Why is grandson Finlay running?
I managed to fill the garage with sawdust at the start of the month as I set about converting all the reasonable sized pieces of stacked wood, some from house building time no less, into inch by half inch strips of wood to make up into trellises. The original trellis work by the chalet had seen better days and it was time for replacements. Sawing the wood was the easy bit. I then used one of the old sections of trellis as a template and proceeded to screw the framework together. Of course I ran out of screws after the first couple of trellises as there were so many needed to secure all the joints. And then came the fun bit – painting the damn things. Round and round each square, talk about watching paint dry, with two coats it took about four hours for each one. However, by month’s end all were completed and installed; I just hop
e the squirrels and visiting birds appreciate what has been done for them!
Cos’ grandma’s chasing him!
To break the trellis marathon I made a dash one afternoon to a wee waterfall by the B9007 road from Carrbridge to Ferness, not visible from the road, but a gem with a nice stand of aspens, willows and birch trees. As I left the road I came upon a carcass of probably a dead mountain hare, part of which was covered in the most amazing growth of moss. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I remembered that a moss, now thought to
be extinct, was last found growing on the carcass of a dead sheep (sorry about the gore) in the hills near Newtonmore and I just thought there might be a chance that this could be it. So tiny leaves were removed and set up on a slide for checking under the microscope but try as I might, I couldn’t quite find the correct features for the long lost moss. Just to be sure, a piece was sent to the UK expert on these mosses and the reply confirmed what I had thought and the moss turned out to be my old favourite from last summer, Tetraplodon mnioides the slender cruet moss. At this early stage of the season the moss lacked the characteristic red colours found later in the year with the end result that the search for the carrion moss – Aplodon wormskioldi, continues.
And then it was off to Lancashire to visit Janet’s mum (91) and fam
ily and to sample the delights of pub lunches in the nearby Ribble Valley (right). A visit to Worston produced the first willow warbler, chiffchaff and blackcap of the year, all of which seemed to follow us back up the road to Scotland. I never fail to be impressed by the fossil filled stones which make up many of the farm field walls in this area and outcrops of the same rock forming the rounded hills all around Clitheroe and Downham and one of the reasons that Ribble Cement (now Castle Cement) set up its quarrying operations between the two towns. The carboniferous 
limestone was created some 300 million years ago by a major marine incursion across Britain hence the abundance of marine fossils such as brachiopods, trilobites and crinoids. The limestone outcrop between Kirby Lonsdale and Silverdale, next to the RSPB Leighton Moss reserve, gives rise to some of the best examples of limestone pavement in the country supporting a wide range of lime-loving plants and insects. But back to the present. The opportunity to spend a couple of hours in this amazing landscape (whilst Janet visited Clitheroe market) was grabbed with both hands and I headed for the outcrop by the Calf’s Head at Worston. A bit early for most flowering plants I was able to make a list of birds for the final breeding season of the BTO Atlas, and to see if any of the unusual lichens of limestone, so rare in Scotland, could be found. A strange black lichen on many of the rocks turned out to be Collema auriforme and on some of the grassy areas between the sheep tracks there the remains of carline thistle. A small plant, just coming into flower and found amongst rocks and on walls was the slightly hairy rue-leaved saxifrage (above left), something new to me and quite a rare plant in Scotland.
The visit inspired me to have a look at some of the lime-rich
areas close to home, and though none of them compete with the Ribble Valley outcrops, many are important in their own right, remember the dark red helleborine encounter of last summer. A visit to rocks above the river at Bridge of Brown though not limestone, produced a tiny wee fungus which is also a lichen!? called Lichenomphalina alpine (right) and new to the site along with a wee moss called drumsticks due to its reproductive “gemmae” being borne on a ball at the top of the stalk. For the “real” limestone I made a trip to Invercald on Deeside where it pops out in small sections of crag 
and large boulders of lime-rich rock sit at the base of the crag. On the walk from the car the first redstart of the year was singing and by the crag a ring ouzel was in fine voice. It was on one of these boulders that the lichen Solorina saccata had been recorded in the past and whilst looking for it I had been told to keep my eyes open for a very unusual puffball! The plants growing at the base of the crag indicated richness with maidenhair spleenwort, hard shield fern and shining cranes-bill to name a few. Gradually the rocky scree gave way to an area of loose, pale gravel which turned out to be the limestone outcrop. And there, by a rock outcrop was a strange greenish lichen with a dark central “eye” the reproductive apothecia, I’d found my Solorina (left) but i
n a completely new location to that found previously on a nearby rock. As I made my way up the steep gravely slope there was more, and more, growing in nooks and crannies for about one hundred metres. Amazing. But could I find the one growing on the rock? For about an hour I searched but on this occasion failed completely to find the lichen. However, what was the wee round growth on the top of one of the rocks (right)? – the complete but spent body of a tiny white puffball Tulostoma niveum, just the thing I had been advised to keep an eye open for. This had to be the find of the day and though it wasn’t a “fresh” puffball (they appear in September), it had all the features and characteristics as though it was. The puffball was no bigger than a 1 pence piece and it was sitting on top of a huge limestone rock weighing many tons. Currently, this site is one of only three known in the UK, and though it has been found on several rocks at this site it remains a very rare fungus.
On the 10 April the first of this seasons RSPBs butterfly transects was walked, a small tortoiseshell being the only butterfly recorded
and on returning home the remainder of last seasons parsnips were lifted. The following day I attended a meeting to discuss the possibility of being involved in an Osmia uncinata (mason bee) nest box project. It is thought that one of the limiting factors in the bees lifecycle is the lack of suitable nest sites which, as far as is known, is the vacated holes, in dead trees, of long-horned beetle larvae. The projects aim is to see whether by providing artificial nest “boxes” the bee ca
n breed more successfully. A nest box comprises a piece of plastic drain pipe, blocked at one end and the pipe filled with small cardboard tubes, 6 – 8mm in diameter. In all, 100 boxes are to be installed at 15 sites where I recorded the bee during a survey in 2007. After the meeting a day was spent sourcing materials to allow the nest boxes to be fixed to suitable trees. The nest boxes are to be delivered by the end of April allowing installation to take place before the bees emerge in early June. Watch this space. Visits to a couple of lime-rich sites produced a new location for (left) purple saxifrage (Inshriach) and moschatel with loads of cowslips (right -Tomintoul) the latter visit re-finding locations for the lichens Lobaria pulmonaria (lungwort) and Peltigera rufescens previously recorded in this area in 1968.
I ma
naged to discuss my limestone searches with near neighbour Donald, a geologist, and a day later an email arrived suggesting I should visit a site by the A939 Lecht ski road where Donald knew (from his geology maps) that over a hundred years ago limestone had been mined to burn in lime kilns before spreading the resultant “quicklime” on the farm fields. The visit didn’t disappoint and after an afternoons search I had found a new site for the Solorina lichen, and new sites for moschatel (left), mare’s tail from a wee lochan, an amazing white scale insect (right) and, in the last juniper bush visited, a ‘post-it-note yellow’ lichen Vulpicida pinastri. As I looked further into the juniper bush a mass of orange coloured “tentacles” were seen covering the main stem of the bush, this was a strange fungus with a double life
called Gymnosporangium clavariforme (both shown below left - don’t you just love these Latin names!) which appears first on its primary host juniper, from which spores are released in April. The spores travel on the wind until they meet their secondary host either hawthorn bushes or apple trees and there the fungus appears again in the autumn but in the form of yellowish depressions on their leaves. This outing resulted in my first tick bite 
of the year. Studying a section of geology map borrowed from Donald I noticed another small outcrop of limestone by a burn near Bridge of Brown. I visited the site a few days later and found that there was a major quarry of similar age to the Lecht one complete with on-site lime kiln. Inside the mouth of the kiln was another group of moschatel flowers, a first for this particular 10 km square. On my climb back to the road my delight at finding a rare lichen for these parts Sticta sylvatica growing on an ancient willow was somewhat reduced when I found (yet another) dead buzzard.
The third week of April will be remembered for its sunny
days, lack of rain and daily night frosts which caused havoc in the Firwood garden. The flowers which had been tempted to push on during the hot days (20+ degrees C) were all laid low by temperatures as low as -4 degrees C. The sun worked wonders on the butterfly transect and in addition to green-veined whites and orange tips, one section on the moor produced 21 green hairstreaks (right), more than is normally 
recorded in a whole season. Netted mountain moth and cream spot ladybird were also found. On the 24 April Janet attended her first Cairngorms Farmers Market in Aviemore an interesting day and a new outlet for her crafts (see http://www.cairngorms-farmers-market.com/index.html and click on Craft Producers). An amazing day where a patch of grass was converted into a tented market in about an hour and all packed away in about half that time at the end of the day, all by the stall-holders themselves.
The most emotional day of the month had to be the 26th. The day started early with my early morning tramp over the hill to complete my first breeding bird survey of the year for the BTO (http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/bbs ) and then it was into the car to drive over to daughter Laura’s for the local planners decision on an application to install two 80m high wind turbines within a 1000m of Laura and Douglas’s home. The nearest home was half that distance. A year ago I did an independent bird survey of the proposed turbine site to help with the resident’s objection to the application, though at the end of the day
this sort of data seems to carry little weight with the planners. The meeting started at 2pm with applicant and objectors assembled for the decision. Short presentations were given by both sides before the Councillors had their say on whether they would support or object to the application. The tally list in my notebook showed most seemed to be against and eventually the chairman of proceedings brought the meeting to a close by saying planning consent would be refused. It took a few moments for what had just been said to sink in but when it did the Cairncake objectors/residents clapped their approval to the planners decision. Tears flowed, hugs all round and huge relief after two years of hard work by all those involved (right). Will there be an ap
peal? It would be hoped not but watch this space. The objectors exposed many flaws in the application, the planning process and the way the turbine company collate their data and to see what they found visit http://www.cawt.co.uk/index.php?page=cairncake .
The end of the month was sealed with THAT KISS though I was baby-sitting at the time.
That’s it for another month, enjoy the read.
Stewart & Janet
I managed to fill the garage with sawdust at the start of the month as I set about converting all the reasonable sized pieces of stacked wood, some from house building time no less, into inch by half inch strips of wood to make up into trellises. The original trellis work by the chalet had seen better days and it was time for replacements. Sawing the wood was the easy bit. I then used one of the old sections of trellis as a template and proceeded to screw the framework together. Of course I ran out of screws after the first couple of trellises as there were so many needed to secure all the joints. And then came the fun bit – painting the damn things. Round and round each square, talk about watching paint dry, with two coats it took about four hours for each one. However, by month’s end all were completed and installed; I just hop
e the squirrels and visiting birds appreciate what has been done for them!Cos’ grandma’s chasing him!
To break the trellis marathon I made a dash one afternoon to a wee waterfall by the B9007 road from Carrbridge to Ferness, not visible from the road, but a gem with a nice stand of aspens, willows and birch trees. As I left the road I came upon a carcass of probably a dead mountain hare, part of which was covered in the most amazing growth of moss. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I remembered that a moss, now thought to
be extinct, was last found growing on the carcass of a dead sheep (sorry about the gore) in the hills near Newtonmore and I just thought there might be a chance that this could be it. So tiny leaves were removed and set up on a slide for checking under the microscope but try as I might, I couldn’t quite find the correct features for the long lost moss. Just to be sure, a piece was sent to the UK expert on these mosses and the reply confirmed what I had thought and the moss turned out to be my old favourite from last summer, Tetraplodon mnioides the slender cruet moss. At this early stage of the season the moss lacked the characteristic red colours found later in the year with the end result that the search for the carrion moss – Aplodon wormskioldi, continues.And then it was off to Lancashire to visit Janet’s mum (91) and fam
ily and to sample the delights of pub lunches in the nearby Ribble Valley (right). A visit to Worston produced the first willow warbler, chiffchaff and blackcap of the year, all of which seemed to follow us back up the road to Scotland. I never fail to be impressed by the fossil filled stones which make up many of the farm field walls in this area and outcrops of the same rock forming the rounded hills all around Clitheroe and Downham and one of the reasons that Ribble Cement (now Castle Cement) set up its quarrying operations between the two towns. The carboniferous 
limestone was created some 300 million years ago by a major marine incursion across Britain hence the abundance of marine fossils such as brachiopods, trilobites and crinoids. The limestone outcrop between Kirby Lonsdale and Silverdale, next to the RSPB Leighton Moss reserve, gives rise to some of the best examples of limestone pavement in the country supporting a wide range of lime-loving plants and insects. But back to the present. The opportunity to spend a couple of hours in this amazing landscape (whilst Janet visited Clitheroe market) was grabbed with both hands and I headed for the outcrop by the Calf’s Head at Worston. A bit early for most flowering plants I was able to make a list of birds for the final breeding season of the BTO Atlas, and to see if any of the unusual lichens of limestone, so rare in Scotland, could be found. A strange black lichen on many of the rocks turned out to be Collema auriforme and on some of the grassy areas between the sheep tracks there the remains of carline thistle. A small plant, just coming into flower and found amongst rocks and on walls was the slightly hairy rue-leaved saxifrage (above left), something new to me and quite a rare plant in Scotland.The visit inspired me to have a look at some of the lime-rich
areas close to home, and though none of them compete with the Ribble Valley outcrops, many are important in their own right, remember the dark red helleborine encounter of last summer. A visit to rocks above the river at Bridge of Brown though not limestone, produced a tiny wee fungus which is also a lichen!? called Lichenomphalina alpine (right) and new to the site along with a wee moss called drumsticks due to its reproductive “gemmae” being borne on a ball at the top of the stalk. For the “real” limestone I made a trip to Invercald on Deeside where it pops out in small sections of crag 
and large boulders of lime-rich rock sit at the base of the crag. On the walk from the car the first redstart of the year was singing and by the crag a ring ouzel was in fine voice. It was on one of these boulders that the lichen Solorina saccata had been recorded in the past and whilst looking for it I had been told to keep my eyes open for a very unusual puffball! The plants growing at the base of the crag indicated richness with maidenhair spleenwort, hard shield fern and shining cranes-bill to name a few. Gradually the rocky scree gave way to an area of loose, pale gravel which turned out to be the limestone outcrop. And there, by a rock outcrop was a strange greenish lichen with a dark central “eye” the reproductive apothecia, I’d found my Solorina (left) but i
n a completely new location to that found previously on a nearby rock. As I made my way up the steep gravely slope there was more, and more, growing in nooks and crannies for about one hundred metres. Amazing. But could I find the one growing on the rock? For about an hour I searched but on this occasion failed completely to find the lichen. However, what was the wee round growth on the top of one of the rocks (right)? – the complete but spent body of a tiny white puffball Tulostoma niveum, just the thing I had been advised to keep an eye open for. This had to be the find of the day and though it wasn’t a “fresh” puffball (they appear in September), it had all the features and characteristics as though it was. The puffball was no bigger than a 1 pence piece and it was sitting on top of a huge limestone rock weighing many tons. Currently, this site is one of only three known in the UK, and though it has been found on several rocks at this site it remains a very rare fungus.On the 10 April the first of this seasons RSPBs butterfly transects was walked, a small tortoiseshell being the only butterfly recorded
and on returning home the remainder of last seasons parsnips were lifted. The following day I attended a meeting to discuss the possibility of being involved in an Osmia uncinata (mason bee) nest box project. It is thought that one of the limiting factors in the bees lifecycle is the lack of suitable nest sites which, as far as is known, is the vacated holes, in dead trees, of long-horned beetle larvae. The projects aim is to see whether by providing artificial nest “boxes” the bee ca
n breed more successfully. A nest box comprises a piece of plastic drain pipe, blocked at one end and the pipe filled with small cardboard tubes, 6 – 8mm in diameter. In all, 100 boxes are to be installed at 15 sites where I recorded the bee during a survey in 2007. After the meeting a day was spent sourcing materials to allow the nest boxes to be fixed to suitable trees. The nest boxes are to be delivered by the end of April allowing installation to take place before the bees emerge in early June. Watch this space. Visits to a couple of lime-rich sites produced a new location for (left) purple saxifrage (Inshriach) and moschatel with loads of cowslips (right -Tomintoul) the latter visit re-finding locations for the lichens Lobaria pulmonaria (lungwort) and Peltigera rufescens previously recorded in this area in 1968.I ma
naged to discuss my limestone searches with near neighbour Donald, a geologist, and a day later an email arrived suggesting I should visit a site by the A939 Lecht ski road where Donald knew (from his geology maps) that over a hundred years ago limestone had been mined to burn in lime kilns before spreading the resultant “quicklime” on the farm fields. The visit didn’t disappoint and after an afternoons search I had found a new site for the Solorina lichen, and new sites for moschatel (left), mare’s tail from a wee lochan, an amazing white scale insect (right) and, in the last juniper bush visited, a ‘post-it-note yellow’ lichen Vulpicida pinastri. As I looked further into the juniper bush a mass of orange coloured “tentacles” were seen covering the main stem of the bush, this was a strange fungus with a double life
called Gymnosporangium clavariforme (both shown below left - don’t you just love these Latin names!) which appears first on its primary host juniper, from which spores are released in April. The spores travel on the wind until they meet their secondary host either hawthorn bushes or apple trees and there the fungus appears again in the autumn but in the form of yellowish depressions on their leaves. This outing resulted in my first tick bite 
of the year. Studying a section of geology map borrowed from Donald I noticed another small outcrop of limestone by a burn near Bridge of Brown. I visited the site a few days later and found that there was a major quarry of similar age to the Lecht one complete with on-site lime kiln. Inside the mouth of the kiln was another group of moschatel flowers, a first for this particular 10 km square. On my climb back to the road my delight at finding a rare lichen for these parts Sticta sylvatica growing on an ancient willow was somewhat reduced when I found (yet another) dead buzzard.The third week of April will be remembered for its sunny
days, lack of rain and daily night frosts which caused havoc in the Firwood garden. The flowers which had been tempted to push on during the hot days (20+ degrees C) were all laid low by temperatures as low as -4 degrees C. The sun worked wonders on the butterfly transect and in addition to green-veined whites and orange tips, one section on the moor produced 21 green hairstreaks (right), more than is normally 
recorded in a whole season. Netted mountain moth and cream spot ladybird were also found. On the 24 April Janet attended her first Cairngorms Farmers Market in Aviemore an interesting day and a new outlet for her crafts (see http://www.cairngorms-farmers-market.com/index.html and click on Craft Producers). An amazing day where a patch of grass was converted into a tented market in about an hour and all packed away in about half that time at the end of the day, all by the stall-holders themselves.The most emotional day of the month had to be the 26th. The day started early with my early morning tramp over the hill to complete my first breeding bird survey of the year for the BTO (http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/bbs ) and then it was into the car to drive over to daughter Laura’s for the local planners decision on an application to install two 80m high wind turbines within a 1000m of Laura and Douglas’s home. The nearest home was half that distance. A year ago I did an independent bird survey of the proposed turbine site to help with the resident’s objection to the application, though at the end of the day
this sort of data seems to carry little weight with the planners. The meeting started at 2pm with applicant and objectors assembled for the decision. Short presentations were given by both sides before the Councillors had their say on whether they would support or object to the application. The tally list in my notebook showed most seemed to be against and eventually the chairman of proceedings brought the meeting to a close by saying planning consent would be refused. It took a few moments for what had just been said to sink in but when it did the Cairncake objectors/residents clapped their approval to the planners decision. Tears flowed, hugs all round and huge relief after two years of hard work by all those involved (right). Will there be an ap
peal? It would be hoped not but watch this space. The objectors exposed many flaws in the application, the planning process and the way the turbine company collate their data and to see what they found visit http://www.cawt.co.uk/index.php?page=cairncake .The end of the month was sealed with THAT KISS though I was baby-sitting at the time.
That’s it for another month, enjoy the read.
Stewart & Janet
Blackburn Rovers stayed in the Premiership but Accrington just failed to gain promotion
Bridge of Brown lime-kiln
Sister-in -Law Paula (right) -London Marathon 17 April 2011 & famous back-drop
All photos © Stewart Taylor
