Monday 24 November 2014

A bit of Cairngorm delivered to the “Auld Acquaintance” cairn

There were two big events during October, daughter Ruth flew out with Lewis to the US of A and we spent a week in Lancashire (recovering!) with Janet’s mum.  Ruth’s holiday was a much delayed birthday present from back in May but suitably timed to match school holidays and a week where grandparents were available to look after “the boys”.  As Ruth flew out we took the boys to Grantown to select a couple of books to read before having a walk up to Castle Grant where sticks to fence with and cones to throw were readily available.  Back home for the evening an ambitious meccano project was started involving batteries, motor with pulley, string and lots of nuts and bolts.  A lots of effort went into “Finding Wally” in the books purchased earlier before donkey rides carried tired
Singing dipper River Nairn
grandchildren to bed.  An outing to Nairn the next day saw sticks and logs floating down the River Nairn, a dipper singing on a rock in the river, six-inch twigs becoming “magical” and something we had never heard of but linked to the Minecraft games oddly named a “foam pickaxe”!  How we could have used the real thing a couple of hours later.  On the way home we thought a visit to Ardclach Bell Tower would be good fun, lots of steps to climb and count before ascending the stone steps within the tower itself.  The tower dates from 1655, and the
hill on which it stands gives excellent views out over the River Findhorn, via the climb up 70-odd steps to the impressive single door giving access to the tower.  Finlay tried unsuccessfully to unlock the door with the big key, but with a bit of help we in and all at the top of the tower peeking out through the slit shaped shot holes in the walls.  Back down the steps we visited what looked like a small dungeon set down in the basement.   As I photographed Archie perched on the edge of a tiny windowsill we suddenly heard Finlay informing us that we were “locked in” with him on the outside.  Knowing that Finlay had been unable to unlock the door on our arrival I wondered what our next steps would be having walked up to the tower leaving bags, phones etc. behind in the car!  As notable lines
Phew, after "the event"
from Dad’s Army flashed through my mind “don’t panic” and “we are all doomed, doomed” I tried unsuccessfully to instruct Finlay on which way to turn the key but from inside the locked door.  A small gap close to the lock allowed me to get a finger to the outside, pointing which way to turn the key.  At the same time I realised that the bolt bit of the lock was visible on the inside and with Finlay trying to turn the key on the outside and me pushing the bolt on the inside there was immense relief when the key turned and the door opened.  Phew!  Back at the car Finlay informed us that there were 164 steps on the return trip between gate and tower.


As we welcomed Ruth and Lewis back it was time to complete my letter of objection to the Cairngorm Park Planners regarding the house plans for our local School Wood.  Errors in the ecological surveys where quite mind-boggling and these formed the major part of my
The major find - 140 capsules on one root
objection and whether the finding of a tiny, protected moss, no more than a few millimetres high, in areas to be felled and built over would have any effect, would be determined in late November.  The tiny green shield moss also produced another stunning display, this time in RSPBs Abernethy Forest.  A single Norway spruce root buttress of a felled tree produced a count of around 140 capsules, definitely the biggest count anywhere to date and quite an
Part of the biggest count to date
amazing sight the scale of which is very difficult to capture on camera.  The day after saw me visiting the doctor again with a red-ringed tick bite and being given another 14 day course of antibiotics to combat the possibility of Lyme Disease.  Just one of the hazards of tramping through the undergrowth recording things.  With the tablets working and energy levels returning an outing was planned to follow up reports of waxcaps in a field at Glen Brown near Tomintoul.  This amazing glen displays all the remains of life as it was about 100 years ago, large areas of grazed pasture with ruined remains of farm houses and steadings backing on to higher moorland.  The area though is slightly lime-rich, so you can never be too sure what you will find.  Juniper bushes were checked, without luck, for unusual lichens, but quite quickly a few waxcaps were encountered by the track with more in the grazed pasture.
Glen Brown - ex lime quarry (centre) and kiln up and to left
Red grouse were still quite vocal and the odd raven passed overhead. Lunch was taken by one of the ruined farm buildings.  Scanning the opposite hillside through my binoculars I spotted what looked like an old lime quarry and a little further up the hillside, what looked like a limekiln – an obvious target for the afternoon.  In areas, a few plants of quaking grass (Briza media) appeared and as I crossed the burn and headed towards the possible quarry, more was encountered.  My guess about the quarry was correct and more waxcaps were found along with white and yellow spindle fungi (Clavaria fragilis and Clavulinopsis helvola) and after having been recording plants for several weeks of the summer I was
Having fun with Intermediate lady’s mantle
tempted to have a go at identifying a couple of the small-leaved plants of Lady’s mantle.  Checking for the amount of hairs above and below the leaves and on the leaf pedicels (stems) Alchemila filicaulis (hairy lady’s mantle) and Alchemila xanthochlora (intermediate lady’s mantle) were identified, quite an achievement for me!  The quarry was not good for lichens which was the main reason for checking it and as I made my way up to the kiln the rain started, and, having spotted an ancient aspen growing close to one of the ruins, I headed in its direction, sheltering for a while in one of the safer parts of the tumble-down building.  The rain eased for a while so a quick check was made around the aspen, no doubt
Ancient aspen and ruin in which to shelter (left) Glen Brown
getting a few folk scratching their heads when they receive my records from what is normally classed as a tree-less area!  As the rain increased to a steady down-pour on went the waterproofs and up went the umbrella and with little possibility of further recording I headed off back to the car.  Having lost track of the date I realised once home that it was wedding anniversary time and with the shops now shut the evening was spent finding a nice photo and suitable card from Janet’s store in preparation for the morning.  Brain getting worse!

During the approach to referendum day we had heard a little bit about a cairn being built right on the England/Scotland border at Gretna by people from across Britain.  The “Auld Acquaintance” cairn was the idea of Penrith and Borders MP Rory Stewart, with the aim being to get people who wanted the UK to stay united to bring their own stones, some with messages, to build it.  As we were heading south, and with the M6 passing a few hundred metres from the cairn, we thought it worth a visit and to place our own stone as a thank you
Cairngorm/Loch Morlich rainbow
to the people of Scotland.  But this wasn’t going to be any old stone.  Via contact with the Mycological staff at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, I had become aware of the “Lost and Found” project as detailed in last month’s blog, and having visited the website realised that one of the “lost” species could possibly be lying undiscovered in the nearby Cairngorms.  So, on the day before we headed off to Janet’s mums I thought I could kill two birds with one stone (no pun intended), go and see if I could find a long-lost fungus and whilst on the side of Cairngorm, select a stone to take to Gretna.  In Nethybridge it was fine and almost sunny but at the Cairngorm car park it was blowing almost a gale and there was constant drizzle in the air.  The rain from Cairngorm did, at times, head down the hill with regular rainbows appearing showing that there was actually sun shining a couple of miles down at Loch
Could this be Sporomega degenerans on
Vaccinium uliginosum?
Morlich.  Undeterred I set out along the path towards Coire an t-Sneachda knowing that within a couple of miles the damp runnels coming off the slopes would provide populations of the plant I was seeking - bog bilberry (Vaccinium uliginosum).  In 1907, at a site in Perthshire, thuis fungus was found on the stems of this plant and hadn’t been recorded since.  My hope was that the fungus, Sporomega degenerans, would be present on one or more of the plants I might find, and that the Lost and Found project would have done its job and one of the target species was known to still be alive and well.  That was the theory!  Plants of dwarf cornel were found and a search along the same tiny burn produced my first Vaccinium plants, thankfully, just before they were about to lose all their leaves.  The only guidance I had was that the fungus (stromata in this case) erupted through the bark of the plant so stem after stem was searched.  Parting some of the live stems revealed that some stems were dead or dying and there was also dead twigs attached to live ones.  A quick “hello” was exchanged with a group of folk heading right up the mountain on the path above
Cairngorm stone and lichen "Auld Acquaintance" cairn Gretna
me, and having passed, they probably had an interesting discussion about what they thought I was up to.  Some of the bigger clumps of the Vaccinium seemed to offer more mature live and dead stems to search and it was on one of these that a series of small, longitudinal splits was encountered, looking reasonably like the picture I had printed off from the Kew website.  In all, four collections were made of whatever it was I was finding on the plant stems, all found during about an hour and a half of searching.  Another collection was also made from a good population of the plant close to the car park.  Just time to select a nice pink bit of Cairngorm rock, complete with lichen, for the Gretna stop, before heading back to the car.  The evening was spent carefully removing a couple of the “splits” so that sections
could be checked under the high-powered microscope.  From the description of the fungus I knew I was looking for quite long spores, but despite lots of searching, nothing was found.  Knowing my collection would need to go to the experts at Kew to be checked I was reluctant to remove too many “splits” and after a couple of days of drying, the collection was packed and posted in the hope that Paul would have better luck than I.  The first email was quite encouraging in that the “splits” looked correct, but like me, no spores could be found with the suggestion being that the fungus was effete (worn out, exhausted, finished) and the spores had gone or, more likely, they had been parasitized, infested by another organism. 
Another search would have to wait until 2015, and also be a little earlier in the season.  Watch this space.  Next day we were up bright and fairly early to head south, reaching Gretna just in time for lunch.  Several people were visiting the cairn which was right on the Scotland edge of the River Sark, as near as feasible to the Scotland/England boundary.  People had come to the cairn from all over Britain to place “their” togetherness stone in the run up to the 18 September, and no doubt some like us, had adding their contribution following the vote. 


The next week was spent visiting several lunchtime dining spots with Janet’s mum and family and friends.  Favourites are the pub in the old Roman village of Ribchester, a new café at the ex-railway station at Longridge and the brilliantly impressive Stoneyhurst College
Stoneyhurst College always impressive
at Hurst Green where Janet had timed it right for their Christmas Fair.  Strange things are also happening in the countryside around the Ribble Valley – an ivy take-over.  The plant is climbing up fence posts, telegraph poles, buildings. Even hawthorn hedges have become ivy dominated.  An empty ex car showroom in Accrington resembles something from the day of the trifids, with walls covered and the roof starting to disappear under a carpet of green.  Brother John reported an unusual, large, yellow plant growing by a nearby road which
Ivy on the march
turned out to be evening primrose, a rare escapee in that part of Lancashire.  We also had five days without hearing anything about the Scottish “neverendum”! 
The journey home encountered the A9 average speed cameras for the first time, switched on the day after we headed south.  Not only do these cover the “notorious” Perth to Inverness section, but also the duelled section between Dunblane and Perth.  Welcome to the Highlands!  I also arrived home to be greeted with the news from expert Mike that a couple of spiders I had found in the house during the last few months had been identified.  The first was one of those giants of the house Tegenaria saeva, the giant house spider, which was found in the kitchen sink way back in early August.  Whether it was a coincidence or not but looking after a set of antique drawers for daughter Ruth might have had something to do with its appearance. There are two species of giant house spider, the one mentioned above
The giant house spider Tegenaria saeva
along with its close relative Tegenaria gigantean and they can only be told apart by the experts.  The one found at Firwood is the one regularly found in the north of Britain whilst its close relative is found mainly in the south.  This impressive spider measures about 8cm across its outstretched legs and, having a hairy body is probably the one species folk who are terrified by spiders ever want to meet!  The second spider couldn’t have been more different, tiny by comparison and a “jumper” to boot.  It’s not found in the house all the time but one or two of these bonny wee spiders had been putting in an appearance every few weeks, mostly in June.  The one that allowed me to take its photo actually appeared on the desk
Jumping spider Pseudeuophrys lanigera
next to my computer and eventually I caught up with it for just long enough to get a decent photo which local expert Hayley identified as Pseudeuophrys lanigera, confirmed a few days later by Mike.  Sadly, many species of spider can only be identified from a collected specimen.  This spider was only recorded in Britain for the first time in 1930, in Devon, an arrival from the continent.  Since then it has spread north with just a few records, to date, in Scotland.

Redwings appeared early in the month and joined blackbirds devouring rowan berries on the tree in the garden.  The predominantly mild weather throughout the month saw all the birds finding enough natural food to almost stop using the peanut feeders.  Sunflower hearts were utilised, but some days even these feeders weren’t emptied.  Pine martens appeared almost daily, much to the delight of our last chalet guests for the year.  Fallen bits of
Common pinmould fungus on bird seed
sunflower hearts provided us with an unusual surprise on our return from Lancashire, a carpet of something black growing from the lawn under the feeder.  On closer inspection it turned out to be a mould and making a guess it was linked to the bird food I typed “fungus on fallen bird food” to see if it was a known feature of bird feeders.  Yes it was, and something experienced a lot by folk according to the RSPB website.  However, I had to do a bit more delving to find out it was called common pinmould (Phycomyces nitens) another species whose distribution is spreading north no doubt due to the increased use of sunflower hearts as bird food.

Enjoy the read
Stewart and Janet

Ardclach Bell Tower
The Auld Acquaintance cairn Gretna
British Arachnological Society (BAS)
RBG Kew “Lost and Found” project
Highland Biological Recording Group
and how to join HBRG

One of my first whooper swans by flooded field Carr Road
Where's Grandma?
Late afternoon Ryvoan Pass and Cairngorms


Photos © Stewart Taylor