worth making one last visit to Loch an Eilein on Rothiemurchus Estate to see if there were any elusive tooth fungi. To avoid paying the car parking fee I parked just down the road from the car park, walked in and found a couple of morels by the name of elphin saddle (Helvella lacunose) right by the road (left). This is one of the easier morels to identify with its black cap and ridges and grooves running the length of the stem. My aim for the morning was to check out any old borrow pits by the track running round the loch in the hope of finding a few tooth fungi and with everything crossed in the hope of finding Hydnellum gracilipes for the first time outside Abernethy. I set off round the loch clock-wise which meant the first few borrow pits were in the full glare of the sun though pine trees gave quite a bit of shade. I have never found the fungus in this type of location but the quarries were checked out anyway. I should really have had a couple of ‘road works ahead’ type signs warning visitors that they might encounter a man kneeling or possibly lying down in the little quarries around the track – and not to worry, he’s harmless! Sure enough, the first folk to be a little surprised by my “hello” from within one of the quarries became quite interested in what 
I was up to. As I got to the far end of the loch conditions improved as the south slope of the hill was north facing and, with reasonable tree cover there might be a chance. Not many borrow pits though! A wee gully looked promising but nothing was found and a wee hollow by the track looked equally unpromising. Just as a couple with a huge dog happened upon me I was parting a curtain of heather to reveal something slightly pink behind the vegetation (right). To their question of “What are you looking for?” I was able to reply that they were just in time to see something quite historical, the first site for Hydnellum gracilipes in the UK outside Abernethy. Lots of explaining about fungi with teeth and fungi with gills and they left me to take a few photographs. It was as I was lying on my side, eye to my camera viewfinder, that a group of secondary school pupil
s passed me by. However, a couple of the pupils came back along the track with one of their leaders to ask what I was up to and I was able to tell them all about my find and its importance. As I would need to take a small sample to be sent off to Martyn at Kew I asked them to wait a minute so they could see the actual fungus. By the time I had my sample the whole group had returned to see what was happening and with lots of exclamations of “cool” I was able to tell the group that they were the 10th to 20th people to see this fungus as a live specimen, within the UK. I was even more “cool” now than before but who knows, I migh
t just have sparked an interest that could last a lifetime. Really cool! I had to make sure though that no one was looking when I posed for the picture left, a perfect end to the tooth fungi season. Eventually all my tooth fungi data from Abernethy was entered into a spreadsheet and this allowed the table right to be created showing how 2011 compared to my previous years.The
following day was Farmers Market day in Grantown on Spey and we were all there bright an early to erect the tents and get all the goods on display. The effects of the car bump nine days earlier though were making themselves felt and with sore hips and back I was unable to help with the tent erection and had to apologise and leave the rest of the folk to it. A first for the Market was the arrival of a pair of alpacas penned by the side of their owners stall and quite an attraction they proved to be. Also new to Janet’s stall was a basket of “Dammit Janet” stress relieving dolls proving just as popular with the buyers as the exclusive tweed bags, coffee cosies and make up bags. The poem which accompanies the doll is given below!“DAMMIT JANET”
Stress relieving doll ~ contains lavender to calm frayed nerves.
When you want to throw the phone
Or kick a chair and shout
Here’s a little Dammit Doll
You cannot do without
Just grasp it firmly by the legs
And find a place to slam it
And as you whack the stuffing out
Yell,
“Dammit,
Dammit,
DAMMIT!”
Lots of work needed on Janet’s part for a two day craft fair at Haddo House in the first days of November.
Phoning and messing about re the car saga from the last diary resulted in
a new (well second-hand) car joining the family. A visit to Inverness located a couple of suitable cars and after much to-ing and fro-ing a Fiesta at Macrae & Dicks won out. Part of the purchase process means going through various added value offers as well as extended warranty options. Craig did his bit and the papers were signed and then Fiona arrived to explain the benefits of the warranty options. She gave me her card whilst she went off to collect some photocopies I needed and I noticed that this young lady was Fiona Macdonald MBE. Looking to be no more than in her mid-thirties I asked Fiona on her return what her MBE had been for and she replied – curling! Of course, two members of a very famous c
urling team did come from Inverness and this was one of them, in person. Twice I have stayed up late to watch finals in the Olympic Games, once was the hugely emotional middle of the night effort to watch Sir Steve Redgrave win his fourth gold medal as a rower and the last time was the Winter Olympics in 2002 when the British (all Scottish) Women’s Curling team took on Switzerland in the final. In the very late evening the British ladies battled away until in the final end, with the scores tied at 3-3, and with 15 of the 16 stones played, Switzerland were in the gold medal position with their red stone resting on the line of the inner-centre circle. Rhona Martin had the final “hammer” stone and could only 
win the end by playing an inch perfect stone that would just nudge the Swiss stone away from the centre circle whilst leaving her stone in its place or, better still, in the centre-circle. In what seemed like ultra-slow motion, Rhona’s stone travelled down the ice, made its way round the Swiss “guard” stone ahead of the circles and, with a gentle but perfect nudge, pushed the Swiss stone away leaving Rhona’s stone right on the “button”. A brilliant stone, played under extreme pressure and the gold medals went to the 5 members of the British team. I was sitting opposite and talking to an Olympic gold medal winner! I mentioned my monthly diary and asked if it would be possible to see her gold medal when I returned to pick up the car in a few days time. Of course came the reply and so, a few days later, Janet and myself came face to face with an Olympic gold medal along with its proud owner. Thank you Fiona. To see the winning stone go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/winterolympics2002/hi/english/curling/newsid_1835000/1835582.stm
And then it was off to Lancashire for a week’s holiday in a brilliant farm barn conversion in Newton with Laura and Ruth and the boys. The first day saw a gathering of four generations as Grandma Holden joined us to celebrate Archie’s second birthday, a party which carried on into the evening when we were joined by all the members of the Taylor clan. Good food, good games and a great gathering. The farm had friendly sheep, hens, geese and young pigs which went down well with Finlay and Archie, despite the regular rain. With many villages on our doorstep we were obliged to try several for lunch-time outings, the one to Hurst Green lead us on to the grand avenue leading to Stoneyhurst College. Despite the waterlogged ground rugby matches were being played and, having come prepared with a bag of stale bread the boys had great fun feedin
g the mallard and a fairly aggressive white goose. All too soon the last day arrived and we finally found time to have a lazy day in Newton, eyeing a couple of impressive houses currently on the market, but with price tags of £700,000 and £1 million, we hurried on by. Lunch was in the wonderfully named Hark to Bounty in Slaidburn and as we wandered on to the village church it was nice to catch up with a couple of nuthatches and a late chiffchaff calling nearby. The best weather of the trip was on the day we drove home!Back home, a visit to Tulloch Moor reminded me of the query left at the end of the last diary – the small warty looking ball. The reply to my iSpot query suggested I cut the ball/fungus in half and check the inside, but, having left the fungus in situ, my visit to Tulloch was to try and find another
specimen. This time though, it would be a little more difficult. The fungus in the last diary was lying on the surface of the forest floor whereas normally they would be buried underground – the fungus we are dealing with is a truffle, the false truffle one of two species of Elaphomyces. The way to find the truffle short of having a truffle hound or boar is to look for the fruiting bodies of another fungus which is a parasite of the truffle. The parasite has the wonderful name of snaketongue truffleclub or Cordyceps ophioglossoides and can be found as a black finger-like fungus emerging from the soil. As I entered the Tulloch birches I found the parasite quite easily and, with penknife in hand, dug gently down to see if I could find the truffle, and found not just one but several with the tell-tale yellow mycelium linking parasite to truffle. This time one was cut in half and again the photo sent to iSpot and the positive result this time told me that I had found Elaphomyces muricatus.21 October saw a major arrival of redwings in and around Nethybridge a
long with a few fieldfares. However, by the next day they had gone and few have been seen since. There is a complete lack of rowan berries locally so no doubt most will have pushed on south. Whilst in Lancashire we saw many more where, all around the country lanes hawthorns were hanging thick with berries. A few days later I had my first whooper swans passing over – what a brilliant sound these graceful birds make as they fly along. With amazingly mild weather lupins in the garden continued to flower right through October and cowslips also came into flower, leaves seemed reluctant to fall from the trees and whilst 
checking a group of alder trees near Loch Pityoulish unsuccessfully for an unusual fungus called the alder tongue Taphrina alni, buds on a couple of rowan trees were starting to burst. A check of alders along the River Nethy a couple of days later was however more productive and several “tongues” were found protruding from several seed cones from last years crop. This unusual fungus grows from within the alder seed cone, green/red in colour on young green alder cones but turning a dark brown with age and remaining on the cones until the seeds are shed the following summer. The fungus was a new addition to the RSPB Abernethy species list when found.The same day was a very sad one for Moto GP with the death of one of its rising starts Marco Simoncelli. One of the less serious guys on the circuit he will be sadly missed. Around the same time we were talking to Solar Power Scotland about the possibility of installing photo-voltaic panels on our roof, but more about that next month.
The month ended with two spectacular finds, the first occurr
ing when we were invited to a friend’s house near Insh Marshes for dinner. After a brilliant meal we were all relaxing in front of the open log fire when John said “What’s that behind you on the settee?” I turned round to find a shieldbug resting right by my head and though I wasn’t able to name it, it looked different to the birch shieldbug seen occasionally in the area. Malcolm produced a tube and the bug travelled home with us. Next morning I once again checked the British Bugs website (http://www.britishbugs.org.uk/ ) and was 95% certain that the bug was an adult green shieldbug and, just to ensure I was working along the right lines, I checked the National Biodiversity Network Gateway distribution map. Oops, there wasn’t a dot for the bug in Scotland so I checked the bug website a little more carefully to make sure all the key features were present and it certainly still looked like the green shieldbug to me. Just to be sure the photo was posted on iSpot (http://www.ispot.org.uk/node/232700 )and within half a day 5 people had agreed that my ID was correct. Amazing.
My second find came about via my link with a near neighbour who has been using his geology expertise to direct me to local outcrops of base-rich rock which, in the past, had been quarried for lime for use on local farm fields.
This particular outing took me towards the TV mast on Laggan Hill near Dulnain Bridge where the remains of several small quarries are clearly visible. The first finds were fairy flax and quaking grass both plants of base-rich soils and when I descended to a couple of rock outcrops I saw something on the thin soil overlying one of the outcrops which had me thinking of a picture of the lichen Solorina spongiosa, the only member of the family described in my ID book that I hadn’t seen. So photo only and no sample but the small green collar (thallus) surrounding the red-brown apothica just a few millimetre in diameter looked like the picture I had in my head and this was confirmed when I returned home. This find wasn’t new to Scotland but it was new to Ordnance Survey square NJ, so a fairly good record.Enjoy the read
Stewart & Janet
Second car in a month leaving the Taylor’s for the scrap heap
Rugby at Stoneyhurst College
A spidery sunset
All photos © Stewart Taylor
