Happy New Year.
At the time of the last diary I was just making my way to the offices of the Cairngorm National Park Authority, the Park had provided a small grant towards the cost of the autumn tooth fungi survey and to ensure the grant was paid (to RSPB), I had to have my survey report with them by Christmas. With help from Mark at RSPB HQ, the distribution maps were produced, and working my way through the data on the 600 tooth fungi locations, the final figures were eventually sorted and the report completed. Details of the last three years of survey are given in the table below; the last bit of outstanding work to consider is the possible production of a paper for one of the mycological journals.
At the time of the last diary I was just making my way to the offices of the Cairngorm National Park Authority, the Park had provided a small grant towards the cost of the autumn tooth fungi survey and to ensure the grant was paid (to RSPB), I had to have my survey report with them by Christmas. With help from Mark at RSPB HQ, the distribution maps were produced, and working my way through the data on the 600 tooth fungi locations, the final figures were eventually sorted and the report completed. Details of the last three years of survey are given in the table below; the last bit of outstanding work to consider is the possible production of a paper for one of the mycological journals.
Species ........................................2006..... 2007..... 2008
Bankera fuligineoalba ....................17.......... 25..........122
Hydnellum aurantiacum ................4..............3........... 13
Hydnellum caeruleum ....................9..............5............27
Hydnellum ferrugineum .................1............. 1..............5
Hydnellum peckii ..........................20 ...........31 .........150
Hydnellum scrobiculatum ............14 ...........11 ............55
Phellodon melaleucus .....................8.............. 7............36
Phellodon niger ...............................6.............. 4 ............19
Phellodon tomentosus .................15............... 8........... 40
Sarcodon glaucopus .......................9 ...............5 ...........25
Sarcodon squamosus ...................33 ............14 ...........68
Total sites .....................................181 ..........454 ........560
Minimum No of fungi counted ....N/A........2767........3797
Minimum No of fungi counted ....N/A........2767........3797
At the start of the Christmas break I also re-started the Dicranum bergeri (moss) survey and just to show that not all surveys of these rarer species produces easy results three whole days of walking transects across the bog right by the osprey nest site didn’t find a single cushion. The search though goes on.
Tooth fungi report delivered and it was off to spend Christmas with daughter Laura and fiancé Douglas in the Aberdeen-shire countryside – and the cat went too! Good company, brilliant food and great birds in the garden. Tree sparrows, perhaps up to 10, all coming in to the well provisioned bird fee
ders, along with the more regular species of blue, great and coal tits, yellowhammers, goldfinches and a tribe of pheasants! Laura said she had been seeing hundreds of starlings gathering to roost nearby so my first evening was spent watching the gathering and making a stab at 1500-2000 birds, not quite the million or so seen on Spring Watch, but always good fun to watch. Santa visited with lots of great presents and the smell of Christmas dinner cooking minimised the attack on the masses of chocolate that Santa seems to always deliver.
Boxing Day’s recovery outing was to Fyvie Castle an imposing pink ca
stle set in well wooded grounds. A still frosty day with brilliant blue skies made this a great outing and well worth repeating when the castle and gardens are open. The property is owned by the National Trust for Scotland an expensive undertaking looking at the various pieces of iron-work holding the bulging walls together. We made it back to the house in time to have another look at the starling roost and, using the camera, have a go at getting a photo in which all the birds could be counted. From a couple of birds whizzing around at 
15.25 numbers quickly built up and by the time the birds were thinking of diving for cover (below right) at 15.50 it looked like there about 1500 birds. The ability to fly together as if attached by invisible wires allowed a few photos of the flock to be taken and from one similar to this on the left, I was able to make a fairly accurate count showing that there were about 1700 birds. You can get a bit cross-eyed but it is the best way of getting a reasonably accurate count. A short walk along the road from the house befor
e we set off back home proved very beneficial. A faint calling from a distant flock of finch-like birds made me think 'snow buntings', but realistically thought they must be chaffinches or similar. The flock was fast moving and it was only as the birds swooped down as though going to land in a field that they were visible below the skyline and sure enough I was looking at about 100 snow buntings. Snow buntings and a few thousand grey geese and it was time to capture the cat and head back over the hills to home, thank you both for a wonderful few days.
A very strange picture greeted us on the way home as we drove closer to Aberlour, all the fields, trees etc were all very white, just as though it had been snowing. It wasn’t snow but a massive growth of frost on everything we could see. The mild, damp weather in this part of Scotland over
Christmas and Boxing Day was suddenly changing and very frosty conditions were setting in. When we arrived home the thermometer was already down to -5C, dropping to -11C over-night. With reserve staff away I had offered to top up the bird and squirrel feeders down at the Osprey Centre – the ones watched over by the closed-circuit cameras. With the heavy frost the feeders were in great demand and there must have been 10-20 coal tits in attendance along with the odd robin, a few chaffinches and 2-3 crested tits. I made a note to remember to bring the camera and the “big” lens the next day. Following another very frosty night the sky was clear and the sun started to make an appearance. Between 10 and 11am w
as the only time that the sun penetrated the area where the feeders hang so the feeders were filled and as the sun flooded in, I got the camera going. With the birds on the feeders, lots of bits of nuts fall to the ground and it was here that the robins and crested tits were feeding. Two treecreepers also put in an appearance. Interestingly, with the temperature down at about -10C, no squirrels were seen. A few nice photos were taken and it was then off round the roads and tracks to photograph the amazing frost scenes. A visit to Loch an 
Eilean the next day (-15C overnight) saw lots of folk able to visit the castle on the island in the loch, the frost had been severe enough to produce a covering of ice probably nine or ten inches thick, making it safe probably, to walk just about anywhere on the loch. The walk back to the car from the loch as the sun started to set and the mist rolled in, was a spectacular sight.
Tooth fungi report delivered and it was off to spend Christmas with daughter Laura and fiancé Douglas in the Aberdeen-shire countryside – and the cat went too! Good company, brilliant food and great birds in the garden. Tree sparrows, perhaps up to 10, all coming in to the well provisioned bird fee
ders, along with the more regular species of blue, great and coal tits, yellowhammers, goldfinches and a tribe of pheasants! Laura said she had been seeing hundreds of starlings gathering to roost nearby so my first evening was spent watching the gathering and making a stab at 1500-2000 birds, not quite the million or so seen on Spring Watch, but always good fun to watch. Santa visited with lots of great presents and the smell of Christmas dinner cooking minimised the attack on the masses of chocolate that Santa seems to always deliver.Boxing Day’s recovery outing was to Fyvie Castle an imposing pink ca
stle set in well wooded grounds. A still frosty day with brilliant blue skies made this a great outing and well worth repeating when the castle and gardens are open. The property is owned by the National Trust for Scotland an expensive undertaking looking at the various pieces of iron-work holding the bulging walls together. We made it back to the house in time to have another look at the starling roost and, using the camera, have a go at getting a photo in which all the birds could be counted. From a couple of birds whizzing around at 
15.25 numbers quickly built up and by the time the birds were thinking of diving for cover (below right) at 15.50 it looked like there about 1500 birds. The ability to fly together as if attached by invisible wires allowed a few photos of the flock to be taken and from one similar to this on the left, I was able to make a fairly accurate count showing that there were about 1700 birds. You can get a bit cross-eyed but it is the best way of getting a reasonably accurate count. A short walk along the road from the house befor
e we set off back home proved very beneficial. A faint calling from a distant flock of finch-like birds made me think 'snow buntings', but realistically thought they must be chaffinches or similar. The flock was fast moving and it was only as the birds swooped down as though going to land in a field that they were visible below the skyline and sure enough I was looking at about 100 snow buntings. Snow buntings and a few thousand grey geese and it was time to capture the cat and head back over the hills to home, thank you both for a wonderful few days.A very strange picture greeted us on the way home as we drove closer to Aberlour, all the fields, trees etc were all very white, just as though it had been snowing. It wasn’t snow but a massive growth of frost on everything we could see. The mild, damp weather in this part of Scotland over
Christmas and Boxing Day was suddenly changing and very frosty conditions were setting in. When we arrived home the thermometer was already down to -5C, dropping to -11C over-night. With reserve staff away I had offered to top up the bird and squirrel feeders down at the Osprey Centre – the ones watched over by the closed-circuit cameras. With the heavy frost the feeders were in great demand and there must have been 10-20 coal tits in attendance along with the odd robin, a few chaffinches and 2-3 crested tits. I made a note to remember to bring the camera and the “big” lens the next day. Following another very frosty night the sky was clear and the sun started to make an appearance. Between 10 and 11am w
as the only time that the sun penetrated the area where the feeders hang so the feeders were filled and as the sun flooded in, I got the camera going. With the birds on the feeders, lots of bits of nuts fall to the ground and it was here that the robins and crested tits were feeding. Two treecreepers also put in an appearance. Interestingly, with the temperature down at about -10C, no squirrels were seen. A few nice photos were taken and it was then off round the roads and tracks to photograph the amazing frost scenes. A visit to Loch an 
Eilean the next day (-15C overnight) saw lots of folk able to visit the castle on the island in the loch, the frost had been severe enough to produce a covering of ice probably nine or ten inches thick, making it safe probably, to walk just about anywhere on the loch. The walk back to the car from the loch as the sun started to set and the mist rolled in, was a spectacular sight.The joy of New Year celebrations were short lived with the w
anton destruction and killings in the world’s biggest prison camp going by the name of Gaza. How, in the year 2009 can such actions be allowed, whatever the provocations? Shame on the governments of America and Britain for supporting this action and for those rubber-necks in Israel who stood on their green and verdant hills watching their army bulldozing whole communities, shelling hospitals and destroying the humanitarian aid stored in UN warehouses. Terminator 1 – Lebanon, the sequel Terminator 2 – Gaza, lets see what happens ahead of the next Israeli elections.A light dusting of snow as the New Year frost eased, thawed a bit and then froze solid as the frost returned. Forest tracks turned into skating rinks and the job of getting to work at Forest Lodge turned into a daily challenge. Eventually this thawed and on 12 January I managed for the first time in 2009 to cycle to work, though this meant walking the still ice bou
nd sections of track. This milder spell had robins singing and greater spotted woodpeckers drumming; folk were starting to think that we were through the worst of the winter weather. With a birthday due in the first week of February I decided to take a weeks holiday so that I could do a bit of green shield-moss hunting, and, for a couple of days all went well and we even managed a birthday outing to Spey Bay, with fish and chips on the way back. However, as the south of England ground to a halt, we started to get a few flurries of snow in Nethybridge, the first on the 4th February, and by the end of that day I knew we were going t
o have fun. 5” by 5th and 13” by 7th and as I type we have just had another 4”. It’s funny; I haven’t heard much about all this on the national news! We didn’t even reach national news when the temperature on Tuesday morning went down to -20C in Grantown on Spey, I looked like someone trying to reach the North Pole when I got to work that morning, with hoare frost on clothing and ice on beard and 'tash! Forest Lodge is not the place to work with temperatures as low as this – it was built as a summer shooting lodge and not for -6C during the day. The scenery though is absolutely stunning, but it is very hard going when trying to get to see it.A trip with daughter Ruth and grandson Finlay to Glasgow to pick up her new car saw deep snow in Drumochter, heavy rain in Glasgow and sun when we stopped for lunch on the way back in Dunblane. We parked by the cathedral and while Ruth fed Finlay and ogled at her shiny new purchase, I nipped off to eat my sandwiches as I walked down to the river (Allan Water). Within a few yard I heard a familiar sound and a hundred metres along the track I came upon 17 waxwings feeding on rosehips. Where is the camera and big lens when you need it! They didn’t stay long enough for me to get the wee camera and were last seen flying over the cathedral. There have been 20 in Boat of Garten and 22 in Grantown on Spey feeding on cotoneaster berries, and a few additional records round about with the birds feeding on juniper berries.
The highlights though of late January have been looking for a couple of lichens as well as the ongoing searches for the green shield-moss. Between the 17 and 31st January 13 new locations were found for the moss, a brilliant site on an ancient, live willow, 2 more on ant nests, several on the ground and 1 on a great heap of rotting birch with 29 capsules, 13 of which where growing together. Ab
ernethy is currently the best site for this moss in the UK with the latest finds taking the number of sites to 61. Not bad when we had 9 when I started. It was whilst checking a moss site that I noticed a bright green lichen growing nearby (left). Checking the reserve species database showed me that we hadn’t any records of lungwort (as I thought the lichen was) so I re-visited the site to get a photo thinking this would be the easiest way to get the lichen properly identified. When I checked the photo against photos on the web I realised that it wasn’t a lungwort (Lobaria spp) but a member of the family Peltigera, so I emailed the picture to Dave at SNH to get the right name. “There are a few possibilities” emailed Dave, “but most likely Peltigera britannica or leucophlebia, you will need to see if the cephalodia (black dots on the thallus – the leafy body of the lichen) are easy to remove or not”. If only I had known this before my second trip, so another visit is on the cards but the snow will need to melt first. A bit more reading and looking at the photos lead me to P. britannica which would not only be new to the reserve, but also a new 10km and 100km OS square record. Watch this space. Talking over the find with Andy,
our reserve Ecologist, reminded me that I had shown him the other lichen (lungwort) a couple of decades ago. He thought we had visited a part of Tore Hill when I showed it to him. So, before the weather turned, I headed to Tore Hill, searching first an area of low crags which I thought might also be a possible location. No lungwort, but a few clumps of the common but brilliant wee apple moss (Bartramia pomiformis), along with masses of common polypody fern. Andy thought we had been removing a deer fence at the time so I headed in this direction. I had forgotten how interesting this area is, a mixture of young and old Scots pines, a few birches and rowans and large impenetrable stands of juniper. Despite my thoughts of ‘looking for a needle in a haystack’ I did find it, a tiny clump of Lobaria pulmonaria, growing at the base of a biggish rowan tree (right), and a single plant on an adjacent dead ancient juniper bush. Brilliant. Continuing my search for more lungwort I noticed an ancient, moss covered wood ant nest, and growing on the nest were 3 green shield-moss capsules, the most westerly site yet found in Abernethy!I had a great day on 24 January. The Malloch Society ( http://www.mallochsociety.org.uk/ )was holding
its 20th AGM at the Boat Hotel and I had been invited, as a guest. The reason for my invite was my association with two of the key members of the Society, over many years, looking for rare hoverflies within Abernethy. Twenty years ago, the fledgling Society made one of its first recording outings, in Abernethy, following earlier visits to the reserve by Graham and Iain to alert me to the past presence of the Pine Hoverfly, Blera fallax. To date, this fly has yet to be re-found in Abernethy despite the installa
tion of trial artificial breeding sites and searches close to the last recorded site. The latest version of my artificial breeding site (installed in May 2008) is shown (left), and with the lid removed you can see that other hoverfly larvae are present (right) but I will need to wait until a return visit by the experts in the spring, to fully empty the artificial site to see if there could be a Blera fallax larva hiding somewhere. Fingers crossed in the hope that we can prove that this very rare fly still resides in Abernethy.That’s it for now, enjoy the read
Stewart & Janet
Stewart’s birthday present, a watch & mobile weather station!
