The one bit of advice from this diary is
ALWAYS BACK-UP YOUR COMPUTER FILES! For
weeks now I had been a bit lax in linking up the two big external hard-drives
to copy over all the photos, word and excel files and on 5 September, as I was
downloading yet another set of photographs from one of the camera cards a
strange message appeared telling me the computer was unable to save a Word file
I hadn’t used in ages. More worrying was
the sight on screen where some of the photos were shown as black boxes, so I
stopped everything, and tried again.
More messages telling me that unsaved data might be lost etc, and when I
tried to opened the files stored on the 1TB external hard drive, nothing
appeared and visions of having lost all the holiday photos, all the natural
history stuff including the late at night homework photos of galls, fungi
spores – some possible photographed for the first time, filled me with horror. Help!.
At a guess, I probably hadn’t backed up my files since about May and as
I tend to keep a photo diary which is linked to
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| Photos of the fungal growths on twinflower were almost lost |
my pocket diary as a help to
what was photographed, I knew there was a lot at stake. Half an hour later I was seeing computer
expert Barry at Baztex in Aviemore to see if there was any hope that somewhere
in the hard-drive “box” the files still survived and he provided some hope by
saying “possibly”. After selecting a new
Samsung hard-drive off the self I left with everything crossed that Barry would
find the files and copy them to the new hard-drive. At 5pm I could wait no longer and phoned to
see if the files had been found only to be informed that raw data had been in
the process of transferring for five hours and that there was another two hours
to go before we would know if the photos and other files were there. After a terrible nights sleep there was great
relief when the phone rang at half ten to say the files were all there and that
in exchange for a heap of money, I was free to pick up the new hard-drive, and
get on with life. Back home, the next
couple of hours were spent making copies of all the files, work that I should
have been doing on a regular basis since May.
With Barry’s help, I now have a few photos available for this month’s
diary and have written out one thousand times – ‘I must remember to back up my
computer files!’ Barry had also a bit of
input into the last diary. Having
struggled to get my photos in the right place in the diary (as you may have
noticed) he suggested that I should use Google Chrome as a replacement for
Internet Explorer. Not being very
computer savvy the though of upsetting the machine filled me with dread, but,
as I tried to work unsuccessfully with the last diary I thought there was
nothing to loose. It worked, and a
slightly new format of diary was created and the photos were dead easy to work
with. I hope you approve.
You may have noticed that a new pastime has
been creeping into the diary – fungal smuts on sedges. The first ones were found on flower-heads of
spring sedge (Carex caryophyllea) when counting the orchids at Flowerfield
Meadow in June, with new sedge/smut combinations appearing in the last
diary. Martyn, at Kew,
emailed to say that there were very few records of these unusual fungal growths
and that if possible, I
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| Mud sedge - Carex limosa |
should try and keep an eye open for them whilst out and
about. A few species are listed in the
“Ustilaginales of the British Isles” but
Martyn suggested that there were many more out there “to be found”, knowing
that I was likely to take up the challenge.
The list mentioned above said that the smut, Anthracoidea limosa was
found on mud sedge (Carex limosa) and knowing of a few local Abernethy sites
for the sedge, off I went in pursuit.
Mud sedge is one of the “bonnier” sedges with fans of green leaves spread
across the bog from which arise the flower stems about six inches high and with
nice pendulous flower heads, all looking quite delicate. Despite a couple of hours of searching, bent
over double to check the flower spikes, nothing was
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| Fungal smuts on the Deergrass Trichophorum x foersteri |
found so a few days later I
visited another location with fewer spikes of mud sedge but with lots of other
sedges with potential for the smut fungus.
However, it wasn’t a sedge that produced the first smuts but a common
plant of damp moorland called deergrass (Trichophorum species). For many years botanists wandered the moors
listing the plant as deergrass (Trichophorum caespitosum) until someone took a
closer look and eventually identified two distinct species (T. caespitosum and
T. germanicum) and, where both species grow together, the hybrid Trichophorum x
foersteri. The fungal balls looked so
unusual on this
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| Bog orchid |
plant that I began to wonder if anyone had previously recorded
Trichophorum as a host species so very carefully a few specimens were collected
to check under the microscope and photographs taken to show the smuts on the
flowerhead. The deergrass turned out to
be the hybrid, which is sterile so not sure what the fungus was growing on, but
the specimen was dried so that the experts at Kew
could delve a little further. More smuts
were found on star and carnation sedges but find of the day came right at the
end when, peering down at the bog plants something pale green and small came
into view and the more I focused I realised that I was looking at a flower, no
more than an inch or two high, which had to be bog orchid (Hammarbya paludosa),
a flower I had only seen in two locations previously. The more I stared the more plants I could
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| Many bog orchids on tussock |
see, and one cottongrass tussock had about 15 flowers growing from it. There were more in the mud of the tiny
runnel, and more in the other bits of vegetation close by. In all, 60 flower spikes were counted, and in
the mud there were several non-flowering “bulbils”, perhaps young plants that
would flower the following year. It
turned out later that this was one of the biggest populations recorded in
recent times, so once again, searching for one species turned up another!
When leaving our holiday accommodation last
year Kate informed us that she already had lots of bookings for summer 2013,
and so we opted for a later August visit this year. The dates chosen would allow Janet to attend
the local Abernethy Highland Games with her craftwork before heading off once
again for South Uist. The Games this
year were to benefit hugely from various village projects aimed at providing
better village
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| Laura ready for the visitors to the craft tent |
walks but also opening up the dense spruce plantation all around
the eastern boundary and creating better car parking and visitor access
following the purchase of the field adjacent to the Games field/football
pitch. As previously we went down to the
Games field on the Friday to set up the tent but this year had grandsons Finlay
and Archie in tow. With the running
track all marked out on the football pitch I took them both for a wee jog up
and down the 100 metres track but then they both took off and we ended up
jogging round the bigger circular track.
Archie and myself did a couple of laps in a stop-start sort of way but
Finlay was off and we had a job to stop him, even after three laps, as it was time
to head back to the house! An early
start on the Saturday saw the tables and tweed crafts installed in the tent, a
job made easier by the arrival of
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| Scott Rider |
daughter Laura who had driven over to
help. By half-ten, the children’s events
were getting underway and highland dancing competitions had started so time to
leave Janet and Laura on the stall and nip up the road to walk the weekly
butterfly transect, week 19 of 26! Returning
to help pack everything away was perfectly timed as one of the heavy events – 56lb
weight over the bar was just reaching its climax and with just three
competitors still in the event (the others having failed to get the weight high
enough) the announcer was building up the excitement by informing everyone that
the bar was getting close to a Games record.
As the
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| Success |
record height was reached there was just one competitor left,
Scott Rider, and there was a very loud Ohh from the crowd as the first attempt
failed to creep over the bar. The Ohh
though changed to a huge cheer as the second effort sailed over the bar and
once everything had been re-measured a new height went into the record book. An hour later, everything was packed away at
the end of another successful “Tweedcraft” day.
Thank you Laura.
One of the last outings before heading off
on holiday was a second visit to an area of limestone quarrying last visited in
March 2012. On that visit I had very
limited information about what was where and having found a good area where
limestone had been removed, I spent the day there. But early in August botanist Andy and
geologist Donald both told me about two big lime kilns that they had recently seen,
and Andy had inspired
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| The smaller lime kiln with the lichen Solorina saccata |
me to re-visit by one of the plants he had found growing
there. The plant, alpine enchanter’s
nightshade (Circaea alpina), had been on my list of “things to try and re-find”
following my 2012 visit, but hadn’t materialised. The extensively quarried area is now within a
tree regeneration fence, and, as the fence has proved to be more and more
successful, less of the site is easy to visit because of the dense growth of
trees, juniper and, in places, bracken.
The kilns alone looked worthy of a visit from the photos I had seen so
off I went. A different track to the
site from my first visit took me right to the fence where one of the kilns was
clearly visible, and whilst not as impressive from the photos as the other
kiln, it looked much more unusual
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| Nettle-tap moth - Anthophila fabriciana |
owing to its low build. The fencers had been very kind and there was
a gate in the deer fence giving access to the site. The first stone slabs of the kiln also showed
that the site could be good for lichens as, without really looking, I could see
a decent population of the lime loving lichen Solorina saccata. The more gaps in the stonework I examined,
more of the lichen was found and I was hopeful of more finds. The same lichen had been found during my 2012
visit so wasn’t new to the site.
However, despite lots of searching, no more “unusual” lichens were
found, this though, was more than made up for on the botanical side. With the lichen were lots of the wee fern
maidenhair spleenwort and a small moth which stayed still long enough to be
photographed turned out to be Anthophila fabriciana, the nettle-tap moth – more
good names! Instead of small, deep rock
quarries, most of the site was covered with spoil-heaps, the residue of what
couldn’t be burnt to produce quick-lime.
In amongst a good population of maindenhair spleenwort something a
little
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| Green spleenwort top and maidenhair spleenwort below |
greener caught my eye, my second local site for green spleenwort, a much
rarer relative of the former, with few sites locally. Growing side by side it was quite nice to be
able to check the differences between these two similar looking ferns. Maidenhair has a black stem throughout and sori (spore masses) in lines on the underside of the leaves. Green spleenwort has a green stem (but dark
at the base) and the sori are much more obvious under the leaves. Subtle, but different. A few clumps of the rarer fern were seen and
on returning home a quick check of books and NBN informed me that two good
local botanists had both recorded the plant – but 46 years ago. Brilliant.
Now the difficult bit. I had a
rough map of where the alpine enchanter’s nightshade had been found, right in
the middle of a dense patch of mature and spiky
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| Alpine enchanter's nightshade - Circaea alpina |
juniper. No doubt, when first found in 1973, the
hillside would have been grazed by sheep and deer and the juniper would have
been more open. But now, with grazing
excluded, the vegetation generally was much more luxuriant, though I could see
evidence (wool) that the odd sheep did manage to find a way through the
fence. Without the juniper, perhaps the
plant wouldn’t have survived. Waterproof
pants on (to stop the juniper needles filling up my wellies) I started to visit
the juniper bushes, looking into each as best I could. A few bushes were so big and old it was
actually possible to crawl into them, and by using this technique I was
eventually successful in finding the plant, not a lot of it in the bush I had
crawled into, but it was readily identifiable as the plant I was looking for. A few spots on some of its leaves caught my
eye, so one was
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| The massive lime kiln |
carefully removed to take home for checking. Before exiting the enclosure I followed the
fence for a few hundred metres to have a look at the second, huge kiln,
possibly one of the biggest I have ever seen.
A search of the brickwork and adjacent soils failed to find anything of
importance so just time to hop over the fence to try and get a photo of the
kiln – not easy to show all of it due to fence, slope etc, before heading back
down the hill to the car. The spots on
the alpine enchanter’s nightshade leaf revealed a spotty orange fungus on the
underside and when looked at under the microscope the spore size and plant host
lead me to Pucciniastrum circaeae a fungus with few records in Highland Region.
Holiday quiz -can you see a butterfly?
And so, mid-month, we headed off to South
Uist, the latest we had ever holidayed in the Uists. The ferry from Uig on Skye was not until 5pm
so we had a leisurely drive west and even had time en-route to make another
visit to the thyme broomrape site. Far
too late to see the plant in all its glory, but at least we would be able to
make a count of the number of flowering spikes.
A total of 17 were seen, four times as many as
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| Compass jellyfish - Chrysaora hysoscella |
we saw in 2012. I had been watching the weather developing
during the week and sure enough, we had quite a breezy crossing, and possibly
the same winds that had roughed up the open seas along the west coast enough to
detach lots of seaweed which we saw everywhere washed up in heaps along the
beaches. This was probably most obvious
on our first beach outing where the seaweed was almost wellie deep in the
corner of the beach. As we walked we
also noticed lots of jellyfish being washed in close to the edge of the sea,
lots of compass jellyfish (Chrysaora hysoscella) and many that I think were
moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita). In
amongst the bits of seaweed I spotted something that I thought was a roundish
piece of blue
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| By-the-wind-sailor - Velella velella |
plastic about three inches across and with a section sticking up
at ninety degrees - a convenient wee handle by which to pick up the
“flotsam”. As I did so I had the feeling
that I was looking at a type of jellyfish, with the wee handle actually looking
like a sail. “Sail by the wind
jellyfish” came into my head which, when we got back to the cottage, wasn’t far
from being correct. It was Velella
velella or “By-the-wind-sailor”, not a true jellyfish but colonies of tiny
animals called hydroids all coming together to create this amazing creature
which floats around on the surface of our seas.
See the link below for more details.
This is possibly a new species for South Uist the nearest previous
record being on Barra. Another day and
another surprise on another beach. Half
a dozen ravens, way in the distance, had caught my attention, and as we were
heading
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| Striped dolphin about 2 metres in length |
in their direction I had the feeling that we were going to find
something dead. As we got closer I could
see what looked like a dead seal but as we got to the animal it turned out to
be a small, possibly common dolphin. It
had been dead for a little while but was still in a good enough condition to
make a wee sketch and take a few photos to send to the sea mammal strandings
folk. Initially they were happy that it
was a common dolphin but when we got home another email arrived to say that
from the photos it had been identified as a striped dolphin Stenella
coeruleoalba. Obviously the meadow pipit
and tree pipit of the dolphin world.
Being later in the season it took us three days to see our first
short-eared owl but eventually we had a fly-by at the cottage. The following day we had both s-e owl and hen
harrier near to the cottage, the latter species having proved to be quite
elusive when trying to photograph. On a
brilliantly sunny day we visited Eriskay and having parked the car near the
ferry terminal we had walk along the road to Parks. The road petered out into a track which lead
nicely down to the rock shore complete with ruined croft house. A rock outcrop looked interesting and provided
a new site for sea spleenwort and just everywhere there were dark-green
fritillaries charging about in the sunshine.
On the way back I left Janet to go and check out a group of aspens
growing on a rock outcrop (away from the many sheep) and one minute I was
making
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| The famous rock where the SS Politician floundered in 1941 |
steady progress forward and the next I was flat on my back in what might
have once been a ditch but now much overgrown with brambles! Everywhere I tried to get a hold to pull
myself up there were brambles and with my rucksack still on my back, it was
almost impossible to roll over.
Eventually I was able to use my hat to protect one hand whilst I slowly
managed to extricate myself with a nicely lacerated arm and with many embedded
bramble thorns which took a few days to find and remove. Ouch!
Worst of all there was nothing of note on the aspens! We ended our outing with a nice bar meal in
the Am Politician pub (yes commemorating the famous SS Politician which floundered
close by in 1941) and behind the bar there is even a bottle of the famous
whisky on display.
Perhaps the most memorable outing on this
visit was to a bit of woodland (yes, a rare piece of established woodland) that
has remained undetected by the pair of us over all our visits. A dram with ex-Rum resident John Love at the cottage
one evening lead us in the direction of sea eagles and woodland during our
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| Loch Aineort woodland |
conversation and John suggesting that both might be seen in the Loch Aineort
area just down the road. John was the
man responsible for looking after the many sea eagles brought over to Rum, between
1975 and 1985, right at the start of the re-introduction programme with me
helping out when John was off the island.
This piece of woodland, not shown on the current OS maps covers several
hectares and has been established by the determined efforts of one man, Archie
Macdonald, who lives on site and is constantly adding trees to his small
estate. At the trees are maturing so the
regular fungi and galls are already starting to establish themselves. Not only is Archie planting trees but he has
created paths everywhere so that visitors
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| Janet sitting on Archies Millenium stone seat with accompanying table! |
can enjoy visits to the
woodland. After our walk through the
woodland we headed further round the coast to an area of genuine, natural
woodland, a small area of broadleaved trees in a steep sided gully. SNH have recognised the importance of this
ancient, surviving remnant of natural woodland, have provided help to fence the
area off so that the trees that have survived to date, have a chance to expand
by natural regeneration. Aspen, birch and willow
are all present so hopefully the start of a woodland for the future on these
largely treeless islands. No eagles, but
a very special part of South Uist and, with a seal on almost
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| Seals on rocks Loch Aineort |
every rock jutting
out from the sea well worth the visit.
An outing to the Daliburgh area saw us heading out to high-tide island
of Orasaigh and as the sun came and went so did the last of the seasons
grayling butterflies and as I munched my lunch I wandered back and forth
firstly trying to see one of the butterflies and then trying to photograph
one. Unlike last year when the graylings
seemed to detect the focusing mechanism of the camera, this years butterflies
were a little more accommodating and at least did let me get close allowing me
to add an additional photo to the one posted above. Now can you see it? The corn buntings continue to
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| Quiz answer - a grayling butterfly resting, centre of photo |
disappear at an
ever increasing rate and despite being out and about most days we only heard
2-3 on the RSPB Balranald Reserve. As
the buntings decrease so the changes in agricultural practices continue apace
with silage rather than hay being the main winter feed being produced for the
farm stock. Does it have a part to play
who knows, but it won’t be long before one of the Uists most iconic birds will
be lost for ever.
And all too quickly our holiday was over
and we packed up and headed for home.
Whilst on the islands we had seen that one of the past Osprey Centre
staff was now working on the Balranald Reserve and the wider area monitoring
some of the key species. We didn’t meet
whilst visiting the reserve and we didn’t have time
 |
| Stuart meets Stewart |
to pop into an RSPB open
day event as we headed back for the ferry to see if he was there. An email to say sorry we missed you would
have to be sent once we got home. There
were quite a few small dolphins close to the ferry as we headed out from
Lochmaddy and a few folk were on deck trying to see them. In the distance was a face I thought I
recognised so I dashed over to ask “Stuart Taylor?” Sure enough this was the man that we had
missed on the islands and here he was heading for the mainland on the same
ferry. Amazing.
Enjoy the read.
Stewart and Janet
Jeremy Roberts botanical guide to
deergrasses
Velella velella By-the-wind-sailor, for more information see:
John Love
NBN
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| Sun-rise Stoneybridge South Uist |
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| Moon-rise Stoneybridge South Uist |
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| Hen harrier photo - at last |
Photos © Stewart Taylor
