What a start to the year they had in the deep south as the
following excerpt from the Butterfly Conservation newsletter shows. “Peacock butterflies were spotted in Derbyshire, Devon,
Dorset, Nottinghamshire, Somerset, Sussex and Yorkshire on New Year's Day. Sightings of Small Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral,
Brimstone and Painted Lady were also reported on 1st January. The first species to emerge are usually those
which remain in their adult form and hibernate through the coldest months”. Another bit of butterfly news also arrived
early in January via the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey (WCBS) newsletter –
a summary of what I and another 630 surveyors were involved in during
2018. This survey started in 2006 and is
something anyone can get involved in, but my link is a doubling up survey where
I visit the same one-kilometre square to do the BTO Breeding Bird
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| Red admiral |
Survey. This is a brilliantly informative survey as
it monitors butterfly populations across the UK and all via a minimum of one
visit a month during the butterfly season.
The 2018 summary was as follows: “During the 2018 survey season 1,804 surveys were
completed, with over 3,600km of survey route walked. Approximately 630
recorders counted a total of 115,605 butterflies of 46 species, the same
species number as in 2017. This
comprised 25 wider countryside species, 18 habitat specialist species and the
three regular migrant species; Painted Lady, Red Admiral and Clouded Yellow”. This scheme works in addition to the UK
Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS) which is a fixed transect location, walked
weekly between the start of April and the end of September. This survey has been running since 1976 when
I was involved in setting up the Loch Garten transect, details of which have
appeared in previous blogs. Roll on
summer!
The butterflies might not have appeared in this part of the
UK just yet, but we continued to find a few plants in flower through the first
days of January. Details of flowering
plants for one site in the official BSBI New Year Plant Hunt appeared in the
last blog, but, having started looking we continued to record anything we saw
after the 1 January. No additional
species of wild flowering
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| Climbing corydalis |
plants were found but we made a couple of outings to
see if snowdrops were flowering after the first one appeared in the garden on
the 5th January accompanied by the first winter aconite a full month
ahead of the first one in 2018. Our good
snowdrop wood near Nairn had none showing but did produce three of the
commonest flowering species along with a very early scarlet elfcup fungus (Sarcoscypha
austriaca). Hop trefoil (Trifolium
campestre) was found at Nairn Harbour but probably the most unusual find was a
bit closer to home near Nethy Bridge where climbing corydalis (Ceratocapnos claviculate)
was found in flower. Bramble and sea
mayweed (Tripleurospermum maritimum) were found below the Kessock Bridge near
Inverness adding up to 33 flowering plants in total across all sites visited, a
few less than the 114 at Phillack in Cornwall!
The run back from our snowdrop wood near Nairn had an added bonus and
this wasn’t the towering blade of the windmills at the Tom nan Clach windfarm! Having taken the ‘picturesque’ route along
the B9007 from Furness we turned off along the road to Lochindorb to see a
developing sunset. The photogenic lone
ash in the field by the minor road was the ‘wrong way round’ to see the setting
sun at its best when viewed
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| Weatherwatcher photo top and original below |
from its northern side though I did try, so we
drove on a bit to where one of its young offspring was growing right by the
loch shore. Finding somewhere to park
the car off the single-track road I walked back towards the tree just in time
to get a photo before the sun disappeared below the distant hills. It was though low enough to create a long red
reflection across the loch right to the ash tree by the shore so I fired off a
few photos with my wee Panasonic Lumix in the hope that one would be good
enough to send in to BBC Weatherwatchers.
Once home one photo looked suitable so off it went. We missed the Scottish 18.30 news and weather
forecast but the phone rang, and neighbour Rita said it had made it, and there
it was when I checked the forecast via my laptop. It then appeared again a couple of times on
the BBC News24 so it was well worth the effort of picking the right tree. Interestingly, the lone ash mentioned earlier
did exactly the same almost a year earlier but photographed the other way round
and without a sunset. Well done
Lochindorb!
With 2019 funding becoming available for aspen related work
via the Cairngorms National Park aspen group, I made a visit to the remote
aspen stand in RSPBs Abernethy Forest Reserve to see if anything might qualify
for inclusion. Visits to this nationally
important aspen stand become more upsetting with each visit as, slowly but
surely, the mature trees are reaching the end of their lives, falling over,
with no new trees appearing to replace them.
A lichen survey was carried out at this site in 2001 after it was found
a couple of years earlier that the Highland aspens held important species.
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| The loss of aspen trees at Clais Eich old and new |
At this site two species were new to the UK,
3 Red Data Book and 11 nationally scarce species were also recorded, all of
which were still present when I made my first ‘lichen’ recording visit to the
site in 2010 as part of my ‘learning a few rare lichens’ progress. It was estimated then that there were about
25 mature trees and a couple of half mature ones but, since 2010, many have
fallen due to heavy snow falls and gales so that currently, just nine trees
remain. RSPB installed wooden exclosures
about six years ago at a size that would discourage deer from jumping in to them,
but, sadly, very few new aspen suckers (from the aspen roots) have
appeared. Perhaps these trees are just
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| Caloplaca flavorubescens lichen |
getting too old, loosing their vigour, and perhaps decaying around their roots? This group of trees hold (held) one of the
biggest populations of the rare crust lichen Caloplaca flavorubescens in the UK
and whose population is already hugely reduced due to tree loss as it can only
live for a limited time on a fallen, dying tree. Hopefully, the new management plan RSPB are
producing for the whole Abernethy Reserve will include some positive management
objectives for this amazing aspen stand.
Birds have continued to feature during January and February
with the garden feeders attracting a couple of redpolls, something we don’t
often see, but the highlight in the garden has been the wee flock of
long-tailed tits. These are regular
visitors to the garden with small flocks usually being a feature of late-summer
and autumn after the breeding season.
This year though the flock has stayed
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| Redpolls top and the long-tailed tit 'gang' |
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| The King's Road bullfinches |
together right through the winter
with 12 birds regularly seen visiting their favourite food – fat-balls! They were one of eighteen species of birds
recorded during the RSPB Big Garden Bird Count over the weekend 26-27 January,
with several bramblings another of the species.
The bird feeders by one of the Explore Abernethy walks (King’s Road)
have also been good value with regular crested tits, a pair of bullfinches and,
in early February, feeding and drumming great spotted woodpeckers. On the Saturday evening of the RSPB count the
BBC Winterwatch team held a ‘come and meet us’ event in the village hall with
the production team explaining what was being planned and Chris Packham doing
the introductions for the rest of the presenting team. The event was well attended with glasses
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| The Winterwatch team |
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| Rita's waxwings and the BBC Winterwatch cameraman |
of
wine, soft drinks and nibbles on offer.
The first programme went out on the evening of the 29 January running
through to 1 February. After the first
edition when a puppet crossbill appeared, I went out into the forest the next
day to collect actual crossbilled cones (cones with the seeds removed by the
birds) along with some stripped by red squirrels and delivered them to the
production venue up the Dell Road. It
seemed a bit daft to show the crossbill puppet but not the evidence the real
crossbills leave behind when feeding but sadly they didn’t make it. Whilst collecting the cones my mobile phone
rang to say there were about a dozen waxwings feeding on cotoneaster berries
just down the road from our house, spotted by neighbour Rita. Driving past on my way to the production
venue I saw that they were still there so whilst delivering the cones I let
them know, with a wee map, where they were feeding. The camera team reacted quite quickly and
within an hour they were on site filming the birds as they had just about
stripped all the berries from the bush.
An hour later and the birds were gone!
Ahead of the production folk arriving an email arrived from Craig at
Buglife
asking if it would be okay for the BBC to use the video I’d made a year
earlier of the Northern February red stonefly (Brachyptera putata). The video showed the stonefly feeding on
algae or fungi on fence-posts by the River Spey and this could be added to the
filming session with him to highlight the breeding cycle of this rare insect, the
filming date being just a little early for the stoneflies to be active. The video was made available and Craig spent
the day with the Winterwatch team and what did the BBC show - Iolo Williams
messing about in the River Nethy, in the dark, so that they could show a
stonefly larva doing ‘press-ups’! This
was shown on the last episode and the note in my diary after the event was
“rubbish”. I did find adults on the
fence posts again on the 14 February, so they were only just too late to appear
live.
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| The real Northern February red stonefly |
Birds continued to feature through January and February via
the BTO winter bird transects with both outings trying to target the best days
without too much frost or snow. The
January outing managed to get a clear day when the temperature reached 0 to 10C
but despite the cold quite a few coal tits were back in the woodland section of
the transect and with nine species recorded.
February’s outing on the 13th became possible after a fall of
snow followed by heavy frosts with daytime thaws creating
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| Boot spikes |
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| BTO Winter Bird Survey details |
skating rink
conditions on road and tracks requiring me to attach spikes to my boots to get
around. By the 13th a heavier
thaw had set in and most of the snow had melted. However, with the temperature at 100C
snow on the hills was also melting providing me with a bit of fun when crossing
a normally small burn when walking between the two transect sections. Waterproof pants were put on with all zips
and studs at the bottom of the legs fastened tight and a sturdy stick found
before attempting the crossing. With the
water level just above the top of my wellies as quick a crossing as possible
was made with the waterproofs just about keeping all the water out of my
wellies. The second section of the
transect then produced a few surprises with 30 fieldfares and 26 starlings
hunting for food on the recently thawed fields.
A jay was also something not recorded previously. In all eight species were recorded with coal
tits once again coming out on top.
The outings to look for a new site for the black-eyed Susan
lichen (Bunodophoron melanocarpum) continued with a return visit to the previously
recorded site adjacent to Loch Ruthven drawing a blank. Being a lichen most regularly found in the
west of Scotland I checked maps to see which woods might meet that category to
the east of Loch Ness. Drawing a
vertical north-south line on the map from the most easterly known site the
scattered birch woodland towards the head of the Findhorn Valley (Coignafearn)
looked like a potential site. Despite
not being heavily wooded the
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| Old croft sunset and red deer herd |
trees are quite old and some are fallen and
decaying so this is where I headed.
Despite the day being freezing cold the rocky woodland proved quite
interesting and the afternoon clambering around produced some nice finds like
hard shield-fern (Polystichum aculeatum), several rock lichens which took a
while to identify once home and a nice patch of Peltigera britannica
lichen. It was the end of the afternoon
though that produced the real highlight, a wide V-shaped glen with clear-blue
skies and a setting sun. An old croft
was photographed several times as I walked back to the car, the setting sun
lighting it up in different ways. High
on one of the hillsides a herd of red deer were grazing picked out nicely
against the blue sky. Driving back down
the road a light rain shower tried hard to create a rainbow – but not quite and
once again no black-eyed Susan. So, the
next outing in mid-
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| Black crust of Fuscopannaria ignoblis and barnacle lichen |
February would have to be further west, and I headed for one
of my favourite lichen sites, the Pass of Inverfarigaig almost on the east
shore of Loch Ness. I had only just left
the road heading down into the Allt Mor burn when one of the first entries in
my notebook says “unusual spindle-like fungus on fallen dead tree” so photos
taken and, thankfully, a small sample was collected. The brilliantly named but rare Fuscopannaria
ignobilis lichen was the next find on an ash tree and growing on that lichen
was the barnacle lichen (Thelotrema lepadinum).
Despite lots of searching, the habitat didn’t look quite right for
black-eyed Sue so a bit of rock-face was visited to list a few ferns like black
spleenwort (Asplenium adiantum-nigrum), more hard shield-fern, rose moss (Rhodobryum
roseum) and thickpoint grimmia moss (Schistidium crassipilum). The real work though started once home after
unpacking the ‘spindle-like fungus’.
None of the photos in my books looked like the fungus so
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| Thickpoint grimmia moss top and shining cranesbill leaves |
a section was
cut, squashed on a microscope slide, and checked to see what the spores looked
like. With this extra bit of information
my photos were sent to expert Liz who replied with a couple of names to check
but also perhaps a Multiclavula species?
Typing this name into Google I immediately saw photos of what looked
like my fungus - Multiclavula mucida. Reading other information also told me that “This
interesting fungus grows in symbiosis with algae (Coccomyxa) similar to
lichens.” With this information I made
contact with lichen expert Brian Coppins who confirmed that I had the right
species and that this was just the fourth record for the UK! This though, was just the start! Brian suggested that the herbarium at RBG
Edinburgh would like a dried sample with the same
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| Gyalecta jenensis lichen top and Liancalus virens fly |
request from Kew so, a second
trip to Inverfarigaig would need to be made, not that I was complaining. A week later I was by the fallen tree once
again accompanied by the ‘posh’ camera for the best photos. Thankfully, the fungus was still plentiful
and hadn’t gone past its best, so a couple of samples were carefully taken and
packed away in the car whilst I spent the rest of the day searching the base of
the crags. It was to be a day for
Leptogium lichens with L. saturninum found on several trees and two others from
the lime rich rocks still awaiting confirmation. A narrow gully running up through the
rock-face just had to be searched and it was nice to meet up with Gyalecta
jenensis once
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| Multiclavula mucida fungus and spores x1000 oil |
again on a moist rock. A
bonny wee fly also on the damp rock was named via my photograph - Liancalus
virens, a long-legged fly that lives amongst the mosses, liverworts and algae
growing under bridges and beside waterfalls and fast running water. A single shining cranesbill plant turned into
hundreds a little further along the rock-face and a big population of Peltigera
leucophlebia, a bright-green leafy lichen, running down the rock. Checking the Multiclavula mucida fungus again
once home showed it had ‘matured’ quite markedly with many more spores visible compared
to the sample from a week previous. The
samples were slowly dried, carefully packed and popped in the post. Job done.
Late in February I had one last outing to look for the
elusive black-eyed Sue, out west towards the start of the River Spey. This was an area visited several times a few
years ago for the BSBI plant survey and with one outing taking me into an area
of ancient woodland adjacent to a conifer plantation. Leaving the car I headed up the track to the
plantation but failing to read a notice on the gate so I was completely unaware
of what would turn up next – a small herd of fallow deer! No
doubt the average visitor would be oohing
and aahing at the sight of these pale, smallish introduced deer and their
youngsters but as I took in the sight I could see several young rowan trees
completely stripped of their bark. As
the deer moved off and I continued on my way all I saw was every rowan and all
the willows stripped of their bark, effectively killing them and wiping out 10-15
years of growth. These trees had become
naturally established due to protection from red and roe deer browsing when the
plantation was fenced off and the seeds from passing wintering thrushes had
been deposited via their droppings.
Generally, in the surrounding countryside, new, young rowans are
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| Peltigera leucophlebia - eventually |
quite
scarce, so it was a sad sight to see what had happened here. Thankfully, I found another gate on the track
as I exited the plantation with a notice telling me that the deer were fenced
into what was classed as a ‘park’ which would initiate a few enquiries once I
got home. Leaving the plantation I made
my way up the steep hillside checking fallen birches and willows as I went as
well as several of the standing trees but, again, I got the feeling the general
habitat wasn’t quite right for the lichen though it had been found in another
wood three or four miles away. These
outings though are never a failure and I came back with a notebook full of
records and a find which I thought might be a first for the UK, fertile
Peltigera britannica! This lichen was
growing on some damp rock and, assuming the rock to be acidic, I wrote P.
britannica in my notebook. Populations
of wood sage plants though should have warned me of my error indicating
base-rich rocks and checking the ascospores
confirmed that this was, once
again, the rarer Peltigera leucophlebia, especially when fertile. The find of the day though was a group of
about 30 mature aspens, all hanging thick with less common lichens including
Leptogium saturninum. Heading back to
the car I said hello again to the fallow deer with the outing ending with some
nice reflection photos across a roadside loch.
Having experienced a couple of weeks of iciness early in
February we didn’t expect temperatures in the high-teens later in the month
reaching a balmy 160C on the day visiting the fallow deer. With snowdrops starting to appear I took
Janet to an amazing wood by the River Spey at Boat o’ Brig south of Fochabers
where we weren’t disappointed. The
rusty-back fern was still happily growing on the railway bridge and a very
young cuckoo-pint/Lords and Ladies (Arum maculatum) at its only
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| Peacock butterfly |
known location
within that 1km OS square. In the wood
we also found flowering winter aconite again at its only site in the 1km square
indicating plant introductions. One
species that definitely hadn’t been introduced was our first peacock butterfly
of the year and a queen early bumblebee (Bombus pratorum) the earliest record
locally by two weeks no doubt tempted out by the February heat. The discoveries didn’t end there though and
once back at the car Janet suggested we ‘turn left to see where the road takes
us’, and that we did. Within a mile we came
across the Auchroisk
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| Janet's black trees and buildings |
Distillery and Janet shouted, “black trees” as she is now
an expert in spotting the blackening effects of the whisky fungus (Baudoinia
compniacensis). Her expertise didn’t end
there and as we reached Mulben she again suggested we turn left with both of us
wondering what the huge number of warehouse type building were appearing in
front of us. “Black buildings” was the
next shout and, sure enough we had stumbled on 50 enormous ‘sheds’ all full of
maturing whisky no doubt on behalf of many local distilleries. Both sites were new to our list of whisky
fungus sites and all we had to do now was actually find our way eventually to
Fochabers!
Looking after two of the grandsons in mid-February led us to
a whole new experience. Janet had
promised an outing to Inverness to visit Waterston’s bookshop to let them see
and choose their own books. After about
an hour, choices were made and, following up a question of where to have our
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| The Burger King gang |
evening meal, we headed to Burger King, a totally new experience for myself and
Janet. However, we negotiated the
massive list of burger options and all sat down to quite a nice meal with fizzy
drinks accompaniments. For their
overnight stay we had to warn them about a new noise in the Firwood house – the
tick-tock of a now working grandfather clock, fully restored by Giles Pearson
Antiques at Logie Steading, after not working for almost 30 years. The tick-tock is quite a nice, gentle
background sound but you certainly wake up when the clock reaches the hour mark!
A delayed happy new year, enjoy the read.
Stewart and Janet
Butterfly Conservation
Multiclavula mucida fungus
BSBI New Year Plant Hunt
NBN Atlas
Strathspey Weather
Parkswatch
Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group
Mapmate recording database
Fungal Records Database of Britain and Ireland (FRDBI)
BSBI – Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland
 |
| Sad to report that Dr. Adam Watson died in February |
 |
| Full moon halo |
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| The Firwood 'team' having lunch by the River Spey |
Photos © Stewart Taylor and © Roy Turnbull Dr. Adam Watson
