The ground truthing work with
local aspen stands ended early in May with paper maps suitably annotated and
recording sheets filled before returning to John to add to the master maps,
completing the area to the north and east of Grantown on Spey. As mentioned last month, as well as checking
tree locations aspens were also checked for catkins in what was hoped to be a
 |
| A single Taphrina johansonii fungus |
good year for seed production. Where
female catkins were found I had a second aim, to see if any seed producing
catkins had provided a home for the rarely found aspen tongue fungus - Taphrina johansonii. This unusual, banana shaped ascomycete
fungus infects aspen flowers, causing them to swell, and turns yellow, but not
becoming easily visible until the catkins are well grown and the leaves are
just about to appear. In this part of
the UK aspen trees are usually the last ones to come into leaf, quite an aid
when undertaking mapping work. At the
end of April there was a hint that the fungus was starting to grow on catkins
on a young aspen near the village church, the last time found on trees in this
area in 2001. On that occasion its
discovery was helped enormously by a one-day conference held on 25th May in nearby
Kingussie titled “The Biodiversity and Management of Aspen Woods”. Local mycologists Ern and Val Emmett gave a
presentation on Fungi on Aspens and along with the regularly occurring
Phellinus tremulae bracket fungus and the wee fungus on dead twigs Encoelia fascicularis, they mentioned a
rarely seen fungus in the UK, the aspen tongue.
The fungus is only rare because
 |
| More aspen tongue fungi |
aspens seldom produce seed, but 2001
was, by chance, a year when this was happening.
On the same day as the conference, staff and volunteers working on Operation
Osprey were heading to the local pub in Nethybridge to celebrate the hatching
of the first osprey egg, and after getting back from the conference I set off
to walk to the Heatherbrae to join them.
The pub just happened to be on the same road as the young aspens near
the church and as I walked past them I remembered about the fungus which had
been found in the past on aspen flowers.
Yep, you’ve guessed it, several of the flowering catkins had oddly
shaped banana-like growths and I wondered if this could be the rare
fungus. One catkin was carefully removed
and carried to the pub where someone produced a matchbox into which it was
placed for safe keeping. A second
coincidence also happened in May 2001. Gordon Dickson and Ann Leonard, two members of
the Peter Orton fungus recording team that made annual September visits to
Abernethy, were
 |
How the photos were
obtained |
staying in Nethybridge, and first thing next day I popped round
to show them what I had found. Great
excitement, and the strange growths were confirmed as Taphrina johansonii. Within an hour Ern and Val Emmett joined us at
the aspens to view and photograph this rarely seen fungus. This find was the first time it had been seen
in the UK since a find in Essex in May 1996 and possibly the first time it had
been recorded in Scotland. An undated
record from Peebles possibly related to a painting of the fungus that had appeared
in the artist’s garden. It was the 8th
UK record, and until this year has only been recorded once since: in Braemar in
2004. Having checked the same aspen
trees every year since 2001 it was with great excitement that 13 years on, the
fungus was once again growing. Through
April I made regular visits to check on progress and by the end of the month
the fungus could be seen on about six different aspen flowers, mostly just ones
and twos, however one catkin had the more typical “bunch of bananas” appearance
as had been seen in 2001. Time for a
photograph, and for that I would need Janet’s help. I end up in all sorts of slightly
embarrassing situations often found lying on the ground taking photos or
peering into the occasional bush, but to get my photographs Janet had to steady
a step-ladder so
 |
Taphrina johansonii cut in half
the fungus just visible on outside |
that I could ascended to the same height as the fungus so as
not to threaten snapping off the branch by pulling it down to eye-level. Not too many cars or people passed as the
photos were taken, and after a wait of many years I had, at long last, a decent
photo of the catkins complete with fungus.
Aspen map man John had also been visiting flowering trees to collect the
occasional small branch so that the catkins could then be grown on “in
captivity” then, as the flowers/seeds
 |
| The fungus x1000 |
matured the fluffy, wind dispersed type
seeds could be easily collected and forwarded to the Highland Aspen Group’s
nursery for sowing. Growing aspen trees
from seed is a very rare event and John has done a great job making collections
from a wide area to ensure future tree plantings can comprise a mix of trees
from different aspen clones in the hope that when flowering occurs some time
into the future, cross-fertilisation might be achieved. John also passed on a twig complete with
catkin and fungus and this was put to good use by being able to see how the
fungus operated. Where were the spores
produced? I first cut a section through the
 |
| Taphrina johansonii spores and bud-spores x1000 |
infected flower and found the centre of the flower was still full of the
immature fluffy seeds. Could the fungus
be on the outside? A careful check of
the cut section showed lots of wee pimple-like growths all-round the outside,
creating the yellow colour. Carefully a
small section was cut and squashed and checked under the microscope and sure
enough lots of spores were visible. A
long wait but a very educational reunion with one of my local aspens.
For the second time in a year
time was spent visiting a local wood, known as School Wood, to try and gather
new information to add to yet another objection to a planning application by a
local company, determined to build up to 58 houses in what looks like a young,
but fairly natural, area of woodland. Packed-in
houses on School Road and more spaced out houses on Craigmore Road. This new application had additional
documents, one from Frances Thin from the Cairngorms Park and one from a
forestry consultancy trying to rubbish the quality of the
 |
| One of the ancient trees, the red dot indicates to be felled |
woodland and planning
removal of lots of trees including several ancient willows, aspens, birches and
Scots pines. The Park document was
almost a list of what would need to be done by the building company to allow
the building to proceed – a very strange document, more worried about views and
street lighting than environmental protection.
To be clear in my mind about what needed to be considered by the Park,
the folk with the ultimate yes or no decision, and to try and evaluate the
impact of the proposed tree removal and progressive opening up of woodland
around the houses as proposed by the consultant, yet another visit was made to wander
the site and photograph some of the trees which would be lost. This is one of three applications to build
houses in woodland locally where developers have bought woodland relatively
cheaply with no other aim than to develop into housing estates. Nothing new was found in the area planned for
housing along School Road and as I cut across towards the other site I wandered
through an area of Norway spruce.
Because of the ongoing planning applications, thinning of the woodland
hasn’t taken place, really enhancing its value in nature conservation terms,
and as I wandered up the strip of spruces I became aware of several trees that
had been left where they had fallen over the years, some in an excellent state
of decay. On the root-plate of one I
came across two green
 |
| The Buxbaumia viridis find |
shield-moss capsules (Buxbaumia viridis), quite an
interesting find, only to be outdone a little further along the wood as I found
another population, this time comprising 8 capsules. Sadly, both finds were outside the area
designated for houses, but finding them indicated that the woodland had
something which enhanced it “ancientness” and was a species missed by the
environmental surveyors but had been suggested as possibly being within the
wood at the time of my last objection.
It will be an act of environmental vandalism if this planning
application is allowed to go ahead and the Park might as well tear up the
Cairngorms Nature Action Plan because the woods meet a couple of its key
objectives. My objection was lodged on
time and we now await the decision of the Cairngorms Park (priority for Tourism
and Development) Authority planners.
Mid-way through May I gave a
talk as part of the Cairngorms Nature weekend, a second follow-on talk being
given half an hour later by Roy Dennis.
When I arrived as the first permanent warden at the RSPBs Loch Garten
Reserve in 1976 it was Roy, then RSPB Highland Officer, who showed me round the
local area and introduced me to the key bird species both on and off the new
reserve. Roy was also responsible for
overseeing much of the work aimed at protecting the then fledgling Scottish (and
UK) osprey population which, at the time, was less than 20 breeding pairs. I was asked one day by Roy if I was any good
at climbing trees and, thinking back to my youth, suggested I didn’t think I
was too bad. “Perfect, you can help with
the osprey ringing programme” which was to involve climbing to the nests before
lowering the chicks to the ground for ringing.
All those years ago this involved mainly free climbing, the rope tied
round my waist being needed for lowering the bag with chicks down to the ground
rather than being clipped to the tree in case of a fall! We survived, and the views from the tops of
some of the 100+ foot trees
 |
| Reunited after about 18 years - twinflower |
was pretty amazing and getting rings onto the
chicks legs before they fledged allowed details of migration routes to be determined
and provided a link as to how far the birds moved from their natal sites when
they returned to breed. Nowadays this is
all done by satellite technology for the first couple of years of the osprey’s
life, but rings are still needed to monitor the life-long comings and goings of
the birds which we now know can stretch to over 20 years. On one such outing Roy and myself were
carrying the ladder to one of the nest trees, accompanied by the lady owner of
the estate (the ladder was usually needed to allow access to about 40 foot up
the tree, Roy having cut off any low branches to deter egg collectors). I
noticed an unusual plant creeping all over the forest floor – a patch of
twinflower (Linnaea borealis). A days
ringing might have involved visiting four or five nest sites, and with Roy driving
I hadn’t a clue where we were as we disappeared up and down estate tracks so
wasn’t really sure where we had seen the twinflower. So, in between the talks I had just enough
time to ask Roy if he remembered where the plant was so that I could go and check
it for the wee
 |
Horsehair parachute
also found |
fungi I had been finding on its leaves over the last year. Roy not only remembered the find but had seen
the plant, at the location, within the last year, and was able to supply
reasonable directions as to where to find it.
The directions were perfect and after a gap of around 18 years I was
reunited with the twinflower patch which now covered an area of about thirty
square metres. Two leaf fungi were found
but when I sent photos of the spores to Kew, I was informed that we might be dealing
with another fungus – one for the future as quite a bit of work could be needed
to arrive at the correct name.
An email from botanist Andy
arrived just too late for one of our visits to the River Nairn mentioned in
earlier blogs. Despite good finds by
Janet and myself on visits to this area, close to the Howford Bridge, I hadn’t
spent enough time on the river shingle to find an unusual wee plant called
Shepherds Cress (Teesdalia nudicaulis).
Without it being pointed out though as being a little unusual I might
have passed it by as just one of those small white crucifers that we tend not
to look at too closely. Locally, the
lower reaches of the
 |
| Teesdalia nudicaulis |
River Nairn is the main stronghold for the plant, but in
our local area there are few records and several of them are quite old so worth
a bit of time to search for. The plant
likes sandy, gravelly areas, often found on these type of deposits where rivers
overtop their banks or where two river join, often creating the same sort of
habitat. The first place that sprung to
mind worthy of checking was the Spey/Feshie confluence so this is where I
headed and on the first suitable area of sandy river deposits, there it was, in
quantity. It was found in quite a few
places on these river deposits. Checks
of similar habitats where the River Nethy and River Dulnain meets the Spey drew
blanks, so obviously not as easy to find as my first encounter lead me to
believe. It was found in a couple of
other sites along the Spey where it had been recorded previously but the River
Nethy in Abernethy Forest again drew a blank.
One to keep an eye open for at the start of next year’s growing season
because without the white flowers as a guide the plants with just seeds would
be quite difficult to find. The ribbed
extinguisher moss (Encalypta) find from the ex-lime quarry earlier in the year continues
to baffle despite samples being sent to the species expert, so one to keep in
the diary for the new flush of growth next season. On the bird front the season continues to
progress at a pace with young long-tailed tits, blackbirds and robins all
appearing in the garden. An email from
the woodcock survey organiser in 2013 didn’t bring good news. The results from the survey across the UK
last year appeared to show a massive decline in roding birds when compared to
the results of ten years ago and there was a request for surveyors to repeat
the survey again in 2014, to back up the data.
So, once again, the rucsac was packed for the late evening visits to the
mixed forest
 |
| What, no woodcock! |
habitat near the River Dulnain.
In all, the 75 minute count takes just over 3 hours to complete when
drive and walk-in time is taken into account, but if it produced half as many
unusual “encounters” as 2013, the effort would be well worthwhile. Perhaps the survey results from 2013 were
correct because on the first visit no woodcocks were seen or heard apart from
one on the way into the count site. The
count site was fixed by random selection when the first survey was started
eleven years ago, so this bird couldn’t be included in the count. The next visit on the 27th May was
a little better – one bird contact was recorded, a set of poor results compared
to the regular fly-past of birds in 2013.
As I waited for any bird contact I did a mini-survey of all the plants I
could identify before it got too dark to record and ended up with 22 species,
not a great haul, but from a 30 metre square in a forestry plantation not too
bad. On the day of the second count
there had been regular heavy rain and the woodland scents as I made my way down
to the Sluggan Bridge and up into the pine/spruce forest were amazing. No late night encounters with humans
 |
| Devastating grouse moor management! |
though
as last year, but then there is one count to go in early June! The weather right at the end of the month
also allowed the second visit to my “high” BTO breeding bird square, the one
over the 500m hill with cairns and a phone mast, but also nice patch of
cloudberry on the boggy high section.
This was the tenth year I had covered this one-kilometre recording
square, another of the random BTO selected sites to ensure folk don’t just
survey the easy, well-populated bird sites, but this was to be my last. Despite there being few birds once the edge
of the forestry area has been left behind, there is always developing views and
occasional plant or insect along the route to add greatly to the visit. On this visit a new patch of cranberry (Vaccinium
microcarpum) was found, and wandering a little from the transect route to check
a dead sheep (in case of unlawful acts, but thankfully natural causes), a covey
of red grouse chicks erupted at my feet, another first from all the
visits. Despite trashing of the heather
moor for red grouse production (mammal traps, heather burning on a
 |
| Last visit to BTO BBS hill before retiring |
large scale
and all tree removal), few have ever been recorded, so a family group was a
huge surprise. A bit of time was also
spent making contact with three landowners about allowing access for a survey
of ancient trees by members of the Ancient Tree Forum. Jill and Andrew from the Woodland Trust made
a recce visit on behalf of the Forum and were pleasantly surprised by the
ancientness quality of trees at the sites visited, and were left with lots of
options to add to the ancient tree database.
More about this visit in June, for when the recording visit was planned.
Early in the month an email
arrived from Simon of Maramedia about the possibility of filming the “punk”
beetle of the native pinewood areas, the timberman (Acanthocinus aedilis). This beetle, the male has antennae up to six
inches from tip to tip if held out sideways, is a member of the longhorn family
and is only found in areas of older Scots pine woodland where there is
 |
| Any mimic - Thanasimus formicarius |
adequate
standing or lying deadwood for it to breed in.
I have managed to find the beetle on three other occasions for TV and
film crews to record but the challenge this time would be much more difficult
should I become involved. Following a
major fire, the “famous” Forest Lodge sawmill no longer exists, a place where
pine logs waiting to be processed proved to be a mecca for the beetle and other
deadwood breeding insects (see web-link below).
If the beetle was to be filmed, it would have to be found by cold
searching, wandering the forest, checking any recently fallen Scots pines in
the hope of finding breeding/mating beetles.
Simon was happy to employ Stephen Moran our local invert specialist and
contract surveyor to lead the search, and on a couple of outings I would take
Stephen to places in Abernethy where I knew there were possible breeding sites. Abernethy has a proactive approach to
deadwood retention and creation,
 |
| Xylophagus cinctus egg laying |
felling trees in some areas to create the
deadwood habitat needed by so many birds, insects and fungi, and a habitat that
is fairly scarce in woodland that over the last century has been managed
primarily for timber production. In some
areas, “sanitation” felling still take place – ie removing dead and dying trees
in case they “infect” adjacent trees, a very damaging mis-conception but
something recommended by the forestry consultant for the School Wood housing
application mentioned earlier. Sorry, I
digress. Stephen had just a couple of
days available due
 |
| Can you find the 3 timberman beetles? |
to other work commitments, so visit days couldn’t be linked
to when the sun would be shining, which is when I seemed to have had more luck
in finding the beetle. On the first
visit day it was warm but dull and later in the day we had heavy
downpours. Fallen trees were visited and
search but without finding any timberman beetles. As is usual though with these sorts of
visits, other interesting things were found, the first was an ant mimic beetle
called Thanasimus formicarius, and, eventually when I managed to catch up with
it, a strange fly first found wandering around on a couple of fallen pines and
backing up to small holes in the bark to extend it “rear end” into the hole to
lay its eggs. With expert help on site
Stephen named it as
 |
| Endocronartium pini fungus |
the red-belted awl fly (Xylophagus cinctus) a species with
few records in Britain, but, with a few sightings, something quite at home in
Abernethy thanks to the RSPB’s positive deadwood creation. Despite these good finds, the timberman
remained elusive. The second site we
visited was the area of wind-blow created in the December 2013 gale and which
featured in an earlier blog. The trees
here are fairly old trees probably in the 80-120 years of age bracket, but
possibly a little bit too “fresh” for insect breeding sites currently. An indication of how suitable the deadwood
is, is the signs of beetle frass on the bark of the fallen trees, quite a bit
being created by
 |
| Egg laying female timberman protected by male |
the tiny bark beetles which featured also in an earlier
blog. Whilst frass was present, there
wasn’t much, and possibly these trees will be more suitable for deadwood
invertebrates next May. Again, there was
no sign of the timberman. Something else
though was found, a fairly scarce fungus that attacks trees that are probably
in the first stages of dying. This
fungus, Endocronartium pini (synonym Cronartium flaccidum), erupts from the bark of the smaller limbs of the
Scots pines with large areas of the tree Stephen found, covered in
mini-volcanoes all spewing masses of orange coloured spores. Stephen had a second, damp day looking for
the beetle but without luck, so another visit was planned when other work
allowed. In the meantime
 |
| Buxbaumia aphylla producing spores |
I visited
another bit of Abernethy where some trees had been felled for deadwood and
where a few additional trees had recently come down in the gales, but along the
way got a little distracted, visiting a stand of mixed pine with birch and
juniper. The root-plate of an older
blown Scots pine looked interesting and once again a few capsules of the green
shield-moss were found but a little further along the trunk of the tree three
brown shield-moss capsules (Buxbaumia aphylla) were growing, the first time, I
think, the two species have been found growing on a tree rather than on an ants
nest as found in the past. Eventually I
reached the area
 |
A first? Both Buxbaumia mosses
on a single tree |
with the older dead pines but with the clock having ticked on,
I had to dash off back home, already late for our evening meal. The next day saw an early morning visit to
the dentist, and as the numbness was wearing off the phone rang to say a farmer
was spraying fields near Cromdale which had good numbers of young lapwings and
oystercatchers. The sun was up and
probably ideal conditions for spraying fields to ensure the lapwings and
oystercatchers didn’t sprout any nettles or docks (!). Once again all birds, their nests and eggs are
not protected by law, particularly if on agricultural lands! I was too late to photograph the event, but
could see several families of chicks wandering along the tram-lines left by the
tractor, one to take up with RSPB, SNH and the Park folk. Goodness, the sun was up and it was warm,
possible timberman weather, so I dashed back to Abernethy and made my way to
the area of deadwood visited
 |
| Weed-free oystercatcher family |
briefly the previous day. First tree, a mating pair of timberman
beetles, with another female and two males close by – amazing! As the mated female finished egg laying I
carefully picked her up and popped her in a plastic container along with a bit
of bark and moss, doing the same with the other beetles, and once home a few
flower-heads of stitchwort and hawthorn were placed in the containers for
food. Arrangements were then made for
Stephen to expertly look after the
 |
| Filming the timberman, but all you will see will be the beetle |
beetles until the cameraman could get on
site and film the beetles on the log where they were found. Phew, what a bit of luck. The cameraman arrived a day later and Stephen
did a good job shepherding the beetles on the log for filming and as the last
two were released where they were found the cameraman was lucky enough to film
what beetles have to do to ensure the next generation of timberman beetles will
be around on new dead logs in a couple of years time.
A tap on the house door in May
2012 was amazing. A few weeks earlier we
had received a letter from long-time friend John Kirby to say that he would be
visiting Strathspey, probably for the last time, because, as he said at 90 the
drive was just too much! It was a trip
to visit the Loch Garten and Abernethy area and particularly Loch Mallachie,
woodland, loch and mountain views that held so many memories of wildlife
encounters John had had over all the years that Janet and myself had been
involved with the RSPB Loch Garten Reserve.
I can’t remember our
 |
| John recorded the first green sandpiper flying over Loch Garten |
first meeting but it could have been at the garden
sheds that then comprised the “Osprey Centre” or, more than likely, we bumped
into each other on the track between Lochs Garten and Mallachie. John was a brilliant wildlife sound recordist
and if I thought I was out early in the woods to undertake common bird census
work, John would have been there since dawn.
And it wouldn’t just have been John, Marion, his wife would also have
been with him. In 1976 when the Loch
Garten area came into RSPB ownership the tracks by the lochs were relatively
quiet and, believe it or not, there was a capercaillie lek in the middle of the
circular path that links the two lochs.
However we met, I ended up helping John to get a rope/string over one of
the high branches in the Scots pine where the dominant male lekked so that he
could get a recording microphone close to the distinctive “popping” sounds made
by the male. All went well and once the
recording was made, via very long cables running well away from the tree, we
returned to retrieve the microphone only for the string to become tangled after
the microphone had been lowered and try as we may the string refused to release
itself and for several years afterwards a wee bit of string could be seen
flapping in the wind, high up in the tree.
The capers continued to lek but with the build up of visitor numbers
they soon gave up the site. John would
also spend time down with the osprey volunteers in the forward hide, the
front-line of defence against egg collectors, but John was there to record the
comings and goings of the birds and any other key species like crested tits and
crossbills. It was whilst doing this
that John suggested that he could make a couple of
 |
Installing John's microphones for the
first time, one just visible top left
in tree |
microphones to help with the
night-time guard on the nest, one to be by the nest, and one on the ground to
alert the volunteers to anyone approaching the tree. Two kitchen sieves made up a bowler-hat
shaped cover for the microphone head, all fixed to a circular piece of
bakalite, with a cable running all the way back to the volunteers’ hide where
the whole system was powered by a couple of car batteries. It worked, and before too long the system was
extended so live sound could be heard in the public viewing hide. When I introduced the closed circuit TV
system, live pictures and sounds added greatly to the visitor experience. It is only in the last few years that the
system fell out of use overtaken by modern technology. At the end of every season the equipment was
taken away and serviced by John and returned all ready for use in March the
following year. In November 2002 John
and Marion attended the RSPBs members AGM in London to be awarded The RSPB President’s
Award for outstanding voluntary contribution to the work of the Society. John’s recordings were carefully obtained and
edited and some were used in the 1970s and 80s by the BBC natural History unit
and Anglia TV. These were recordings
made not on the tiny recording devices of today but on a monster reel-to-reel tape
recorder complete with a hand-held parabolic reflector microphone. For many years John produced cassette tapes
to help folk learn bird song and calls with at least three different ones being
stocked and sold by RSPB. With his acute
listening gear John was able to pick up bird song and calls over quite a
distance and several of my unusual finds (like my first wryneck) originated
from John’s equipment. Likewise I was
able to point John in the right direction of the
 |
John in action recording "mad" caper
Photo © John Kirby family |
unusual knowing the location
and the species would remain totally confidential. Sadly, John’s hearing deteriorated in his
latter years so, in typical John fashion, he found the best kind of hearing
aids and went really “modern” by buying a digital recording system so as not to
be detached too far from his beloved wildlife. If John didn’t latch onto an unusual bird call
Marion would, a working partnership probably enjoyed by few husband and wife
teams anywhere. Marion passed away in
2008 and she was sadly missed when John made the last of his annual visits,
complete with news from the dales and the traditional chunk of Wensleydale
cheese. Thankfully John made that 2012
visit. The letter that arrived at
Firwood in early May from John’s son Matthew told us that John’s time with us
had also come to an end. John, like
Marion will be sadly missed, but we celebrate a life that achieved such a lot
whilst he was with us.
That’s it for another month.
Stewart and Janet
The Biodiversity and Management
of Aspen woodlands. The Proceedings of a
one-day conference held in Kingussie, Scotland, on 25th May 2001
The Ancient Tree Forum
The timberman beetle BBC video
Maramedia
Are all birds, their nests and
eggs protected by law? The RSPB thinks
so
Highland Biological Recording
Group
and how to join HBRG
 |
| Orange-tip male and friend |
 |
| Arctosa perita spider also found during timberman hunt |
 |
| Early morning Loch Garten in memory of our friend John Kirby |
Photos © Stewart Taylor
