I suppose the good thing in this part of the world during the latter part of March was that we missed the falls of drifting snow experienced elsewhere in the UK, somewhat weird being in a notorious part of the country for snow, and, thankfully, not getting much. We weren’t though immune from the cold easterlies that prevailed for the second half of the month and even with some sunny days at the end of the month, extra layers were needed when out looking for things. The lowest temperature was on the 31st at -11 degrees C. See River Nethy ice sculpture.
The last two days were exceptional for sun with the bright sphere rising at dawn and not disappearing until official sunset time. Whilst all the wind-farms locally hardly turned a blade in the still, cold weather, the PV panels on the roof produced 20 kilowatts of power each day! Interestingly in the last week of March last year we were basking in 20+ degrees C of warm sunshine, the earliest records locally for several moths and butterflies were made and I even had a dragonfly whizz through the garden! The last week of the month also saw Janet and myself house-bound as we took on the role of “real” grandparents, looking after Archie whilst brother Finlay travelled between doctors and hospital with a severe chest infection. We are now both expert Lego builders, it would be useful though if the suppliers included a few more of those fiddly little pieces that take the place of indicators on the corners of the cars!
With daughter Ruth now living in Insh, close to the RSPB Insh Marsh Reserve, walks from her house quite often lead us onto the reserve and in particular, through the amazing stands of mature aspen trees. An outing in 2010 with Brian and Sandy Coppins to these aspens was my first real experience of aspen lichens – they
were there surveying the trees to identify those most important for their lichen populations (see Firwood Diary February 2010) to aid future management. In passing, I have looked at a few of the trees found in 2010 to see what has happened to some of the rare lichens, and to be able to monitor any major changes accurately rather than just visually , I thought it would be best to repeat my close up photographs taken in 2010. One of the rarest locally is the “eagle claw lichen” (
Anaptychia ciliaris) still only known from just the one tree at Insh – despite much personal searching in the wider area – and the repeat photo showed that very little had changed over three years. The other rarity was
Collema nigrescens, again, only found on a single tree at Insh – its only known location within Strathspey – and here the repeat photo showed that quite
a bit had changed, (top photo 2010, bottom photo 2013) with a loss of a fair percentage of the lichen over three years. This lichen is growing low down on the main stem of the tree and is probably vulnerable to damage from passing mammals. This tree along with its near neighbours comprises a group of aspens with probably the biggest populations of rare lichens in the area. Many of the trees have canker damage and some are in the early stages of dying, two conditions which seem to be ideal for the bonny wee pinhead
Sclerophora pallida. Bits of detached bark lying on the ground by a couple of the populated trees contained more pinheads (100’s) than can be found on many of the other whole trees with the lichen within the Strath! This lichen also appears in the February 2010 Diary.
One recent outing involved a walk through Insh village and on to Ruthven Barracks, with grandson Archie in charge of the camera for part of the time. A photo of me by the local footpath sign was achieved after excellent shots of my feet, my legs and the pine needles on the track! Spiders were searched for under fallen
logs and plant galls were found on juniper and willow bushes and an amazing ‘find’ of a kitkat by the track allowed for sustenance along the way. On the way to Ruthven Barracks whooper swans were spied on the marshes and curlews were heard despite the cold day. The now resident greylag geese were also feeding in many roadside fields. The sun was out tempting buzzards to display overhead and a few fieldfares were seen searching for food in fields with local mistle thrushes. At Ruthven Barracks the builders had completed their repairs and the scaffolding which had been protruding from various bits of the barracks had now been removed. Archie managed to visit most accessible bits of the building accompanied overhead by a noisy gang of jackdaws. We made our way back round the sunny, outside of the main building, but still chilled to the bone by the easterly wind. “Whatzat” asked Archie pointing at a nicely hairy grey/green moss on the wall, but apart from confirming “a moss” I didn’t have a name, so in order to possibly rectify that Archie took a photo along with one of a single daisy flowering in the grass. It was only when I downloaded the pictures that I realised the
moss was quite distinctive and it might be possible to give it a name and sure enough, as I worked my way through the Mosses and Liverworts handbook, distinctive grey leaf hairs along with capsules bending back into the cushion lead me to the grey-cushioned grimmia (
Grimmia pulvinata). Despite this being our commonest British Grimmia, there wasn’t a dot on the NBN Gateway map for the 1 km square for the Barracks so well spotted Archie. I have seen the moss since on stones of a couple of bridges so it is one you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding.
I have photos but not the specimen. This was the reply I had to give to a query about the wee
Mycena smithiana fungus I found on oak leaves in November 2012 and as featured in the Firwood December Diary. I hadn’t really checked the status of the fungus in Scotland when I made my identification (as found
and via microscope) but out of 83 records currently on the GB fungal website, only 3 are from Scotland, 2 of which are classed a doubtful –oops! Eventually my record was accepted due to all the features being correct via the reasonable quality of the photos but there is now a date in the diary for a new search in November and if found, a specimen will be retained and sent to the experts – lesson learnt. A visit to an area on the edge of Kingussie to collate records of species for an area designated for 300 houses , yes, 300!, took me through an area of Scots pine to check for the presence of red squirrels. Whilst watching the ground for predated pine cones I noticed a pale, non-descript fungus emerging from the ground. Suspicious, I poked my finger into the pine needles and humus below the fungus and felt the substrate the fungus was growing from – a buried pine cone (above left). This is a normal looking “gill” fungus, not the other “toothed” type also regularly found on pine cones, and goes by the name of
Strobilurus tenacellus. Not a species to stop houses being built and nothing else was found of national importance so the Planners will need to consider the lack of proper surveys for birds, invertebrates and mammals and the impact to the wider area, particularly the designated habitats, reserves etc. On the way home I wandered down to an area I had never been to before despite its importance for flowers and insects, particularly butterflies – the confluence of the
Rivers Feshie and Spey (left). This area is a mass of sand, rocks and gravels mainly washed down the River Feshie, some areas very stable and vegetated and others still in a state of mobility, maintained by the two rivers delivering huge quantities of water in times of spate. This alluvial fan covers quite a big area as sections have been re-worked by the rivers over millennia and in the couple of hours available only part of the area was visited. I did though have a target species –
Peltigera leucophlebia – a lichen I have occasionally found in this type of riverine habitat. My regular first flower of spring was popping up from the gravels, the bright yellow petals of coltsfoot, the flowers appearing well ahead of the leaves. Old stems of bird’s-foot trefoil and scabious gave some indication of the potential species richness later in the year. This was obviously going to be a day for Peltigera lichens with the diminutive
P. didactyla the first followed by (confirmed at home via a small
sample)
P. polydactyla. The nicest sound of the visit was made by whooper swans flying by overhead. As I wandered back and forth across the gravels I was hoping that no-one was watching my slightly strange behaviour, but I was trying to ensure I visited most of the areas where it was obvious that an element of stability had occurred and vegetation had become established. Eventually I was wandering through areas of patchy tree regeneration when the green, “spotty” lobes of the target lichen
Peltigera leaucophlebia were found (green spotty leaves above left), a single patch, about 30mm square. Time to head home. By the forest track I noticed several logs in a well rotted state so couldn’t help myself from having a quick look for the green shield-moss. No joy, but there was another
moss there with very strange stalks and capsules, all of which were doubling back on themselves burying the capsules in the leafy cushion of the moss. Having got home and checked the mosses handbook I have a note in my diary which reads “Of course it had to be the dwarf swan-neck moss” (
Campylopus pyriformis)!
A notable event happened early in the month, Brian Coppins, who was on his way to the monthly meeting of the Inverness Botany Group, asked if it would be possible to stay for a couple of nights to allow time to look at the amazing aspen, hazel, elm wood near Grantown on Spey. So, on a sunny morning but with a covering of snow, we headed out, along with Bella his dog, to the woodland, the rising sun quickly melting lying snow. The first stop was for Brian to make a list of all the obvious lichen species readily visible in the same way that I would do something similar for birds, however, it would take a long time for me to produce the same lichen list, hence the reason for his visit. A hazel stem produced a
species of lichenicolous fungus in the
Sphinctrina family and new species were added from the aspens, birches and willow. The ancient elms failed to produce the
Gyalecta ulmi that I had hoped I hadn’t overlooked on my earlier visits but did produce
Biatoridium monasteriense a rare species nationally (see map). Ninety nine species were identified by Brian on the day with other species taken away for further work. A fallen aspen also produced another location for the wee twig fungus
Encoelia fascicularis with Brian also finding it below the tree on detached twigs lying on the ground. I did say to watch this space! In the evening Brian had a look at several specimens of the dark, crust lichens mentioned in last month’s diary and was pleasantly surprised to confirm that one of them was
Fuscopannaria mediterranea, a new species for the Tulloch list. So, with so many “crusts” from such a small area, Tulloch was to be the destination for the half day outing the following day. On the way in to the main stand of aspens
to be checked Brian spotted a single specimen of
Collema furfuraceum on one big aspen, another new species for the stand. In the area where I had found the “crusts” a few weeks earlier Brian was amazed to find
F. mediterranea on many trees, the lichen displaying small patches of pale yellow/ochre in amongst blue-grey squamules, an identification feature I hadn’t known about (above left). A few aspens had huge populations of
Degelia plumbea and the recesses at the base of one aspen revealled a small population of
Collema occultatum, another new species. So, a brilliant couple of days, too many species for my wee brain to take in but with enough information to give me a few new species to look for. Interestingly, the area of aspens searched initially by me and re-visited with Brian is just a small part of an area of similar type woodland continuing beyond the boundary fence of the search area, so who knows what else there is yet to be found. With a part of an afternoon spare late in the month I was tempted back – just to venture over the fence. The aspens on the edge of the stand didn’t produce anything special but I remained faithful to my search method of systematically visiting all the trees as I worked my way from the edge of the field and into the wood proper and closer to the well endowed aspens on the other side of the fence. The first find was more of the aspen twig
Encoelia fungus on two separate fallen branches. A leaning hazel (always more interesting than the
upright ones) didn’t disappoint and I could see as I approached that it had a big population of one of the crust lichens –
Parmeliella triptophylla – one of the commoner crusts. On top of the crust was lots of
Degelia plumbea and
Pannaria conoplea and close by the two Nephroma’s,
N. parile and
N. laevigatum, all rare species locally. An adjacent hazel and the two closest aspens were also covered in D. plumbea creating perhaps the biggest population locally. What though was that popping out of the bark of the dead hazel twig? It was the spring hazel cup,
Encoelia furfuracea! Intriguingly there was a large fallen aspen branch a couple of metres away and on the twigs were the fruiting bodies of its close relative
Encoelia fascicularis! This is probably the first time in the UK that the two species have been found growing side by side (above left). Amazing! To round off the amazing couple of hours a green woodpecker was also calling.
The month was drawn to a close with a talk to the Highland Branch of Butterfly Conservation and various envelopes were opened as all the recording forms for various summer surveys were sorted into ‘what to do and when’. Let’s hope that the weather warms up shortly, the first butterfly transect is due in the first week of April! Well, we all live in hope!
That’s it for another month, enjoy the read.
Stewart and Janet
Web links from the diary above.
Firwood Diary February 2010
http://firwoodcottage.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/48-hours-of-absolute-mayhem.html
Ruthven Barracks
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/kingussie/ruthvenbarracks/
For NBN Gateway see
http://data.nbn.org.uk/
Firwood Diary December 2012
http://firwoodcottage.blogspot.co.uk/2012_12_01_archive.html
Mosses Field Guide (BBS) for Dwarf swan-neck moss
http://www.bbsfieldguide.org.uk/sites/default/files/pdfs/mosses/Campylopus_pyriformis.pdf
Old Tutsan flower, a new find locally
Puss moth larval case
Colt's-foot, sign of spring?
Photos © Stewart Taylor
