As the days have got colder and shorter a few more birds are coming into the garden. There are more than ten collared doves, plenty of coal, blue and great tits with an occasional evening visit from long-tailed tits. Blackbird numbers have increased and we have had regular visits from one or two crested tits. The first regular woodpigeons are dropping in to finish off the corn and barley that other birds don't seem to like and the sparrowhawk is a regular "flash" through the garden. The population of red squirrels also seems quite high with four or five regularly at the feeders. Wintering geese have arrived with five-hundred on the fields locally last week and blackbirds and woodcocks encountered by the road whilst cycling in to work in the half-light indicate winter arrivals. A group of waxwings were also seen in the forest between Forest Lodge and Ryvoan Bothy at the weekend - the first locally. The first round of 'timed' BTO Atlas visits have been completed but the lists of any bird, anywhere at any time are still being completed because they all count. Go to http://www.bto.org/birdatlas/ if you would like to help.
Daughter Ruth entered a local Highlands and Islands Enterprise "Dragons Den" in November - and won! the competition prize money going towards getting a new local business off the ground. Here she is receiving her prize from Angela Stewart a previous winner and one of the 'Dragons'. Ruth is keeping details of her business under her hat for now, until it gets off the ground. Exciting and well done!Also during November Ruth's wee man Finlay celebrated his first birthday, inviting us all to a lunchtime meal in 
a local pub. We enjoyed the meal and Finlay looked somewhat terrified when the birthday cake, complete with dazzling sparklers appeared on the table. As grandparents we can sometimes help out with typical grandparents' roles and one such day saw myself and Janet wandering into Aviemore with Finlay 'wedged' in his pram - we couldn't fathom out how to get all the restraining gear for waist, arms and chest to connect correctly! We are booking in for a course of pram Health & Safety lessons! In the centre of Aviemore we visited the recently unveiled statue (by Seb Coe no less) dedicated to the high number of local folk who have made it to the Olympics. In the picture the statue looks really impressive whilst in reality is quite small, but it's there for all to see, within its own space, next to the Cairngorm Hotel. The most high-profile Olympian locally at the present time is Craig Maclean - a cyclist of course!
a local pub. We enjoyed the meal and Finlay looked somewhat terrified when the birthday cake, complete with dazzling sparklers appeared on the table. As grandparents we can sometimes help out with typical grandparents' roles and one such day saw myself and Janet wandering into Aviemore with Finlay 'wedged' in his pram - we couldn't fathom out how to get all the restraining gear for waist, arms and chest to connect correctly! We are booking in for a course of pram Health & Safety lessons! In the centre of Aviemore we visited the recently unveiled statue (by Seb Coe no less) dedicated to the high number of local folk who have made it to the Olympics. In the picture the statue looks really impressive whilst in reality is quite small, but it's there for all to see, within its own space, next to the Cairngorm Hotel. The most high-profile Olympian locally at the present time is Craig Maclean - a cyclist of course!Whilst at the statue it was also lunch-time so a quick butty for me 
and Janet and a jar of something tasty for Finlay, hopefully taking inspiration from the wee bronze folk next to him. I couldn't help but include this picture, complete with food that hasn't quite yet been consumed!
and Janet and a jar of something tasty for Finlay, hopefully taking inspiration from the wee bronze folk next to him. I couldn't help but include this picture, complete with food that hasn't quite yet been consumed!The last few weeks have seen much time spent with my head in the Latin clouds. Thirty plus years working at Abernethy has seen lots of information gathered on all things natural history. Every time I had the opportunity to get expert help I grabbed it a
nd lists of species from bugs to beetles and mammals to moths accumulated. Over the years I gathered lots of information by myself just by being out and about, counting birds, running a moth trap, walking butterfly and dragonfly transects etc, but the really big lists of beetles and fungi came via the experts - all volunteers I might add. Over the years the lists grew, 900 beetles, 600 fungi, 100+ lichens amounting in time to over 3500 identified species. Paper lists moved to computer lists but now the computer lists need to be moved over to a one-stop-shop database so that reserve staff, Society staff, mycologists, bryologists etc can have access to what has been found on the reserve. The big list moved over last week was the fungi list, 600 species but 8100 records, each with its own location and date. Do the last two categories matter I hear you ask? Well yes they do, because if one part of the forest starts to show it is important for fungi, then this needs to be taken into account if management work is planned for that area. The importance then grows if the same bit of forest is also good for beetles and mosses. With modern software, once this information is on the database then distribution maps can be produced, again helping with management planning. The maps above show how well gathered information can be used, the top map of the two was produced from the 500 locations recorded during this summer for the tooth fungi written about in earlier diaries. Sorry this isn't easily readable but the dots show how the information can be displayed and shows the important tracks for these rare fungi.On 24 November I nipped up to Strathpeffer for the AGM of the Highland Biological Recording
Group (http://www.hbrg.org.uk/), the next resting place for the records mentioned above. Once the money and committee matters had been dealt with David Genney from SNH gave a very interesting talk on mosses, lichens and fungi - the lower plants. Try typing his name into Google where you will see a bit of what Dave is involved in. As he talked, my eye was also on my watch because this was also full moon night, with the full moon in Perigee, the closest the moon gets to the earth during its lunar orbit so it should be as big as it gets when viewed 
in the sky. In truth this doesn't actually make it much bigger when you see it! However, it was worth dashing down the road for and it didn't disappoint, though it is always difficult to get the moon to look round and clear and not slightly blurred because of the longer exposures required to take the picture. Anyway, a couple of pictures included for your delectation.One of the moss species Dave was enthusing about in his talk was the beautiful wee green shield moss Buxba
umia viridis a species mentioned in the last diary. I am not a Bryologist and can only name a few mosses, but this moss is very obvious when you see it though it is very rare. People have been doing some serious searching for this moss since 1999 because there were so few records, with the few records coming from just a handful of sites. A site in this case is a reasonably sized decaying log, left to decay in situ where the dying/dead tree fell. Scots pine, birch and rowan being the main trees at the known sites. More searches in 2003 found a few more logs bringing willow and alder logs into the host species list, and the number of moss capsules nationally was thought to be 20-30. The capsule itself is about half an inch high and it can usually be found where the log is in the latter stages of decay. The log needs to also be moist otherwise it becomes dominated by lichens w
ith which the moss can't complete. The moss can also be found growing out of other mosses growing on the decaying log, so you're looking for a green capsule growing with green mosses - no problem then! A couple of logs were found with the moss within Abernethy Forest in 2004 and I managed to see my first capsule in January 2007 growing at one of the known log sites. In fact when I looked carefully, there were actually five capsules popping out from a light dusting of snow. This log is shown right, minus snow, and with gardener's labels showing roughly where the capsules are growing. You can see from the photo the large size of the log and the advanced state of decay required for the moss to grow. The damage to the log has probably been caused by deer jumping over it. At each site a photo like this is taken along with a close up of exactly where the c
apsules are and a GPS reading taken to give the exact map reference for anyone else needing to find the site. The real mystery about this moss is why it is so rare when each capsule is capable of producing several million spores when the capsules ripen and explode in May/June time. By February 2007 I had checked out all the known log sites and had seen about 20 capsules. I then started to look elsewhere within the same river system and was over the moon when I found my first 'new' log, where after a half hour search, found four capsules. Within the next hour and as it was starting to get dark, I found two other logs with nine more capsules. Int
erestingly, all of these logs were dead alder trees, and the Buxbaumia capsules were growing out of the moss covering the log and not from typically sopping wet logs which were falling apart. Hmmm. A couple of days later I was back, same river, with a days walk ahead of me to get back to where I could get picked up by Janet. Five hours later, sore back, sore knees and knuckles from crawling around looking at dead logs, and I had found five more sites - one Scots pine and four alder - and another twenty capsules. By March the total number of known sites had grown to 21 and 76 capsules had been seen, however, slugs where now on the move and at some sites were probably responsible for the capsules disappearing.
umia viridis a species mentioned in the last diary. I am not a Bryologist and can only name a few mosses, but this moss is very obvious when you see it though it is very rare. People have been doing some serious searching for this moss since 1999 because there were so few records, with the few records coming from just a handful of sites. A site in this case is a reasonably sized decaying log, left to decay in situ where the dying/dead tree fell. Scots pine, birch and rowan being the main trees at the known sites. More searches in 2003 found a few more logs bringing willow and alder logs into the host species list, and the number of moss capsules nationally was thought to be 20-30. The capsule itself is about half an inch high and it can usually be found where the log is in the latter stages of decay. The log needs to also be moist otherwise it becomes dominated by lichens w
ith which the moss can't complete. The moss can also be found growing out of other mosses growing on the decaying log, so you're looking for a green capsule growing with green mosses - no problem then! A couple of logs were found with the moss within Abernethy Forest in 2004 and I managed to see my first capsule in January 2007 growing at one of the known log sites. In fact when I looked carefully, there were actually five capsules popping out from a light dusting of snow. This log is shown right, minus snow, and with gardener's labels showing roughly where the capsules are growing. You can see from the photo the large size of the log and the advanced state of decay required for the moss to grow. The damage to the log has probably been caused by deer jumping over it. At each site a photo like this is taken along with a close up of exactly where the c
apsules are and a GPS reading taken to give the exact map reference for anyone else needing to find the site. The real mystery about this moss is why it is so rare when each capsule is capable of producing several million spores when the capsules ripen and explode in May/June time. By February 2007 I had checked out all the known log sites and had seen about 20 capsules. I then started to look elsewhere within the same river system and was over the moon when I found my first 'new' log, where after a half hour search, found four capsules. Within the next hour and as it was starting to get dark, I found two other logs with nine more capsules. Int
erestingly, all of these logs were dead alder trees, and the Buxbaumia capsules were growing out of the moss covering the log and not from typically sopping wet logs which were falling apart. Hmmm. A couple of days later I was back, same river, with a days walk ahead of me to get back to where I could get picked up by Janet. Five hours later, sore back, sore knees and knuckles from crawling around looking at dead logs, and I had found five more sites - one Scots pine and four alder - and another twenty capsules. By March the total number of known sites had grown to 21 and 76 capsules had been seen, however, slugs where now on the move and at some sites were probably responsible for the capsules disappearing.As I mentioned in the last diary, I found my first 'new' capsules a few weeks ago and this spurred my on to start looking a lot earlier this year. At one site (left) there was evidence of there having been about twenty capsules. At the time of my first visit there were fifteen capsules and eight stalks where capsules had probably been eaten. It's not the best picture but there are still ten capsules growing and they are all within the picture left. To date, eight new logs have been found and so far, 115 capsule have been seen. Watch this space. The challenge now is to find more logs and capsules away from the single river system I have been working in. Eight other sites were visited back in March and nothing was found.
Happy birthday Janet, welcome to the bus pass league, and to working a
few less hours at the school. However, it won't be feet up time as Janet has now started a small eBay business putting her extensive sewing skills to good use to produce a range of hand-made products - to view go to eBay My World: janet-gardencottage and see what she is getting up to. The Christmas stocking right is just one of many beautifully made products.Neither did she have a quiet birthday as daughter Laura was involved in a house move and we were th
ird and fourth hands in helping with the move as well as providing one of the vans to carry the house contents. After two days of van filling, driving and van emptying we both realise we are getting too old for this sort of 'quiet weekend'. The efforts on Friday took place during heavy rain but Saturday and Sunday turned out frosty and sunny which allowed me a little time in the mornings to do a bit of roving Atlas bird recording in completely new areas. A nice coal fire, in a beautiful house with good food and a glass of celebratory champagne helped relax everyone and as we tried to keep our eyes open Blackburn Rovers popped up on Match of the Day and WON!
ird and fourth hands in helping with the move as well as providing one of the vans to carry the house contents. After two days of van filling, driving and van emptying we both realise we are getting too old for this sort of 'quiet weekend'. The efforts on Friday took place during heavy rain but Saturday and Sunday turned out frosty and sunny which allowed me a little time in the mornings to do a bit of roving Atlas bird recording in completely new areas. A nice coal fire, in a beautiful house with good food and a glass of celebratory champagne helped relax everyone and as we tried to keep our eyes open Blackburn Rovers popped up on Match of the Day and WON!That's it for another diary, enjoy the read.
All the best
Stewart & Janet
The removal team - Stewart, Janet, Douglas and Laura... Pickfords eat your heart out
All photos © Stewart Taylor
