had stayed in bed! I got to the car parking place and despite the mist the birds were singing and with most of the survey relying on hearing birds, off I went. This survey is based on walking out along one side of a one kilometre map square, counting whilst you walk across country to the other edge of the map square and then heading back towards your starting point. The first forestry section was completed in the mist but on the return leg along a road with farmland either side the mist had lifted and it was possible to see some birds as well as hear them. Nothing too unusual was recorded, but 28 species were seen or heard, the commonest being chaffinch (24 contacts), wood pigeon (17) and willow warbler (13). By the time I returned to the car there were bits of blue sky appearing, so much so that later in the day it was sunny enough to walk the butterfly transect. The next day it was up again early to do the second breeding bird square, the one that goes over the steep hill with the two cairns and a telephone mast on top. All looked well until I got to the base of the hill when once
again the mist rolled in, but, being a hill, I thought the mist would clear as I climbed. Wrong! However, the route is simple enough so there was no problem in undertaking the double crossing of the hill top. Muir burn (heather burning) had been undertaken over a good part of half of the return leg, taking in huge swathes of hillside rather than the recommended regular thin strips ensuring this part of the survey area will remain very definitely in the MAMBA category for birds, including red grouse, for the next few years. Sorry, MAMBA is shorthand for “miles and miles of B all”. It really is appalling what we are allowed to do to our countryside in the name of sport. One benefit of the removal of heather by burning was the un-earthing of an unusual spiky moss (above right) called large white moss (Leucobryum glausum). With a bit of woodland in the square 19 species were recorded the commonest being a flock of common crossbills (10) and meadow pipit (7), though a pair of golden plover was nice.
Not to be caught out for a third day I stayed in bed on the next morning when really I needed to be up and about to carryout the local farm wader survey. This survey relies heavily on visuals rather than sounds and with another misty start the survey would have been impossible. So after popping in to vote (local council
elections) and with the sun shining, it was off to Delnabo near Tomintoul for a walk, calling in at The Gallery in the village to drop off some of Janet’s tweed crafts on the way through. As we walked I made a list of the birds seen and heard for the BTO Bird Track programme and it was nice to see my first blaeberry bumblebee (Bombus monticola) of the year and hear my first cuckoo. The weather forecast for the next few days was looking pretty poor again so in the evening I headed out to do the first of four visits to my regular farm wader survey area, postponed from earlier in the day. The only problem with doing the survey in the evening, which is allowed, is that there is a very definite deadline – the time it gets too dark to see, whereas carrying it out at dawn there are no such problems if you encounter a few delays along the way. Another problem is that if the weather is good there is every chance that the farmers might be still working, as was the case. At one end of the survey area lime was being spread and at the other a recently sown field was being rolled. Having surveyed this field an hour earlier (the survey takes about 3 hours) I knew there were three sitting lapwings and one oystercatcher and though the farmer made every effort to avoid the nests by lifting the eggs, rolling and then putting the eggs back, it was a while before the birds felt happy enough to return to their incubation duties by which time some nests were lost to marauding common gulls. Also, with the weather having changed for the worst at the end of March, many fields had still to be harrowed and sown, a few still to be ploughed, so lots of upheaval to come for birds trying to breed. As it was getting almost too
dark to see I was heading back towards my starting point via a nice piece of birch woodland when I remembered to look out for a small group of cowslips by the track, and sure enough, there they were as found originally in 2005 and again in 2010 during earlier wader surveys. There was just time for a photo(above left), despite the darkness, before pushing on to complete the survey. The next day it snowed! The day after that remained very cold and all the swallows, sand martins and house martins from miles around seemed to converge on the River Spey by Broomhill Bridge to try and find any insects that were hardy enough to be on the wing. Thankfully the weather warmed up a bit on the Sunday for the Nethy Spring Gathering, where Janet had a craft stall for the day (white tent right), the splash of sun tempting good numbers of folk out to visit the stalls and to enjoy the entertainment.
For over a year ex workmate Andy had been extolling the virtues of a patch of ancient mixed broadleaved woodland near Grantown, and he repeated this when I queried the identification of a plant I had found on
my visit to Huntly’s Cave. The plant I was having trouble with was a golden saxifrage, was it opposite leaved or alternate leaved, and to help with my query he suggested I visit the ancient woodland site where I would find both species growing side by side, so, with the perfect excuse, off I went. The first good plant I encountered was moschatel growing next to a group of the first leaves of figwort. Next, the birch trees gave way to aspens, big, ancient aspens along with old willows and enormous elms. In between were hazel bushes many of which were dripping with lungwort lichen (Lobaria pulmonaria), a rare feature in this part of the Highlands and more akin to woodland around Loch Ness and further west. Big elms like these have the potential to be home to the rare RDB lichen I had found on a rock face a couple of months ago Gyalecta ulmi, and before the UK elm population was devastated by Dutch elm disease, elm trees were the main habitat
for the lichen. There were quite a lot of elms to check in this wood, so this would require a dedicated visit at a future date, but there on the track below the first of the elms was opposite-leaved golden saxifrage (above left) and a little further down the slope its close but rarer relative alternate-leaved golden saxifrage (right), quite different once seen. What a wood, ancient, and on this first brief visit, as good as anything I had seen locally for lungwort lichens, but what would the Gyalecta ulmi lichen look like on a tree rather than on a rock face? A return visit would have to be made to the amazing wood at Inverfarigaig, the only site in the North of Scotland where the lichen has been recorded growing on an elm tree.
So, the next day it was off up the A9, along the minor road past the RSPB Reserve at Loch Ruthven and on to Inverfarigaig just in time for the rain to start falling. So it was on with the waterproofs before I made my way up the hill to the ancient wych elm where
the rare lichen was known to occur, and sure enough, there it was (left), growing over several square centimetres of the tree bark. The only difference between the lichen here and at my rocky site was the lichen on the tree had lost the “apricot jam” centres to the disc-shaped apothecia, probably due to the attention of slugs and snails. As I checked the trunk a little higher up there were a few more bits of the lichen but most unusual was finding a snail hanging down from a section of bark, most unexpected. Mollusc expert Richard identified the snail as Clausilia bidentata (below right), a reasonably common species but a new record for this particular location. Back down on the minor road I spotted something bright red growing on a dead spruce branch and on closer inspection it turned out to be the scarlet elf cup fungus (Sarcosypha austriaca). Another unusual lichen was also known to grow on another elm nearby and the clue to the correct tree was that when the
lichen was last photographed there was an old bird nest box at the base of the tree, so the search was on, but first find the nest box. I was less than confident of finding the latter, so much so that I travelled light and left my rucksack and camera behind to allow for easier clambering over jumbles of rocks. Eventually I reached the base of the main crag and was pleasantly surprised to find good patches of flowering shining cranebill (below left), and close by clumps of climbing corydalis, both rare plants on my home patch. There were just a few elms along the base of the crag and eventually
in a wee hollow I found my fallen nestbox and in the hollowed out base of the adjacent tree, there was the Bacidia incompta lichen. Now where was that camera! The trip back down and up the hill though did have a useful ending – finding Peltigera britannica a lichen missing from the earlier survey. Armed with this “elm lichen” information I was ready for a return to my Grantown wood.
Mid-month and it was time for the second recording visit for the farm wader survey and with a -2.5 degree frost overnight, conditions were clear but cool. As I parked up at 5.45am and headed out across the first field I was aware of the sound of a helicopter close-by overhead and as I reach the high-point of the field, a good vantage point to scan several of the fields ahead, I could see a whole host of flashing lights in the distance on the A95 road, and just at that moment the wee yellow air ambulance dropped into view and landed on the road by vehicles and their flashing lights. Even from a long distance I could see that there had
been a head-on collision between a car and a delivery van, the van stopped at an angle on the road but the car, minus its roof which had been removed to gain access to its passengers, up on the grass verge. The road approaching the crash was full of lorries, some of which had decided the road would be closed for some time, and were in the process of finding places to turn around. As I got back to my starting point three hours later, the A95 had been closed and the traffic was now zooming by on the B970; it looked like accident investigators were
now at the scene. It had been a ‘not too bad’ wader morning, there were 3 lapwings sitting on re-lays in the ploughed/rolled field, a pair with very young chicks, a pair of oystercatchers looking like they would nest in a field that had yet to be sown (fingers crossed) and redshanks were alarmed enough at my presence in two locations to indicate they had intact nests nearby. In the wee birch wood the cowslips were still flowering and in one of the last fields to be checked there was a sea of flowering dandelions. Amazingly, the van driver and the two passengers in the car all survived the crash but the road remained closed for over 12 hours. Back home it was time to start sorting out photos for a talk in the Boat of Garten village hall at the end of June along with a quick snooze for and hour before heading up the road to the Black Isle to meet up with Dave (SNH) and Giles (FCS) to see a new site for the green shield-moss. Some day!
The sun came out for long enough on the 20th to allow another of the weekly butterfly transects near Loch
Garten to be completed, though only green-veined whites and orange tips (female right) were seen. Insects in general have just not had the chance to get going this month with the cooler weather predominating. On the edge of Tulloch Moor a wee ground bug by the name of the pine cone bug (Gastrodes grossipes left) was found, though it took a little help from Stephen at the HBRG to get exactly the right name. This was a first for Abernethy NNR. In the afternoon I made a return visit to the
Grantown wood and a start was made to check the elms and all the aspens and willows in between, a job that was going to take several days of searching. Sadly I was unable to find either of the rare elm lichens seen at Inverfarigaig though many had good populations of lungwort along with other lichens that an expert might be able identify. On a couple of rock outcrops the very local grass mountain melick (Melica untans right) was found
plus a couple of jackdaw nest in deep holes in amongst the rocks. Find of that week though was common twayblade in three places close to the River Spey at Spey Bridge, the two big basal leaves being the giveaway and with tiny flowering stems just starting to appear from between them. Then a miracle happened and the sun came out for a couple of days which pushed the temperature to 30 degrees C before breaking down with torrential downpours. It looked like our trip to Lancashire to see Janet’s mum the next day could be fun, particularly on the motorways.
The next day we were up bright and early as we packed and got ready for an
spring cinquefoil and flowering guelder rose, to name a few. Then, after a few days in the company of an amazing nonagenarian, it was back up the road in time to greet our next chalet guests.
That’s it for another month; blame the plants, birds etc for lateness.
Enjoy the read.
Stewart and Janet
Lesser swallow prominent moth
The famous Pendle Hill - witch country
All photos © Stewart Taylor
