Rab and the timberman

As we come to the end of the warmest and possibly the driest April on record, nature is definitely getting ahead of itself. On the bogs the heads of cotton grass are forming, photos from 2006 showed this happening in early June, the blaeberry flowers as shown last week, were on the plants in mid-May and the bracken fronds unfurling currently in the woods were pictured on 22nd May last year! Keep an eye open for other ferns as they start to emerge from the ground, the stem and leaves are like a small coiled spring, and as the plants grow, the stem slowly unfurls. Very impressive if you can find a patch of male ferns - a bit like "The Day of the Triffids".

Throughout Abernethy Forest, the Scots pine trees are producing the new shoots at the very end of their branches. As the shoots grow we will see new flowers/cones appear and on some trees male pollen catkins, I will try and get a picture of the whole lot in action over the next couple of weeks. The new shoots will grow about a foot long by the end of the summer. Come back in fifty years time and this years new growth will be huge branches, forming part of the expanding canopy of the pine tree. Next time you see a Scots pine tree, have a look at any branch, and starting at the growing tip you will be able to count the number of whorls of secondary branches and hence determine how long that particular branch has been growing.

The garden is growing at a fair old rate at the moment, with new flowers popping up all over the place. The lungwort is proving very attractive to the bumblebees, similarly the grape hyacinth, which is just going over. The golden hop is racing up the fence, tree and anything else that gets in its way. Last year it almost reached the top of the rowan tree! A big effort over last weekend, saw most of the seeds planted in the vegetable garden, I just hope we don't get a hose-pipe ban later in the year.

The week also saw the first wasp, mosquito and dragonfly appear - a large red damselfly, pictured below left. Due to huge pressure at two of the Abernethy dragonfly pools, staff have installed two decking viewing platforms, one where visitors look for white faced darters and at the other (left) - the emerald damselfly ( I think, Coenagrion hastulatum in old money). Both sites have seen increasing numbers of visitors looking for, and photographing, the dragonflies, and at both sites the vegetation surrounding the pools was getting badly damaged due to trampling. It really is amazing how the grapevine, books that give too much information etc. is increasing the pressure dramatically on sites where "rare" things can be seen. If the efforts concluded this week to try and ease the pressure on a local black grouse lek site is anything to go by (right), the urge to see a species will far outweigh efforts being made to safeguard it. We seem to be entering an era of "we don't give a damn" so long as we can see it! Sorry for the rant.

Exclusive! Scotland's rugby team have just concluded a deal to sign up Henry, the Loch Garten male osprey. Following on from last weeks diary the prediction of another egg on the 23rd or 24th came true and the female EJ, duly laid her third egg on 24th. Something unheard of then happened. Within two hours she laid another - her fourth! When Henry appeared with a fish for her she was very reluctant to stop incubating to go off to feed. When see eventually did, Henry was in and within a few minutes had booted the eggs out of the nest. So all the eggs that VS had fertilised have now been ejected - no fooling Henry this year! So we now wait to see whether any more eggs can be produced. During the week willow warblers and redstarts arrived in numbers (sorry Jonathan), cuckoo on Monday and whinchat on Thursday. Our guests last week, Stanley and Barbara left it late, but news of a breeding pair of crossbills close to the road to Loch Garten, helped them see parrot crossbills as they departed on Saturday. Crossbills are very scarce this year, so news of this nest spead quickly, and lost of visitors turned up to see the birds, above right.

And the timberman? Well, this is a special beetle, found mainly in the old pinewoods with Abernethy being one of its strongholds. This impressive beetle belongs to the family of "longhorn" beetles, all of which depend on good supplies of dead trees for breeding sites. The group of beetles come in various sizes with the timberman being similar in body size to the bigger longhorn beetles but it certainly takes the prize when you look at the size of the beetles antennae, a few inches across in the female but up to six inches across in the male (see left, antennae almost to bottom left corner of picture!). And Rab? Rab (right) runs a local sawmill and the sawmill is operating within a pinewood. Beetles use their antennae to pick up the scent of females ready for mating and also to scent out dead trees as suitable breeding sites. Sawmill. Logs. Sawdust. A MacDonald's for beetles and other deadwood species of insects. A quick call to Rab last week to ask if the beetle with the "long horns" was about proved positive and a visit the following day did not disappoint. A few beetles were found running about on some of the logs in the yard, and others were paired up, the males fertilising the female before she wandered off to bore a hole in the bark of a nearby log in which she would lay her eggs. The beetle larva hatch out under the bark of the dead tree or fallen log, and live there for a year before emerging as adult beetles to start the process off all over again. Rab also explained how useful one of the other beetles was, in this case a pine weevil (left). You can see from the picture that this beetle has a long proboscis on the end of which the beetle has a powerful set of pincers, used for making holes in bark and wood. When cutting larch, Rab regularly gets tiny splinters in his fingers, and, holding the beetle gently by its body, he uses the beetle to grab the splinter and put it out of his finger. Remarkable!

Enjoy the heat, our cat Tibby, certainly does.

Happy reading

Stewart & Janet

All photos © Stewart Taylor

Good old Henry!?

Sorry, a bit late with the diary this week - too many early mornings, Alan & Bengie visiting for the week and vegetable patch to prepare, however, the year progresses apace and all around the village this week cherry trees have been bursting into flower (both bird cherry and gean). I don't think I have seen a season quite like it for tree blossom, perhaps something to do with the hot, dry weather? And it is not just the trees which are freely flowering, in the woodlands wood sorrel appeared this week (clover-like leaves below left) and the blaeberry (bilberry, whinberry) is already in leaf and the flowers have started to appear, something which normally happens in May (right). All the flowers are good news for the bumblebees and many more have been on the wing this last week. One bee that has been seen a lot is the blaeberry bumblebee - Bombus monticola. It had a mention a couple of weeks ago as one of the first bees visiting the garden (the queen bees are still visiting on grape hyacinth this week), but its real habitat is the blaeberry in the forest. In one area on Sunday I saw a couple of dozen feeding on the pinkish flowers of the blaeberry.

This weeks sees us at the peak, almost, of the capercaillie lekking season, and down at the Osprey Centre up to three males and two females have been putting in an appearance, the males over the last few days really getting quite aggressive with the dominant males defending their "patch" so that they have they get the chance to mate with more of the females. At one lek on Wednesday I was up at 3am, in the forest at 4 and hearing the first males popping away at quarter to five. Brilliant. There is nothing better than being out in the forest at first light waiting for the sun to rise. First there were the tawny owls calling, then the first robin started to sing, a woodcock passed overhead roding around its territory and gradually all the other birds start to join in. By half past seven it was time to pull out from the forest and join up with the rest of the team to compare notes and agree on how many male capercaillie have been at the lek - six in total and not one of the count team of three had seen a male! At this time of year it is essential that lekking birds are not disturbed, in fact now, it is illegal, so great care goes in to getting close to the lek to enable the count to be made but without disturbing any of the birds. A count of six at this lek was an increase of one since 2006 so perhaps the birds in Abernethy are on the increase. Watch this space.

The bus pass was again in use this week with a lift to Glenmore and a walk back to Nethybridge via Ryvoan Pass and Abernethy Forest. Thirty-two species of birds were seen the highlight being a pair of merlins. A small tortoiseshell butterfly and a very tatty emperor moth added to the variety but a frog at 560 metres was the oddest sighting. Rain, sun and wind ensured that the camera was kept busy as the views were constantly changing.

In the forest a morning was spent with Iain and Graham checking out artificial breeding sites for hoverflies - a bit like nest boxes for birds the major difference being that these breeding sites involve holes cut into tree stumps and filled with wood-chips and sawdust and topped up with natural rainwater. This is to try to mimic the natural breeding sites that occur in trees that have died, some of which have died of heart-rot, allowing the inside of the tree to decay into a mush whilst rainwater and sap getting into the hole add to the rich-smelling "soup" developing within the decay within the tree. A few hoverflies home in on these "rot-holes" and lay their eggs within the water-filled hole. When the eggs hatch the larvae live within the "soup" feeding on the bacteria developing on the wet, rotting wood. The larvae are equipped with extendable breathing tubes ("tails" see right) so that they can live & feed deep within the water-filled hole & still breath. Weird! The rot-holes are quite rare and some of the hoverflies breeding within them are even rarer. Top of the rarity list is the pinewood hoverfly, Blera fallax, a hoverfly recorded quite a few times within the pine woodland close to Loch Garten in the early 1980's, but not since. The artificial breeding sites have been created in other woodlands within Strathspey, and at two sites the hoverfly has bred successfully. However, to date, it hasn't been re-found at Loch Garten so the work goes on. In addition to the artificial sites within stumps, plastic pots have been installed, again filled with woodchips, sawdust and natural rainwater.

The birds. The first redstart was seen on 16th and a house martin on 22nd. A pair of slavonian grebes have taken up residence on the flooded field pools at Boat of Garten. Mallard chicks were seen on 22nd. At the osprey site the season progressed well with the first egg laid on 18th and the second egg on 21st. However, readers of this diary will remember my mention of the regular Loch Garten female having paired up with an old flame and not with Henry, her regular partner of four years. On Sunday 22nd, with the Osprey Centre full and EJ the female osprey incubating her eggs, good old Henry put in his first appearance of the year, eighteen days after his partner! Four-o-clock Henry lands on nest, old flame nowhere to be seen. Four-thirty pm Henry kicks the two eggs out of the nest! 2005 all over again! What next? The female is due to lay a third egg 23 - 24 April, will Henry accept it? Again, watch this space or the Loch Garten webcams http://www.rspb.org.uk/webcams/birdsofprey/lochgartenospreynest.asp . The outlook currently, doesn't look too good, but this pair are full of surprises so we will see what the next few days brings.

Happy reading
Stewart & Janet

sunset over Ryvoan Pass

All photos © Stewart Taylor

Phew, what a scorcher!

Wall to wall sunshine some days, frost some nights and 22 degrees C on two days, what a week! A bit worrying though is the complete lack of rain for the month so far, a bit at night wouldn't go amiss. With no rain, "Taylor's tadpole rescue service" has been in action again, a few clumps of spawn have been moved but in one quite warm & sheltered pool, hundreds of tadpoles were moved as the last bits of spawn (their initial food supply) and the water was running out fast. At least the toads seem to have a better idea by breeding in bigger, well established pools, where they are still to be heard in good numbers. Around the house & chalet the garden continues to bloom quite nicely, though a bit of water is having to be given to the plants in the tubs. Pride of place this week goes to the passion flower (right), though the cherry and plum trees are budding up very quickly and will be well in flower by next week - a bit early as we are still due some heavy frosts and we have also had snow in late April in the past. My information last week about hairy bittercress being all over the place may have been a bit misleading in that there is also a very similar plant growing in the same sort of areas - common whitlow grass (Erophila verna). This isn't a grass! The seed pods help to make the correct identification, long and thin & taller than the flowers in the bittercress, and flattish & elliptical in the whitlow grass. The picture (left) helps, the daisy gives an idea of size. The Good Friday grass from last week was also growing close by - so you get a picture (right) of that as well!
Both of the above plants were photographed close to the River Spey and adjacent to the Strathspey Steam Railway line. I was just quick enough to get a picture of the train as it chuffed its way past. From the train you get wonderful views of the adjacent farmland, the River Spey and the snow capped Cairngorm Mountains. It really is worth having a ride if ever you are in the area, you can even have tea & cakes on board. However, the engine that pulls the carriages on the Strathspey line was dwarfed by a couple of monsters that thundered through Aviemore en route from Inverness to Perth and the south on Saturday morning. A chance meeting with a "Steam through Britain" enthusiast at the Osprey Centre alerted me to the fact that this steam special was in the area so I thought the least I could do was go and see it. Trips in my childhood from Lancashire to Aberdeen to stay with Granny Ross started off at midnight on Preston station, and memories of the express trains that didn't stop but came thundering through the station, whistles at full blast, will be for ever with me. So thoughts of steam & noise got me out of my bed bright & early to see the Union of South Africa double up with a second steam engine to fly down the main line towards Perth. It didn't disappoint, and well worth going to see if ever you hear of a steam special in your area.

Friday morning was also an early start as staff on the Abernethy Reserve set off before dawn to count the black grouse leks on the reserve. As well as good birds we had a brilliant dawn with a fiery red sky thawing out the frost of the night before. The count finished with pies & sausage rolls back at Forest Lodge and collation of the figures from the leks that were counted. The best bit was that the overall count of males at leks was up - a great end to great morning. With the heat more butterflies are on the wing, small tortoiseshell and peacock to date. A northern eggar moth, a day-flying species was seen whizzing across Tulloch Moor on Friday. This moth drops its eggs as it flies ensuring some will find good heathery habitat for the caterpillars as they emerge from the eggs. The caterpillars are the big-hairy ones that most people see on heather in the autumn, the caterpillar over-wintering before feeding up in the spring before turning into a chrysalis. In the same area the first tiger beetles of the year were encountered - a little earlier than usual. These green beetles can be seen on most tracks in open woodland or moorland areas on sunny days, taking off & flying ahead of the person walking along the track. If you are not sure whether you have seen one there is a picture of one above.

With the hot weather the Scots pine trees have been very noisy as this years crop of cones start to crack as they open to release the seeds. As the cones open (see left) the winged seed (below right) spiral down to the ground where chaffinches, siskins, woodpigeons & no doubt small mammals feed on them. The ones that are left alone might grow into the next generation of trees. Whilst the cones are on the trees our famous Scottish crossbills break off the cones & whilst clamping the cone under a foot, the birds will systematically open up the bracts of the cone allowing access for a slightly sticky tongue to remove the seed. Squirrels also feed heavily on the cones but they use their sharp teeth to nibble away the bracts to get to the seed, leaving something that resembles an apple core once they have finished.

And finally, the bird news. Migrant have started to arrive with swallow, common sandpiper and tree pipit putting in an appearance. Sand martins can be seen feeding over Loch Garten and a visit there on Wednesday produced four red-breasted mergansers, four goosanders, tufted duck, mallard & a dozen goldeneye, the females of which have been busy laying eggs in the nestboxes specially put up for them. A bonus, thanks to Diana & Ian her son (past chalet guests) as we peered through the developing darkness, was an otter, swimming close to the loch shore.

We will be having fun looking for the pinewood hoverfly next week so more about that anon.

Happy reading

Stewart & Janet

All photos © Stewart Taylor

Another osprey season saga gets underway

Happy Easter.

All around the new growth of spring & summer gathers pace, buds are appearing on trees & fruit bushes, catkins have been and gone on the hazel trees, on the alders they are just fully out resplendently purple/red and, in the damper places, several species of willow are heavy with their catkins. It's a good time for deciding which species of willow you have, some produce leaves first other catkins first, some have green catkins and some, like pussy willows have showy yellow ones. As an early source of food, the first bees of the year visit the willow flowers (catkins) in big numbers. Each year I am tempted to bring a few bits of willow bush back to the house to pop into a vase to brighten up the house as the catkins appear. On Saturday I popped the vase and cutting outside to let the sun help the catkins develop and immediately a bumblebee visited the catkins to feed on the nectar. I always get a bit confused with bees, nectar and pollen and delve into Highland Bumblebees by Murdo Macdonald and Gill Nisbet (published by the Highland Biological Recording Group) to remind myself which is what. At this time of year most of the early bees are queens which were born last summer and survived the winter by tucked themselves away in suitable holes, probably in the ground. These queens are the only ones that survive from their nests of the previous year, all the workers and old queens having died at the end of the last breeding season. So hungry queens are in search of something to eat and this is where the catkins, early flowers and garden flowers help out by providing nectar for the queens (all females) to feed on as they start up their new nests. The worker bees bred from the new nests are the ones that then visit the flowers to collect pollen, attached to their hind legs via pollen "baskets", which is returned to the nest for the new young bees developing from the eggs to feed on. A complex process but one which is necessary to ensure many of our native trees and plants are fertilised, ensuring future seed production. As bee numbers have declined dramatically over recent decades you can help by bee friendly flower planting in your gardens. The first bees seen in the garden this week were Bombus pratorum and Bombus monticola a Highland speciality. A few more flowers are also appearing alongside the dandelions and daisies. A small white plant seen all over the place is hairy bittercress, and a wee grass-like plant appearing on our local football pitch is the appropriately named Good Friday Grass - a woodrush Luzula campestris.

In the bird world things are also happening. Martin & Sheila, our guests this week, had a great day at the coast on Saturday. From Spey Bay to Burghead there are hundreds of long-tailed ducks, common & velvet scoters, a couple of surf scoters and star of the week, a king eider. I had sand martins over Loch Garten on 2nd and a ring ouzel by the road to Cairngorm on 7th. As I listened to the ring ouzel singing I could see 10 black grouse lekking just a kilometre from the road and was able to watch the birds (more importantly) without disturbing them. On the Spey below Nethybridge, a kingfisher was seen, a rare bird in this area, whilst in the background the steam train chuffed into the "Glen Bogle" station at Broomhill. Over 500 pink-footed geese have also been feeding on the local fields as they pass by heading north.

At the Loch Garten Osprey Centre the season is now underway, "EJ", our regular female returned to the nest on Wednesday, fresh and healthy after her journey back from north-west Africa. Our male "Henry", hasn't arrived as yet, allowing the now familiar saga to develop. Osprey fans from previous years along with all the staff, volunteers and visitors (picture left) at the Centre, let out a collective groan on Thursday when a regular, early season visitor to the Loch Garten site put in his appearance - "Orange VS" was back! To those unfamiliar with the birds names, all originate loosely, from plastic, lettered rings that the birds were given as young ospreys at their natal nest sites many years ago. Last year, this visiting male became almost resident before "Henry" the regular resident male arrived. In this time he mated regularly with "EJ" and just as "Henry" arrived, "EJ" was due to lay her eggs - fertilised by "Orange VS"! This saga has become part of the "normal" start of the osprey season in the last three years, thankfully last year "Henry" was around for a couple of days before the first egg was laid and he possibly thought they were his and he supported the female for the rest of the season. A year earlier, he kicked out the eggs - produced via the same process, when he arrived late, and there were already eggs in the nest! Anyway, to follow what is happening at the osprey site go to the following websites, or visit the Centre for yourselves (picture right):

http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/l/lochgarten/blog.asp for the wardens diary and,

http://www.rspb.org.uk/webcams/birdsofprey/lochgartenospreynest.asp

for the live nest camera.

And finally, on a recent walk I happened onto a battle royal. I mentioned last week that the wood ants were stirring and starting to wander from their nests. The middle of the track that I was on was black with wood ants - odd! Usually you see gatherings on tracks comprising tens of ants when they have found a prey item and it needs overcoming before being pulled apart and taken back to the nest. As I looked down I could see that there was a physical battle going on and it was obvious that this was a fight over territory. The ants heading off to my left were carrying other ants that they had killed, and they were taking them back to their nest. No doubt, once the fighting had ended, the ants would also turn their attentions to the neighbour's nest itself, and the prized bits of grit and resin forming part of the the domed thatch, which would also be carried back to the victors nest. I saw this happening at another site last year. In this years instance (pictured left), the ants were all wood ants, at some sites within Abernethy we also have red, slave making ants, these ants take over the nests of black ants taking both black ants and their eggs back to their own nest to act as slaves. Another amazing fact from the insect world!

Have a good Easter

All the best

Stewart & Janet

All photos © Stewart Taylor

Summer arrives but no ospreys yet!

Almost full moon tonight (Sunday 1st) bright & clear and heading to frost - minus three degrees C last night, a very misty morning with lots of dew drenched spiders webs on my morning walk "round the block" where I managed to see & hear 44 bird species. It was brilliant over the fields by the River Spey, lots of lambs and everywhere I looked there were lapwings displaying, curlews calling and trilling and, in one good area several skylarks singing - the breeding season is well and truly underway - wonderful. A couple of roe deer and a lizard enjoying the sun added to the interest of the walk.

The last week started nice and warm with honey bees (compared to the wild bumblebees which have yet to be seen) visiting the flowers in the garden. The daffodils seemed to have recovered following the snows and by the end of the week the bees had tulips available to visit along with the primroses. On Sunday we visited the River Findorn near Logie, close to the coast. This is a very impressive part of this river route, the river running through deeply cut gorges with monster firs (Douglas and Grand mainly) growing along the banks in amongst the mixtures of deciduous trees and other conifers. Yellow coltsfoot flowers were appearing on the river gravels and we saw the first butterflies of the year - both peacocks, a butterfly you wouldn't have seen this far north a few years ago. Having been involved in a national butterfly monitoring scheme for the last 25 years this is a species that was only recorded in the Nethybridge monitoring area three years ago. On the way back from the Findorn we popped into Lochindorb on Dava Moor, and managed to see the pair of black-throated divers, close to the island with the castle in the middle of the loch. Thanks to Linda and Graham our chalet guests last week for the first record of the these birds on the loch - lets hope the birds are left to breed in peace this year. Sadly, the 7 waxwings in Tulloch were seen just too late for them to try and see. A pair of red-throated divers wailing on Loch Morlich under a stunning setting sun the same day provided a nice end to a brilliant day.

With the sun getting higher in the sky and getting hotter, the wood ants have been getting very active, initially swarming over the top of the domed nests but as the days get warmer, starting to forage well away from the nests. These very active wee beasts are a valuable part of the forest eco-system by helping to keep some of the tree "pests" in check (sawflies, caterpillars) and even ganging up on other insects many times their own size, over-powering them and gradually dismembering to take the "bits" back to their nest. I'm still not sure how a single ant has the ability to pick up and carry many times its own weight as you see small sticks, pine needles, caterpillars and even hoverflies being carried back to the nest. One of the wonders of the insect world. Some of the nests in the forest must be many decades old - its a great pity that some visitors seem to take great delight in poking and damaging the nests, the natural "thatch" that the ants have created being totally destroyed. Don't have nightmares - I'm certainly glad that the ants we have, aren't any bigger!

During the week the Abernethy Reserve played host to a group of visitors from the European LIFE Project as the three year capercaillie project draws to a close. Money from the EU has, over the last three years, helped to turn around the fortunes of this spectacular bird, the worlds largest grouse. Money has gone towards fence removal (the birds fly into forestry fences killing themselves), fence marking to make those that remain more visible, habitat management to encourage more blaeberry/bilberry to grow on the forest floor for food and insect production for chicks and adults, some predator control and, at Abernethy, funding for "CaperWatch" an initiative to show lekking capercaillie to visitors from the Osprey Centre. Two-thousand visitors a year have been visiting the Centre over the last few years to see the birds, easing greatly, the pressure on the lekking and breeding birds in the forest from birders and visitors trying to find them often early in the morning. Today, 1 April, the Centre opened again for the months of April and May, another year of CaperWatch is underway. Sadly, the mist this morning made viewing difficult but birds could be heard calling so it is always worth trying to allow a couple of visits to try and see these magnificent birds. And, what about those birds that the Osprey Centre was actually built for, a bird was seen a couple of days ago but didn't stay so this wasn't obviously one of our resident ospreys, so fingers crossed that the coming week will see our birds return and maintain a breeding record stretching way back to 1959 at the current site. Visit the RSPB website to keep up with what the Loch Garten ospreys are up to.

Have a good week.

All the best

Stewart & Janet

All photos © Stewart Taylor