A prominent week but without a shower!

A few errors from last week to correct following a walk to the River Spey and back on Thursday. I had suggested that all the waders had now departed the Strath and headed back to the coast - not so. Following the Explore Abernethy riverside walk, two curlews were found feeding in a field, so they are still around. The highlight of that part of the walk though was the sheer abundance of thistles, mainly creeping type thistles Cirsium arvense but also a good showing of spear thistles Cirsium vulgare (left), massed areas of purple waving in the breeze, along with the butterflies they were attracting. To the fore were small tortoiseshells, followed by green-veined whites and, a single small white, and around the edges of the thistles lots of scotch argus butterflies. The butterflies were on the wing because - the sun was shining! Cutting back from the river to the Speyside Way a partly flooded field showed that not all the other waders had departed either, twenty lapwings, a dozen oystercatchers and, more oddly, about thirty adult (right) and juvenile common gulls (they don't breed very close to here), a single black-headed gull, and, as I was sorting out what was what, eight lesser black-backed gulls dropped in followed by the same number of herring gulls. There could be a possibility that the common gulls and the lesser black-backs were birds departing from their moorland breeding ground over on the Grampian hills. An adjacent field produced eight more curlews. With more rain forecast perhaps this flooded area will hold on to these birds for a week or so yet.

Whilst sitting on a wee hillside counting the lapwings etc, I was aware of something moving about along the deeper vegetation by the edge of the field. A stoat! What happened over the next ten minutes was absolutely brilliant and so funny that anyone nearby would have wondered what I was laughing at. The stoat made its way out from the edge of the field towards the nearest lapwing, the lapwing was soon aware of this approach because the stoat kept leaping up in the air, doing the occasional somersault. It would then dash back to the field edge only to return to the field, leaping about as before. Instead of the lapwing running away, more birds came towards where the stoat was performing but eventually one lapwing took to the air and dive-bombed the stoat until it retreated again to the field edge. On the stoats next excursion into the field, a magpie did the same. Was the stoat hunting, because you do read that this is a method of distracting the intended prey item? Occasionally the stoat did leap into the air to try and grab the bird's legs but whether this was with intent or not I don't know. After about ten minutes everything returned to normal, my bum was wet, and about thirty cows and one bull were fast approaching - time to go.

TV programme of the week, and it was shown twice, was about the UK's greatest engineer, Thomas Telford - I hope you saw it. What a man and what energy he must have had. But what about Brunnel I hear you shout, he was good, I agree, but not as good as Telford. Before the programme I was not aware that Telford had carried out so much work in Scotland, harbours and churches on top of the more famous projects so it is with no apology that an earlier picture is appearing again this week, a bridge that was given a special mention on the programme because it is one of the few iron bridges that Telford built in Scotland, and it's just up the road, crossing the River Spey at Craigellachie. It really is worth a visit, and in summer, there's usually a fisherman thrown in for free! It is no longer a road bridge so you are able to walk across the bridge to admire the work though this is better appreciated from below. See Diary 27 May 2007 for earlier appearance.

The week saw four nights of moth trapping looking for the dark bordered beauty moth in a local aspen wood. Not a huge success, with an inch of rain falling during the first night and temperatures as low as two degrees centigrade for the other nights, not very conducive for moth flight! However, put a light in a wood at night and you are sure to catch something so the next few pictures give a little insight into the world of moth trapping. The picture left shows the portable moth trap (metal box with light on top) being set up. The trap is powered by a small portable battery.

The moth trap in place before the heavens opened! The actinic light has the ability to draw in moths from up to one-hundred metres.

Inside the trap there are lots of section of egg boxes to allow moths entering the trap a place to settle. A few moths can be seen on the egg boxes at the bottom of the trap (the rest have been removed and the moths returned to the wood) and quite a few moths have also settled on the inside of the metal trap itself. On view are mainly true lovers knots and lesser swallow prominent.

These two whitish moths are: lesser swallow prominent left and its very close relative swallow prominent right. In addition an iron prominent was trapped. I didn't say moth trapping and identification was easy, but it is interesting and with time you do get to know the moths quite well. Something though, like the garden tiger (right) is an easy moth to identify and is regularly trapped.
http://ukmoths.org.uk/ is a website which is brilliant in helping you identify moths, though you do need to know roughly what you are looking at to aid searching, and if you fancy moth trapping yourself then Anglian Lepodopterist Supplies can help http://www.angleps.btinternet.co.uk/. There are other suppliers, just type moth traps into any search engine. And no, I didn't find a dark bordered beauty, but I will return, probably next year, when I will hope for better weather.

On my way back and forth to the trap site I came across a group of fungi growing at the base of a tree. They looked very similar to the type of fungus that has a cap that rolls back as the fungus matures producing an ink-like substance as it does so, so one cap was carefully picked and taken home for further investigation. This group of fungi are known as ink-caps and the spores that the fungus is producing do literally turn to an ink-like liquid on the edge of the cap (deliquesce). The fungus was checked with the picture in Roger Philip's book and it looks like it is the common ink cap Coprinus atramentarius, a common fungus found growing on buried wood. Having checked the "whole" fungus against the picture it was time to check the spores, the general term for the reproductive unit for the fungus, a single cell akin to a speck of dust in most fungi. I don't have a microscope powerful enough for looking at these microscopic cells but you can get an idea if the colour of the spores are correct by lying the cap, gills down, on a piece of paper and producing a spore print (right). This print is produced by the spores being deposited on the paper as they fall from the gills on the underside of the cap, probably in their millions, allowing the colour of the spores to be checked and, with a suitable microscope the spore size and knobbly shape can also be checked. An amazing world that few people have a chance to see. I had intended photographing the caps when they were curled back and showing the "ink" but sadly a flock of sheep destroyed them the following day! On one of the bogs I also came across a species with a link back to the man who did so much recording work in Abernethy as well as naming many species. This fungus grows in the old Scots pine forests and, when wet with rain, has a glutinous surface to its cap. This is Cortinarius pinicola Orton, named first by the late Peter Orton, long-term friend and recording colleague (see Diary 23 July 2007).


Some readers will be relieved to know that my visits to the bogs this week won't result in more "big" spider pictures, I did see some and I also noticed that many of the nursery webs are now empty so a few more of these remarkable spiders will be now roaming the bogs. The bogs are so wet that some of the stunted bog pines that grow there are looking a little stressed by having too much water and many of the sundews (right) are underwater and few seem to be flowering properly. However, those giant "sponges" of the bogs the sphagnums (red version left), will be going mad soaking up the water as they "grow" upwards, slowing the water run-off, and, very slowly, allowing the surface of the bog to grow upwards, adding in the longer-term, to the peat within the bog.





This week saw the local area hosting the World Orienteering Championships and our chalet guests this week, Liam, Claire, Frank and Nora, made the long trip from Cork in Ireland to take part. Also, the Grantown Show took place on Thursday though without, sadly, the usual livestock entries due to foot and mouth in the south, and Saturday saw the village running another successful Abernethy Highland Games. For the first time for nine years yours truly wasn't taking part having stood down from the committee after the 2006 event.

Towards the end of this month the website for Scottish Natural Heritage's Highland Naturalists' should be live, details of which are shown right http://www.highlandnaturalists.com/ sadly my picture doesn't really show you all the people involved but the website will have biographies and pictures once complete. Enjoy.

Oddity of the week has to be a family of crossbills up in the forest meaning the young birds have, latterly, been fed with seeds from the new, hard, green cones, a difficult job for the adults and amazing that at least four juvenile birds are still alive and starting to feed for themselves. The Loch Garten ospreys are still being seen, though not always at the nest, a bird was again displaying over the house so not a bad bird to add to the garden list.

And the shower? Not rain for once but an effort to see the Perseids last night failed miserably. The clouds coming and going didn't help but even so, few things were shooting across the sky even when I could see parts of it. Oh well, there is always next year, bed at 2.30 am is no good when you have work the following day!

That is it for another week, enjoy the read.

All the best

Stewart & Janet

Fresh veg from the garden the first for 2007

All photos © Stewart Taylor