A lot happening this month, with early June seeing the second round of BTO Breeding Bird Atlas visits made to the five tetrads locally in cool weather conditions, but good to see lots of lapwing and curlew chicks on some fields. Not too sure that oystercatchers have done quite so well, but we will need to wait for the farm wader survey in a couple of years to tell us if this is so.
An outstanding item from the last diary was my visit to the Highland Council archaeologist to talk over how to finalise a list of the key Abernethy Forest sites and to see if John’s flint find in April was at all important. Well, to cut the waffle, the sites can all be ground truthed and sorted but only if I or other volunteers were keen to take on the task because the Council don’t have any money or staff available to assist with the job. I think I saw a flicker of recognition that John’s find was indeed a bit of flint but there seemed little enthusiasm to make a note or register the find. Perhaps these thing are turning up all the time, but a bit more encouragement or even a ‘well done’ wouldn’t have gone amiss. Well I thought the find was brilliant so well done John!
A second diary item that had also been left a bit up in the air was the majestic old Scots pine tree that was brought down by February snows (left), forming a perfect natural arch over the Dell track running between Nethybridge and Forest Lodge. Would it stay or would it go, that decision had been left with the Nethybridge Community Council. Wel
l, I am able to report that the tree will be part of the future deadwood habitat on the reserve but sadly it no longer remains a natural feature for visitors to walk under. The tree was lifted by a JCB and now lies in a fairly undignified heap (right) by the side of the track just in case a fire engine should need to drive along the track one day?
Now for the good news! Well done Ran – “Sir Ranulph Fiennes conquers Everest for Marie Curie Cancer Care” – what a man, wonky heart, bits of fingers missing from earlier frost bite, and he stood on top of the world. http://www.everestchallenge.org.uk/ . Happy birthday to daughters Laura and Ruth – again! And, some
of the natural history challenges have been met. The first was a search for a long lost fern, hard shield fern (Polystichum aculeatum), last recorded on Abernethy in the 1990s. It took half a day and quite a bit of scrambling around on grassy and rocky slopes bumping into lots of other nice ferns along the way, before it was located. Just one clump, growing happily on a shady rocky ledge, but still there after all those years.
The weekly butterfly transect has continued, with just one week so far lost to cold weather. Green-veined whites have been a feature of most weeks but it is a little worrying just how few small tortoiseshell butterflies have been seen. Perhaps the recent warm spell will help them. For many years I have half-heartedly been looking for one of our rarer ladybirds - the 5 spot – a bonny but small ladybird that lives happily on river shingle.
There is a well known site on the River Nethy near to where it enters the River Spey, and two people have found single specimens on the Nethy south of Forest Lodge. With the latter site being within the Abernethy Reserve, this seemed the best area to start my search, but with the earlier records being pre-GPS equipment, it wasn’t known quite where they had been found. So, on went the wellies and my search along the river began, wandering from shingle bank to shingle bank. The first unusual thing that caught my eye was a cranefly (daddy long-legs - left), but with even longer legs than usual, so long in fact, that it didn’t seem to be able to control them, and regularly ended up in a bit of a tangle. Not only did it have extra long legs but their co
lour changed from black at the body end to white at the foot end – strange. I managed to take a photo and expert Mike was able to tell me that it was Dolichopeza albipes, a cranefly which, like the ladybird I was looking for, lived on river shingle, but feeding on liverworts growing close to the edge of the river. On the next bank of shingle a brilliant blue flower came in to view, a shortened version of a speedwell, the thyme leaved speedwell but sub-species humifusa, a flower that Andy at work had been asking folk to look out for!
I was starting to think that the ladybird would have to wait for another day, I had been searching for about four hours, the sun was getting hotter and I wasn’t really sure whether I should be looking for it close to the river edge or in amongst the vegetation on the more stable sections of gravel.
As I deliberated what to do I had slightly switched off from search mode and there, on a very small rowan sapling was something small, red and with black dots... this could be it, but in my hurry to try and get it into a plastic tube for a better look, I slightly flicked the sapling and the beetle fell to the ground and disappeared into the gaps in the shingle! Dam it! As I contemplated building a low seat out of rocks to sit and wait for it to re-appear, I realised that I could just see it, lying quite still, in between two rocks. If I moved the rocks I could see that the ladybird would drop further into the myriad of gaps further down and that would be that. Out came a stub of a pencil from my pocket, a dab of spit on the rubber, gently bring rubber and beetle together, and seconds later I was looking at my first 5-spot ladybird, now safely in my plastic pot! I quickly took a few photos in the pot, and, with camera at the ready, removed the lid from the tube and took a few more photos as the beetle emerged before it opened its wings and was gone. Brilliant! An extended search of the rest of the shingle bank failed to relocate the original ladybird or any others, but a few days later I was passing the same spot whilst doing Bird Atlas recording and I was tempted to have another look. My luck was in and there was ……a 6-spot ladybird, a 5-spot ladybird, but with an extra spot. So there was definitely more than one ladybird on that particular bit o
f river shingle. As I continued up river on the day of my original find, the sun was getting warmer and a few more insects were appearing on the wing. Bumblebees were visiting the first opening flowers of bird’s-foot trefoil and suddenly a brilliant flash of orange whizzed by, a butterfly, but which one? It settled on a rock, constantly opening and closing its wings, orange one second then hard to see the next. This was my first small copper butterfly of the year and, being recently emerged, was as well coloured as it would ever be. It was also kind enough to allow me to take its photograph.
A few days later and I was sorting out the last of the seasons records for the green shield moss, and putting the GPS location details into a format that would allow a distribution map to be produced. Despite the moss not featuring in the diary for a while work had been continuing in looking for more capsules during the course of other work. It was an interesting season and when I tallied up the various totals for the year it became apparent that a minimum of 998 capsules had been found by all the people who had been involved in looking, but more on that in a minute. 998, I just could not let the season end on a figure like that so a couple of areas were visited to see if an extra 2 could be found to make the seasons total 1000! After a mornings
searching it was very appropriate that it was a deserted wood ants nest (left) that provided the final two! I’m not too sure though that others are pulling their weight in the search, out of a total of 166 logs checked, I was responsible for 155 of them. Out of the 166, 144 logs had capsules, 115 of which were in Abernethy. During the period September 2008 to May 2009 I ended up being responsible for finding 102 of the 107 new sites for the moss, perhaps it is time for a few others to have a look during the next growing season! I have certainly been a bit disappointed by the lack of interest shown by the expert Bryologists in wanting to see the variety of new habitats found in Abernethy during this period, a coach and horses wouldn’t have kept me away!
With the breeding season well underway, the Firwood garden has proved a haven for many birds. A recent chalet visitor recorded a minimum of 18
different species even with crested tit and long-tailed tit missing from the list. With the arrival of June, dawn kicked of at about 4am and the songs of many species could be heard. We now have at least two yellowhammers singing within hearing distance of the house, and the visiting pheasants have provided much amusement and display. I probably hear many of the dawn choruses and happily fall asleep again afterwards, but one morning at about 6am, a few jackdaws remained so noisy that I had to get up to see what was going on. What was that cat doing with its head in the squirrel’s nut box feeder? It seems to have a very long tail – good god, it’s a pine marten! I waited for the head to go into the box again and I backed off from the window and dashed to get my camera and big lense assembled. Despite accomplishing this task in record time when I returned to the window the marten had disappeared along with the scolding jackdaws. I wonder just how regular a visitor the pine marten is to the garden and particularly to the feeder? Despite many subsequent checks, nothing has been seen since, but who knows what goes on during the night!
Aficionados of the osprey site webcams (http://www.rspb.org.uk/webcams/birdsofprey/lochgartenvideo.asp ) will know that we had a bit of a panic on a few weeks ago down at the nest site, our brilliant male bird had come back to the nest one day not just with a fish but with 20-30 metres of fishing line tangled about his body and streaming out behind him. Watching his head shaking actions, there was a good chance that
he also has a fish hook in his mouth or somewhere on his body. A few years ago, the then female osprey became tangled in a similar way and departed the site one evening, never to return. Was the same fate due to happen to Odin, our male osprey? When he went missing from the site for over 30 hours we certainly thought so, and, with newly hatched osprey chicks in the nest, a contingency plan was put in place and to help the female and her chicks, fish was taken out to the nest to tide her over the initial period when the male was absent. Thankfully Odin returned the next day and must have been a bit puzzled to see a nest with a couple of fish lying there. Later in the day he brought in his own fish, but it was obvious from a wing feather out of place that somewhere along the way he had probably had a battle with the fishing line which thankfully now had gone. However, he wasn’t quite his normal self and the fish supply, which up until the fishing line incident, had been quite prolific, was now at a bit of a trickle. We assume that the final parting from the fishing line could have been quite a painful experience, perhaps leaving the bird stiff and sore because within a few days he was back to normal and excelled himself one day by bringing in nine fish. With this amount of fish worries about the youngest chick not getting enough food were quickly dispelled and for many an hour all the chicks could do was lie in the nest stuffed to the gunnels with fish! We really do have an exceptional male this year highlighting just how poor the male bird in 2008 really was.
This year is also an osprey anniversary year, 50 years since the site was open to the public using a wee gypsy caravan tucked away in the trees as the first osprey “centre”. George Waterston obviously wasn’t expecting 14,0000 folk to turn up to see the birds in that first year! To celebrate the event Frank Hamilton RSPB Scottish Director for many yea
rs AND one of the original protection wardens in 1958, came along to give a wee talk and open the site to free entry for the day for all our visitors, almost fifty years to the very day when the first visitors came in to see Britain's only breeding pair of ospreys all those years ago. Yours truly was there to take the photos and Julie, one of the Caper Watch staff made a brilliant anniversary cake, complete with osprey nest and chicks, to celebrate the occasion.
An outstanding item from the last diary was my visit to the Highland Council archaeologist to talk over how to finalise a list of the key Abernethy Forest sites and to see if John’s flint find in April was at all important. Well, to cut the waffle, the sites can all be ground truthed and sorted but only if I or other volunteers were keen to take on the task because the Council don’t have any money or staff available to assist with the job. I think I saw a flicker of recognition that John’s find was indeed a bit of flint but there seemed little enthusiasm to make a note or register the find. Perhaps these thing are turning up all the time, but a bit more encouragement or even a ‘well done’ wouldn’t have gone amiss. Well I thought the find was brilliant so well done John!
A second diary item that had also been left a bit up in the air was the majestic old Scots pine tree that was brought down by February snows (left), forming a perfect natural arch over the Dell track running between Nethybridge and Forest Lodge. Would it stay or would it go, that decision had been left with the Nethybridge Community Council. Wel
l, I am able to report that the tree will be part of the future deadwood habitat on the reserve but sadly it no longer remains a natural feature for visitors to walk under. The tree was lifted by a JCB and now lies in a fairly undignified heap (right) by the side of the track just in case a fire engine should need to drive along the track one day?Now for the good news! Well done Ran – “Sir Ranulph Fiennes conquers Everest for Marie Curie Cancer Care” – what a man, wonky heart, bits of fingers missing from earlier frost bite, and he stood on top of the world. http://www.everestchallenge.org.uk/ . Happy birthday to daughters Laura and Ruth – again! And, some
of the natural history challenges have been met. The first was a search for a long lost fern, hard shield fern (Polystichum aculeatum), last recorded on Abernethy in the 1990s. It took half a day and quite a bit of scrambling around on grassy and rocky slopes bumping into lots of other nice ferns along the way, before it was located. Just one clump, growing happily on a shady rocky ledge, but still there after all those years.The weekly butterfly transect has continued, with just one week so far lost to cold weather. Green-veined whites have been a feature of most weeks but it is a little worrying just how few small tortoiseshell butterflies have been seen. Perhaps the recent warm spell will help them. For many years I have half-heartedly been looking for one of our rarer ladybirds - the 5 spot – a bonny but small ladybird that lives happily on river shingle.
There is a well known site on the River Nethy near to where it enters the River Spey, and two people have found single specimens on the Nethy south of Forest Lodge. With the latter site being within the Abernethy Reserve, this seemed the best area to start my search, but with the earlier records being pre-GPS equipment, it wasn’t known quite where they had been found. So, on went the wellies and my search along the river began, wandering from shingle bank to shingle bank. The first unusual thing that caught my eye was a cranefly (daddy long-legs - left), but with even longer legs than usual, so long in fact, that it didn’t seem to be able to control them, and regularly ended up in a bit of a tangle. Not only did it have extra long legs but their co
lour changed from black at the body end to white at the foot end – strange. I managed to take a photo and expert Mike was able to tell me that it was Dolichopeza albipes, a cranefly which, like the ladybird I was looking for, lived on river shingle, but feeding on liverworts growing close to the edge of the river. On the next bank of shingle a brilliant blue flower came in to view, a shortened version of a speedwell, the thyme leaved speedwell but sub-species humifusa, a flower that Andy at work had been asking folk to look out for!I was starting to think that the ladybird would have to wait for another day, I had been searching for about four hours, the sun was getting hotter and I wasn’t really sure whether I should be looking for it close to the river edge or in amongst the vegetation on the more stable sections of gravel.
As I deliberated what to do I had slightly switched off from search mode and there, on a very small rowan sapling was something small, red and with black dots... this could be it, but in my hurry to try and get it into a plastic tube for a better look, I slightly flicked the sapling and the beetle fell to the ground and disappeared into the gaps in the shingle! Dam it! As I contemplated building a low seat out of rocks to sit and wait for it to re-appear, I realised that I could just see it, lying quite still, in between two rocks. If I moved the rocks I could see that the ladybird would drop further into the myriad of gaps further down and that would be that. Out came a stub of a pencil from my pocket, a dab of spit on the rubber, gently bring rubber and beetle together, and seconds later I was looking at my first 5-spot ladybird, now safely in my plastic pot! I quickly took a few photos in the pot, and, with camera at the ready, removed the lid from the tube and took a few more photos as the beetle emerged before it opened its wings and was gone. Brilliant! An extended search of the rest of the shingle bank failed to relocate the original ladybird or any others, but a few days later I was passing the same spot whilst doing Bird Atlas recording and I was tempted to have another look. My luck was in and there was ……a 6-spot ladybird, a 5-spot ladybird, but with an extra spot. So there was definitely more than one ladybird on that particular bit o
f river shingle. As I continued up river on the day of my original find, the sun was getting warmer and a few more insects were appearing on the wing. Bumblebees were visiting the first opening flowers of bird’s-foot trefoil and suddenly a brilliant flash of orange whizzed by, a butterfly, but which one? It settled on a rock, constantly opening and closing its wings, orange one second then hard to see the next. This was my first small copper butterfly of the year and, being recently emerged, was as well coloured as it would ever be. It was also kind enough to allow me to take its photograph.A few days later and I was sorting out the last of the seasons records for the green shield moss, and putting the GPS location details into a format that would allow a distribution map to be produced. Despite the moss not featuring in the diary for a while work had been continuing in looking for more capsules during the course of other work. It was an interesting season and when I tallied up the various totals for the year it became apparent that a minimum of 998 capsules had been found by all the people who had been involved in looking, but more on that in a minute. 998, I just could not let the season end on a figure like that so a couple of areas were visited to see if an extra 2 could be found to make the seasons total 1000! After a mornings
searching it was very appropriate that it was a deserted wood ants nest (left) that provided the final two! I’m not too sure though that others are pulling their weight in the search, out of a total of 166 logs checked, I was responsible for 155 of them. Out of the 166, 144 logs had capsules, 115 of which were in Abernethy. During the period September 2008 to May 2009 I ended up being responsible for finding 102 of the 107 new sites for the moss, perhaps it is time for a few others to have a look during the next growing season! I have certainly been a bit disappointed by the lack of interest shown by the expert Bryologists in wanting to see the variety of new habitats found in Abernethy during this period, a coach and horses wouldn’t have kept me away!With the breeding season well underway, the Firwood garden has proved a haven for many birds. A recent chalet visitor recorded a minimum of 18
different species even with crested tit and long-tailed tit missing from the list. With the arrival of June, dawn kicked of at about 4am and the songs of many species could be heard. We now have at least two yellowhammers singing within hearing distance of the house, and the visiting pheasants have provided much amusement and display. I probably hear many of the dawn choruses and happily fall asleep again afterwards, but one morning at about 6am, a few jackdaws remained so noisy that I had to get up to see what was going on. What was that cat doing with its head in the squirrel’s nut box feeder? It seems to have a very long tail – good god, it’s a pine marten! I waited for the head to go into the box again and I backed off from the window and dashed to get my camera and big lense assembled. Despite accomplishing this task in record time when I returned to the window the marten had disappeared along with the scolding jackdaws. I wonder just how regular a visitor the pine marten is to the garden and particularly to the feeder? Despite many subsequent checks, nothing has been seen since, but who knows what goes on during the night!Aficionados of the osprey site webcams (http://www.rspb.org.uk/webcams/birdsofprey/lochgartenvideo.asp ) will know that we had a bit of a panic on a few weeks ago down at the nest site, our brilliant male bird had come back to the nest one day not just with a fish but with 20-30 metres of fishing line tangled about his body and streaming out behind him. Watching his head shaking actions, there was a good chance that
he also has a fish hook in his mouth or somewhere on his body. A few years ago, the then female osprey became tangled in a similar way and departed the site one evening, never to return. Was the same fate due to happen to Odin, our male osprey? When he went missing from the site for over 30 hours we certainly thought so, and, with newly hatched osprey chicks in the nest, a contingency plan was put in place and to help the female and her chicks, fish was taken out to the nest to tide her over the initial period when the male was absent. Thankfully Odin returned the next day and must have been a bit puzzled to see a nest with a couple of fish lying there. Later in the day he brought in his own fish, but it was obvious from a wing feather out of place that somewhere along the way he had probably had a battle with the fishing line which thankfully now had gone. However, he wasn’t quite his normal self and the fish supply, which up until the fishing line incident, had been quite prolific, was now at a bit of a trickle. We assume that the final parting from the fishing line could have been quite a painful experience, perhaps leaving the bird stiff and sore because within a few days he was back to normal and excelled himself one day by bringing in nine fish. With this amount of fish worries about the youngest chick not getting enough food were quickly dispelled and for many an hour all the chicks could do was lie in the nest stuffed to the gunnels with fish! We really do have an exceptional male this year highlighting just how poor the male bird in 2008 really was.
This year is also an osprey anniversary year, 50 years since the site was open to the public using a wee gypsy caravan tucked away in the trees as the first osprey “centre”. George Waterston obviously wasn’t expecting 14,0000 folk to turn up to see the birds in that first year! To celebrate the event Frank Hamilton RSPB Scottish Director for many yea
rs AND one of the original protection wardens in 1958, came along to give a wee talk and open the site to free entry for the day for all our visitors, almost fifty years to the very day when the first visitors came in to see Britain's only breeding pair of ospreys all those years ago. Yours truly was there to take the photos and Julie, one of the Caper Watch staff made a brilliant anniversary cake, complete with osprey nest and chicks, to celebrate the occasion.In May the reserve welcomed Ellen Rotheray to Forest Lodge, as she embarked on the breeding season phase of her PhD research project working with the very rare pine hoverfly Blera fallax. 
This fly was mentioned briefly in the New Year edition of the diary, and is one of the species that has often been looked for in the forest but hasn’t been seen since 1985. Its current status in the UK is that it is known from only two forests, both close to Abernethy, and the estimated population numbers 100s rather than 1000s. Over the last few breeding seasons attempts have been made to provide artificial breeding sites (left) either by cutting holes in the stumps of recently felled Scots pine trees and filling them with wood chips and sawdust and allowing the holes to fill naturally with rainwater, mimicking the natural breeding sites that occur in very low numbers, naturally, in the forest. Other artificial breeding sites have comprised plastic pots filled with chips and sawdust, and waterproofed wooden boxes similarly filled. Of all the artificial sites, the natural stumps have proved to be the most successful so far outside Abernethy, but thereby probably hangs a tail. In the “wild” suitable natural breeding sites in our impoverished natural forests, are always likely to be at a low level. A natural site comprises a biggish old conifer, Scots pine trees in our case, that has had an attack of heart rot fungus. The tree eventually dies and in some cases the lower, stump section of the dying tree, develops a central core of soggy, decaying wood, kept moist by an ingress of natural rain water. A bit like the artificial sites that have been trialed over the last few years. The hoverfly has been most numerous in historical times, when large sections of old growth forest have been felled, exposing many stumps with heart rot, kept moist each time it rains. Typical felling episodes of this nature happened during the last two great wars, and on a smaller scale when pinewood owners carried out heavy fellings as part of the felling and replanting management of their woodlands.
Ellen’s research actually started in 2008, when she monitored breeding sites at one of the two woods where the hoverfly occurs. Many hours were spent watching stumps with cut holes in the hope of actually seeing the fly, the males will mate with the fema
les close to where a suitable breeding hole exists, and the females will then visit the cut holes to lay her eggs. The hoverfly has been monitored at this wood for several years so Ellen also put muslin “tents” over some of the cut stumps to try and get an idea of how many adult flies would emerge from the known number of larvae in the cut holes. At the end of the breeding season a few of the breeding sites held good numbers of pine hoverfly larvae and several of these were removed, under licence, so that they could be studied in captivity during the winter months to learn more about their larval stage requirements. Most of the larvae survived the winter and in early spring they left their watery home to pupate in the vegetation that had been provided surrounding the water filled holes. This was the stage of the breeding season that Ellen arrived at Forest Lodge and her first job was to build several muslin “cages” in to which the adult flies would emerge from their pupal cases (above right). The first question to answer was would the adult flies emerge successfully considering that this had never been done before, and if they did emerge, would it be possible to keep them alive and entice them to breed completing the first ever captive breeding cycle? If this stage was reached a few flies would be retained to carry on breeding in captivity and the others would form part of a introductory release programme in a new area of woodland in Strathspey. At the time of writing all of these stages have been successfully achieved with some hoverflies released in the Rothiemurchus pinewood, where recent fellings have taken place, and within the breeding cages at Forest Lodge, the flies have mated successfully and eggs have been laid. The emergence of the first captive bred larvae is now awaited and, if everything progresses successfully a few adult flies will be released in Abernethy in 2010. For more information see http://www.mallochsociety.org.uk/blera-2006-status/ & http://www.sbes.stir.ac.uk/people/rotheray/index.html . Sadly, neither of these write ups show just how much Ellen as achieved in the research project so far, but hopefully this will be addressed later in the year.
This fly was mentioned briefly in the New Year edition of the diary, and is one of the species that has often been looked for in the forest but hasn’t been seen since 1985. Its current status in the UK is that it is known from only two forests, both close to Abernethy, and the estimated population numbers 100s rather than 1000s. Over the last few breeding seasons attempts have been made to provide artificial breeding sites (left) either by cutting holes in the stumps of recently felled Scots pine trees and filling them with wood chips and sawdust and allowing the holes to fill naturally with rainwater, mimicking the natural breeding sites that occur in very low numbers, naturally, in the forest. Other artificial breeding sites have comprised plastic pots filled with chips and sawdust, and waterproofed wooden boxes similarly filled. Of all the artificial sites, the natural stumps have proved to be the most successful so far outside Abernethy, but thereby probably hangs a tail. In the “wild” suitable natural breeding sites in our impoverished natural forests, are always likely to be at a low level. A natural site comprises a biggish old conifer, Scots pine trees in our case, that has had an attack of heart rot fungus. The tree eventually dies and in some cases the lower, stump section of the dying tree, develops a central core of soggy, decaying wood, kept moist by an ingress of natural rain water. A bit like the artificial sites that have been trialed over the last few years. The hoverfly has been most numerous in historical times, when large sections of old growth forest have been felled, exposing many stumps with heart rot, kept moist each time it rains. Typical felling episodes of this nature happened during the last two great wars, and on a smaller scale when pinewood owners carried out heavy fellings as part of the felling and replanting management of their woodlands.Ellen’s research actually started in 2008, when she monitored breeding sites at one of the two woods where the hoverfly occurs. Many hours were spent watching stumps with cut holes in the hope of actually seeing the fly, the males will mate with the fema
les close to where a suitable breeding hole exists, and the females will then visit the cut holes to lay her eggs. The hoverfly has been monitored at this wood for several years so Ellen also put muslin “tents” over some of the cut stumps to try and get an idea of how many adult flies would emerge from the known number of larvae in the cut holes. At the end of the breeding season a few of the breeding sites held good numbers of pine hoverfly larvae and several of these were removed, under licence, so that they could be studied in captivity during the winter months to learn more about their larval stage requirements. Most of the larvae survived the winter and in early spring they left their watery home to pupate in the vegetation that had been provided surrounding the water filled holes. This was the stage of the breeding season that Ellen arrived at Forest Lodge and her first job was to build several muslin “cages” in to which the adult flies would emerge from their pupal cases (above right). The first question to answer was would the adult flies emerge successfully considering that this had never been done before, and if they did emerge, would it be possible to keep them alive and entice them to breed completing the first ever captive breeding cycle? If this stage was reached a few flies would be retained to carry on breeding in captivity and the others would form part of a introductory release programme in a new area of woodland in Strathspey. At the time of writing all of these stages have been successfully achieved with some hoverflies released in the Rothiemurchus pinewood, where recent fellings have taken place, and within the breeding cages at Forest Lodge, the flies have mated successfully and eggs have been laid. The emergence of the first captive bred larvae is now awaited and, if everything progresses successfully a few adult flies will be released in Abernethy in 2010. For more information see http://www.mallochsociety.org.uk/blera-2006-status/ & http://www.sbes.stir.ac.uk/people/rotheray/index.html . Sadly, neither of these write ups show just how much Ellen as achieved in the research project so far, but hopefully this will be addressed later in the year. Enough! Lots more exciting things have happened, some of which will need to await future diary entries.
With best wishes
Stewart & Janet
With best wishes
Stewart & Janet
A visit to see the dolphins at Chanonry Point with grandson Finlay
25th June in Strathspey - yes, that is snow!
All photos © Stewart Taylor
