There were two big events during October, daughter Ruth flew
out with Lewis to the US of A and we spent a week in Lancashire (recovering!)
with Janet’s mum. Ruth’s holiday was a
much delayed birthday present from back in May but suitably timed to match school
holidays and a week where grandparents were available to look after “the boys”. As Ruth flew out we took the boys to Grantown
to select a couple of books to read before having a walk up to Castle Grant
where sticks to fence with and cones to throw were readily available. Back home for the evening an ambitious
meccano project was started involving batteries, motor with pulley, string and
lots of nuts and bolts. A lots of effort
went into “Finding Wally” in the books purchased earlier before donkey rides
carried tired
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| Singing dipper River Nairn |
grandchildren to bed. An
outing to Nairn the next day saw sticks and logs floating down the River Nairn,
a dipper singing on a rock in the river, six-inch twigs becoming “magical” and
something we had never heard of but linked to the Minecraft games oddly named a
“foam pickaxe”! How we could have used
the real thing a couple of hours later.
On the way home we thought a visit to Ardclach Bell Tower would be good
fun, lots of steps to climb and count before ascending the stone steps within
the tower itself. The tower dates from 1655,
and the
hill on which it stands gives excellent views out over the River
Findhorn, via the climb up 70-odd steps to the impressive single door giving
access to the tower. Finlay tried
unsuccessfully to unlock the door with the big key, but with a bit of help we
in and all at the top of the tower peeking out through the slit shaped shot
holes in the walls. Back down the steps
we visited what looked like a small dungeon set down in the basement. As I photographed Archie perched on the edge
of a tiny windowsill we suddenly heard Finlay informing us that we were “locked
in” with him on the outside. Knowing
that Finlay had been unable to unlock the door on our arrival I wondered what
our next steps would be having walked up to the tower leaving bags, phones etc.
behind in the car! As notable lines
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| Phew, after "the event" |
from
Dad’s Army flashed through my mind “don’t panic” and “we are all doomed,
doomed” I tried unsuccessfully to instruct Finlay on which way to turn the key
but from inside the locked door. A small
gap close to the lock allowed me to get a finger to the outside, pointing which
way to turn the key. At the same time I
realised that the bolt bit of the lock was visible on the inside and with
Finlay trying to turn the key on the outside and me pushing the bolt on the
inside there was immense relief when the key turned and the door opened. Phew!
Back at the car Finlay informed us that there were 164 steps on the
return trip between gate and tower.
As we welcomed Ruth and Lewis back it was time to complete
my letter of objection to the Cairngorm Park Planners regarding the house plans
for our local School Wood. Errors in the
ecological surveys where quite mind-boggling and these formed the major part of
my
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| The major find - 140 capsules on one root |
objection and whether the finding of a tiny, protected moss, no more than a
few millimetres high, in areas to be felled and built over would have any
effect, would be determined in late November.
The tiny green shield moss also produced another stunning display, this
time in RSPBs Abernethy Forest. A single
Norway spruce root buttress of a felled tree produced a count of around 140
capsules, definitely the biggest count anywhere to date and quite an
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| Part of the biggest count to date |
amazing
sight the scale of which is very difficult to capture on camera. The day after saw me visiting the doctor
again with a red-ringed tick bite and being given another 14 day course of
antibiotics to combat the possibility of Lyme Disease. Just one of the hazards of tramping through
the undergrowth recording things. With
the tablets working and energy levels returning an outing was planned to follow
up reports of waxcaps in a field at Glen Brown near Tomintoul. This amazing glen displays all the remains of
life as it was about 100 years ago, large areas of grazed pasture with ruined
remains of farm houses and steadings backing on to higher moorland. The area though is slightly lime-rich, so you
can never be too sure what you will find.
Juniper bushes were checked, without luck, for unusual lichens, but
quite quickly a few waxcaps were encountered by the track with more in the
grazed pasture.
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| Glen Brown - ex lime quarry (centre) and kiln up and to left |
Red grouse were still quite vocal and the odd raven passed
overhead. Lunch was taken by one of the ruined farm buildings. Scanning the opposite hillside through my
binoculars I spotted what looked like an old lime quarry and a little further
up the hillside, what looked like a limekiln – an obvious target for the
afternoon. In areas, a few plants of
quaking grass (Briza media) appeared and as I crossed the burn and headed
towards the possible quarry, more was encountered. My guess about the quarry was correct and
more waxcaps were found along with white and yellow spindle fungi (Clavaria
fragilis and Clavulinopsis helvola) and after having been recording plants for
several weeks of the summer I was
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| Having fun with Intermediate lady’s mantle |
tempted to have a go at identifying a couple
of the small-leaved plants of Lady’s mantle.
Checking for the amount of hairs above and below the leaves and on the
leaf pedicels (stems) Alchemila filicaulis (hairy lady’s mantle) and Alchemila
xanthochlora (intermediate lady’s mantle) were identified, quite an achievement
for me! The quarry was not good for
lichens which was the main reason for checking it and as I made my way up to
the kiln the rain started, and, having spotted an ancient aspen growing close
to one of the ruins, I headed in its direction, sheltering for a while in one
of the safer parts of the tumble-down building.
The rain eased for a while so a quick check was made around the aspen,
no doubt
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| Ancient aspen and ruin in which to shelter (left) Glen Brown |
getting a few folk scratching their heads when they receive my records
from what is normally classed as a tree-less area! As the rain increased to a steady down-pour
on went the waterproofs and up went the umbrella and with little possibility of
further recording I headed off back to the car.
Having lost track of the date I realised once home that it was wedding
anniversary time and with the shops now shut the evening was spent finding a
nice photo and suitable card from Janet’s store in preparation for the
morning. Brain getting worse!
During the approach to referendum day we had heard a little
bit about a cairn being built right on the England/Scotland border at Gretna by
people from across Britain. The “Auld Acquaintance”
cairn was the idea of Penrith and Borders MP Rory Stewart, with the aim being
to get people who wanted the UK to stay united to bring their own stones, some
with messages, to build it. As we were
heading south, and with the M6 passing a few hundred metres from the cairn, we
thought it worth a visit and to place our own stone as a thank you
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| Cairngorm/Loch Morlich rainbow |
to the
people of Scotland. But this wasn’t
going to be any old stone. Via contact
with the Mycological staff at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, I had become aware of the
“Lost and Found” project as detailed in last month’s blog, and having visited
the website realised that one of the “lost” species could possibly be lying
undiscovered in the nearby Cairngorms.
So, on the day before we headed off to Janet’s mums I thought I could
kill two birds with one stone (no pun intended), go and see if I could find a
long-lost fungus and whilst on the side of Cairngorm, select a stone to take to
Gretna. In Nethybridge it was fine and
almost sunny but at the Cairngorm car park it was blowing almost a gale and
there was constant drizzle in the air.
The rain from Cairngorm did, at times, head down the hill with regular
rainbows appearing showing that there was actually sun shining a couple of
miles down at Loch
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Could this be Sporomega degenerans on
Vaccinium uliginosum? |
Morlich. Undeterred I
set out along the path towards Coire an t-Sneachda knowing that within a couple
of miles the damp runnels coming off the slopes would provide populations of
the plant I was seeking - bog bilberry (Vaccinium uliginosum). In 1907, at a site in Perthshire, thuis
fungus was found on the stems of this plant and hadn’t been recorded
since. My hope was that the fungus,
Sporomega degenerans, would be present on one or more of the plants I might
find, and that the Lost and Found project would have done its job and one of
the target species was known to still be alive and well. That was the theory! Plants of dwarf cornel were found and a
search along the same tiny burn produced my first Vaccinium plants, thankfully,
just before they were about to lose all their leaves. The only guidance I had was that the fungus
(stromata in this case) erupted through the bark of the plant so stem after
stem was searched. Parting some of the
live stems revealed that some stems were dead or dying and there was also dead
twigs attached to live ones. A quick
“hello” was exchanged with a group of folk heading right up the mountain on the
path above
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| Cairngorm stone and lichen "Auld Acquaintance" cairn Gretna |
me, and having passed, they probably had an interesting discussion
about what they thought I was up to.
Some of the bigger clumps of the Vaccinium seemed to offer more mature live
and dead stems to search and it was on one of these that a series of small,
longitudinal splits was encountered, looking reasonably like the picture I had
printed off from the Kew website. In
all, four collections were made of whatever it was I was finding on the plant
stems, all found during about an hour and a half of searching. Another collection was also made from a good
population of the plant close to the car park.
Just time to select a nice pink bit of Cairngorm rock, complete with
lichen, for the Gretna stop, before heading back to the car. The evening was spent carefully removing a
couple of the “splits” so that sections
could be checked under the high-powered
microscope. From the description of the
fungus I knew I was looking for quite long spores, but despite lots of
searching, nothing was found. Knowing my
collection would need to go to the experts at Kew to be checked I was reluctant
to remove too many “splits” and after a couple of days of drying, the
collection was packed and posted in the hope that Paul would have better luck
than I. The first email was quite
encouraging in that the “splits” looked correct, but like me, no spores could
be found with the suggestion being that the fungus was effete (worn out,
exhausted, finished) and the spores had gone or, more likely, they had been
parasitized, infested by another organism.
Another search would have to wait until 2015, and also be a little
earlier in the season. Watch this
space. Next day we were up bright and
fairly early to head south, reaching Gretna just in time for lunch. Several people were visiting the cairn which
was right on the Scotland edge of the River Sark, as near as feasible to the
Scotland/England boundary. People had
come to the cairn from all over Britain to place “their” togetherness stone in
the run up to the 18 September, and no doubt some like us, had adding their
contribution following the vote.
The next week was spent visiting several lunchtime dining
spots with Janet’s mum and family and friends.
Favourites are the pub in the old Roman village of Ribchester, a new
café at the ex-railway station at Longridge and the brilliantly impressive
Stoneyhurst College
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| Stoneyhurst College always impressive |
at Hurst Green where Janet had timed it right for their
Christmas Fair. Strange things are also
happening in the countryside around the Ribble Valley – an ivy take-over. The plant is climbing up fence posts, telegraph
poles, buildings. Even hawthorn hedges have become ivy dominated. An empty ex car showroom in Accrington
resembles something from the day of the trifids, with walls covered and the
roof starting to disappear under a carpet of green. Brother John reported an unusual, large,
yellow plant growing by a nearby road which
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| Ivy on the march |
turned out to be evening primrose,
a rare escapee in that part of Lancashire.
We also had five days without hearing anything about the Scottish “neverendum”!
The journey home encountered the A9 average speed cameras
for the first time, switched on the day after we headed south. Not only do these cover the “notorious” Perth
to Inverness section, but also the duelled section between Dunblane and
Perth. Welcome to the Highlands! I also arrived home to be greeted with the
news from expert Mike that a couple of spiders I had found in the house during
the last few months had been identified.
The first was one of those giants of the house Tegenaria saeva, the
giant house spider, which was found in the kitchen sink way back in early
August. Whether it was a coincidence or
not but looking after a set of antique drawers for daughter Ruth might have had
something to do with its appearance. There are two species of giant house spider,
the one mentioned above
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| The giant house spider Tegenaria saeva |
along with its close relative Tegenaria gigantean and
they can only be told apart by the experts.
The one found at Firwood is the one regularly found in the north of
Britain whilst its close relative is found mainly in the south. This impressive spider measures about 8cm
across its outstretched legs and, having a hairy body is probably the one
species folk who are terrified by spiders ever want to meet! The second spider couldn’t have been more
different, tiny by comparison and a “jumper” to boot. It’s not found in the house all the time but
one or two of these bonny wee spiders had been putting in an appearance every
few weeks, mostly in June. The one that
allowed me to take its photo actually appeared on the desk
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| Jumping spider Pseudeuophrys lanigera |
next to my computer
and eventually I caught up with it for just long enough to get a decent photo
which local expert Hayley identified as Pseudeuophrys lanigera, confirmed a few
days later by Mike. Sadly, many species
of spider can only be identified from a collected specimen. This spider was only recorded in Britain for
the first time in 1930, in Devon, an arrival from the continent. Since then it has spread north with just a
few records, to date, in Scotland.
Redwings appeared early in the month and joined blackbirds
devouring rowan berries on the tree in the garden. The predominantly mild weather throughout the
month saw all the birds finding enough natural food to almost stop using the
peanut feeders. Sunflower hearts were
utilised, but some days even these feeders weren’t emptied. Pine martens appeared almost daily, much to
the delight of our last chalet guests for the year. Fallen bits of
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| Common pinmould fungus on bird seed |
sunflower hearts provided us
with an unusual surprise on our return from Lancashire, a carpet of something
black growing from the lawn under the feeder.
On closer inspection it turned out to be a mould and making a guess it
was linked to the bird food I typed “fungus on fallen bird food” to see if it
was a known feature of bird feeders. Yes
it was, and something experienced a lot by folk according to the RSPB website. However, I had to do a bit more delving to
find out it was called common pinmould (Phycomyces nitens) another species
whose distribution is spreading north no doubt due to the increased use of
sunflower hearts as bird food.
Enjoy the read
Stewart and Janet
Ardclach Bell Tower
The Auld Acquaintance cairn
Gretna
British Arachnological Society
(BAS)
RBG Kew “Lost and Found” project
Highland Biological Recording
Group
and how to join HBRG
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| One of my first whooper swans by flooded field Carr Road |
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| Where's Grandma? |
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| Late afternoon Ryvoan Pass and Cairngorms |
Photos © Stewart Taylor
