didn't need to water the garden. However, the rain heralded the onset of a very cool and cloudy spell of weather with regular rain - perhaps more like the weather we should be getting at this time of year, but it would be nice to have the odd hour or two of sun! With the rain the bright greens of new growth throughout the forest have been brilliant, blaeberry on the forest floor, and birch trees, mainly, above ground and into the canopy. Dodging the showers on Sunday I went to have a look at an odd patch of clubmoss growing well up into Abernethy Forest that looked like it should have been alpine clubmoss (Lycopodium alpinum) but had many of the characteristics of Issler's clubmoss (L. issleri). A tiny piece sent to our local expert confirmed it to be "odd" alpine clubmoss, growing well below is usual mountain haunts. Whilst out in that part of the forest I dropped down to the river to see how a rare moss
I had found way back in February was faring. At the time I had set myself a wee project to check out previously known sites for the green shield moss (Buxbaumia viridis) when I came upon its close relative - the brown shield moss (B. aphylla) see centre of picture right. Both species are unusual in that they don't have any obvious leaves but produce an odd shaped capsule on a short stalk, normally found growing on decaying wood. When I got to my decaying log the two original capsules had gone, probably eaten by slugs, but, on the side of the same log was another capsule which has escaped detection first time round - and the slugs! And my original wee survey? Twenty known capsules of the green shield moss increased to 72, with seven new logs sites located! A brilliant couple of months spent crawling around many decaying logs, and the brown shield moss was new for Abernethy.
The warm weather of April has left a great legacy of masses of blossom and flowers on trees and bushes. In the garden the old apple tree is a mass of pink and white flowers, which, sadly b
ecause of the cooler weather, might not get pollinated. We are still eating the apple pies from last years crop! A walk along the Explore Abernethy path from the village to Broomhill on the River Spey took me through masses of bird cherry trees (left) white with blossom which hopefully will produce a good crop of small black berries later in the summer, much loved by the birds. Geans or wild cherry trees have already finished flowering, and these trees will produce the more familiar red cherries in July. The broom bushes (right) are also at maximum flowering with their strange "spring loaded" flowers attracting a few of the bees that are out and about. Once at Broomhill, you could catch the Strathspey Steam Railway train to Boat of Garten or Aviemore, this is the station that featured as Glenbogle, in the recent TV series Monarch of the Glen.The banks of
the river close to the bridge are home to more than fifty pairs of sand martins, the floods of winter cutting a new face for the birds to dig into each year. This section of the Spey is very "active", with water rushing out from the River Nethy a few hundred metres up river 
depositing sand and gravel into the centre of the Spey. This in turn is forcing the Spey slightly side-ways, cutting into the farmland on its southern bank, maintaining a home for the sand martins each year. A big flood on the river in January saw the Spey a mile wide at one point between N
ethybridge and Boat of Garten, with "tide-lines" still visible in many fields and lots of debris stuck in the timbers of Broomhill bridge. A pair of dippers have made good use of this, and have built their nest in one of the legs of the bridge (left) on top of the debris. The birds are currently feeding young. The sand martin bank can be seen in the distance. A kingfisher has been seen here, so who 
knows if we will be able to prove breeding, not a regular occurrence in this area. In one of the areas of bird cherry a couple of singing blackcaps were new arrivals, the walk to the bridge and back producing 44 species of birds. Young lapwings are starting to appear in the fields and oystercatchers are still in the process of laying eggs (right), perhaps some have lost their first clutches? The catchment of the River Spey between Kingussie and Grantown on Spey is the best mainland site for farmland waders in the UK, with ongoing surveys keeping track of the numbers of waders breeding. So it was that on Wednesday, yours truly was out on his bike early, pedalling to one of the survey sites noted for good numbers of lapwings, curlews and oystercatchers. 
Throw in a few redshank, snipe and skylarks, and the site (right) is exceptional. Ian and Donnie use plenty of "muck" and try to keep to the old fashioned "traditional" way of farming, and the results are there for all to see. Not too sure about the push for beech hedges via grants though, the Scottish Executive should really ask the farmers what would be the best way to spend tax-payers money to help wildlife rather than introduce a practice which might be sensible south of the border but in the Highlands of Scotland?Stewart became a Research Assistant this week, but don't worry, he won't be giving up the day job! Over the last couple of summers searches for a small wee mason bee (Osmia uncinata) have produced a few new sites so, with the help of a few sunny days, the search area will be extended outwards to see if the bee occurs outside Abernethy Forest. So, for a week or so, looking down at
bird's-foot trefoil will be the main pass time as the search for the bee progresses. The bee experts are also keen to know what plants the bee forages on so a few bee-nestboxes have been erected to see if we can tempt the bee to breed in them and find out what pollen is brought back to the breeding hole. If pollen is found, this will be identified and management for the bee can then be targeted, ensuring the bee has areas with the right flowers to provide a suitable food supply in the future. Amazing! I will leave you to guess what this picture is about, but the holes visible in the lump of wood give a clue.And the historical bit? I am sure if you were listening to
the radio over Saturday or reading some of the papers, you will be aware that what I was hoping for last week actually came to fruition - EJ and Henry, the Loch Garten ospreys, have another egg! This is virtually unheard of in the osprey world, an osprey laying a second clutch, so yet another chapter has been written in the comings and goings of the Garten ospreys. Staff at Loch Garten are over the moon, as Ellie and Faith show. Remember you can keep up with events at the nest site via the RSPB webcams. Can the birds produce more than one egg? Watch this space.Happy reading
Stewart & Janet
this really is just a dandelionAll photos © Stewart Taylor
