'The Time Machine' travelled back ca. 350 million years, he couldn't fail to notice horsetails as he stepped out of the machine into a steaming swamp. The horsetails would have been a dominant part of the vegetation with magnificent specimens reaching 30m or more in height and 1m in diameter." (Dave Walker - Internet). Not quite as tall but still a very stylish plant.
At the bridge across the Allt Mor is a large rock and carved into the rock are a few words linking the bridge with the reindeer and with the man responsible for re-introducing the reindeer Mikel Utsi - "UTSI BRIDGE 1979". As I walked down the path towards Glenmore the woods were alive with willow warblers and there were plenty of small clumps of wood sorrel and wood anemone flowers and in one damp area a neat little group of horsetails were just starting to emerge, they looked so good I just had to stop and take a picture. This looks like wood horsetail Equisetum sylvaticum. This group of plants are close relatives of our ferns, the plant doesn't produce flowers but bears spores just like the fern
s. Horsetails are relic plants from pre-history - "If the hero in H. G. Wells' story 'The Time Machine' travelled back ca. 350 million years, he couldn't fail to notice horsetails as he stepped out of the machine into a steaming swamp. The horsetails would have been a dominant part of the vegetation with magnificent specimens reaching 30m or more in height and 1m in diameter." (Dave Walker - Internet). Not quite as tall but still a very stylish plant. Good old EJ and Henry. I said last week watch this space, and sure enough the Loch Garten 
osprey pair have made their own wee bit of history. The one egg from last week has been added to and the pair are now sitting on three eggs. This has, we think, happened only once before in Britain - ospreys re-laying, but such was the significance of the Garten birds repeating the feat that national TV in the form of the BBC came to record the event. Throughout Tuesday the ospreys were on the telly, five to six, five to seven, eight, nine - lunchtime -
and even the main news at six thirty in the evening. I hope you managed to catch one of the broadcasts, if not, you can still catch up with all the comings and goings via the RSPB webcams. We even had our own satellite dish for the day and staff, visitors and volunteers were all interviewed and staff member Dave, who had predicted a re-lay now has even more "amazing" facts to impart to Centre visitors. Just as amazing was the sighting of three males and one female capercaillie, on Monday afternoon, at 5.30!
osprey pair have made their own wee bit of history. The one egg from last week has been added to and the pair are now sitting on three eggs. This has, we think, happened only once before in Britain - ospreys re-laying, but such was the significance of the Garten birds repeating the feat that national TV in the form of the BBC came to record the event. Throughout Tuesday the ospreys were on the telly, five to six, five to seven, eight, nine - lunchtime -
and even the main news at six thirty in the evening. I hope you managed to catch one of the broadcasts, if not, you can still catch up with all the comings and goings via the RSPB webcams. We even had our own satellite dish for the day and staff, visitors and volunteers were all interviewed and staff member Dave, who had predicted a re-lay now has even more "amazing" facts to impart to Centre visitors. Just as amazing was the sighting of three males and one female capercaillie, on Monday afternoon, at 5.30! Speaking of capercaillie it has been a week of tracks and signs, a
few clues appearing around the place to show that the females are now mostly on eggs. Earlier in the year I mentioned how important bog cottongrass was as a food source for caper and black grouse. Well, the food supply (in addition to the norm of Scots pine needles) for the birds has had a welcome and very nutritious addition over the last week via pine pollen flowers as well as the new shoots on the tips of the branches (picture right,). On some low pine bushes you can see where the capers have been eating the newly emerging shoots, but the pine trees are now starting to "flower" ie flowers that will develop into new pine cones, but for the "flowers" to grow, they need to be pollinated and trees throughout the forest have masses of y
ellow pollen bearing flowers developing just below the new shoots (picture left). These pollen flowers look a little like sugar puffs, all stuck together along the new shoots, and both male and female capercaillies are eating these to gain a rich source of protein. How do we know? Well you just need to look down and in some places in the forest large, strange coloured droppings have started to appear. Male dropping are more or less normal size but yellow, however, the females, who are now spending long hours incubating their clutch of eggs (the males don't do any of the incubation) eventually have to leave the nest to feed and to go to the loo! And boy, do they go to the loo - after all, they might have been sitting on eggs for twelve hours or more. So, in the females case, you get very large dropping affectionately known in the trade as "clocker droppings", very yellow and very big (see picture right with yale key for scale). They are so unusual that visitors
often ask what they are when they have encountered them on their walks. How do we know that the yellow is pine pollen? Samples have been analysed and the microscopic pollen grains have been identified. I hope you managed to have your dinner BEFORE you read this weeks diary. Another feature of capercaillie behaviour at this time of year is dust bathing, whether it is under the roots of wind-blown trees or along the sides of some tracks, the birds spend some time each day dust bathing. It isn't easy to see, but th
e picture right shows two dust baths complete with normal pine needle filled droppings on the left and yellow "pollen" droppings on the right. What a topic!
few clues appearing around the place to show that the females are now mostly on eggs. Earlier in the year I mentioned how important bog cottongrass was as a food source for caper and black grouse. Well, the food supply (in addition to the norm of Scots pine needles) for the birds has had a welcome and very nutritious addition over the last week via pine pollen flowers as well as the new shoots on the tips of the branches (picture right,). On some low pine bushes you can see where the capers have been eating the newly emerging shoots, but the pine trees are now starting to "flower" ie flowers that will develop into new pine cones, but for the "flowers" to grow, they need to be pollinated and trees throughout the forest have masses of y
ellow pollen bearing flowers developing just below the new shoots (picture left). These pollen flowers look a little like sugar puffs, all stuck together along the new shoots, and both male and female capercaillies are eating these to gain a rich source of protein. How do we know? Well you just need to look down and in some places in the forest large, strange coloured droppings have started to appear. Male dropping are more or less normal size but yellow, however, the females, who are now spending long hours incubating their clutch of eggs (the males don't do any of the incubation) eventually have to leave the nest to feed and to go to the loo! And boy, do they go to the loo - after all, they might have been sitting on eggs for twelve hours or more. So, in the females case, you get very large dropping affectionately known in the trade as "clocker droppings", very yellow and very big (see picture right with yale key for scale). They are so unusual that visitors
often ask what they are when they have encountered them on their walks. How do we know that the yellow is pine pollen? Samples have been analysed and the microscopic pollen grains have been identified. I hope you managed to have your dinner BEFORE you read this weeks diary. Another feature of capercaillie behaviour at this time of year is dust bathing, whether it is under the roots of wind-blown trees or along the sides of some tracks, the birds spend some time each day dust bathing. It isn't easy to see, but th
e picture right shows two dust baths complete with normal pine needle filled droppings on the left and yellow "pollen" droppings on the right. What a topic! And to close. I had a report of a visitor finding a pole trap, yes, a spring-loaded trap placed with the jaws open, on top of a pole, in an area where birds of prey breed. Birds of prey like to perch on posts - whack - one or two broken legs and death by hanging upside down legs held firmly in the trap. This is actually 2007 not 1907. Green hairstreak butterflies are out and about, four-spot libellula dragonflies on the wing and, at last, spotted flycatchers arrived (16th), a little late. On Friday evening I had a violet ground beetle walking along a track with a wood ant firmly attached to one of its legs, a bit like one of the adverts recently seen on the telly. A single ant wouldn't be able to kill a large beetle, but a gang of ants certainly could. I didn't have time to await the outcome but do wonder whether there is a beetle still wandering the forest with ant attached!
That's it. Happy reading.
Stewart & Janet
Carex nigra - black sedge growing in a bog
All photos © Stewart Taylor
