On the 1st November, a day of brilliant weather, I
re-visited a mainly woodland site with exciting potential by the River Findhorn
at Ardclach, first visited during the summer.
On that occasion I found ancient ash trees hanging thick with Lobarian
lichens so kept in mind the need for a second
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| Ardclach - the way in |
visit, which didn’t
disappoint. On my first visit I
struggled to get into the wood down a very steep slope before realising that
there was a fisherman’s “path” complete with rope handrail across what looked
like an impassable rock-face along the edge of the river. Rock-face negotiated I made my way to the
woodland area where the first visit ended and checked the first ash tree. The tree was covered in lichens classed as
quite rare in this part of Scotland, more a feature of west of Scotland
woodland, with masses of lungwort (Lobaria pulmonaria), textured lungwort (L.
scrobiculata), Peltigera collina, Nephroma laevigatum and big populations of
Degelia plumbea. In a wee hollow a
crustose lichen had me scratching my head but made me think of Pannaria
mediterranea, later
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| Degelia plumbea (brown on grey) and Normandina pulchella (blue/green) |
confirmed, and with just a couple of records local to
Ardclach. A plant with unusual leaves
also had me baffled and it was only with help from plant specialist Ian that I
arrived at tutsan, a plant easier to identify when displaying its bright yellow
flowers. I stopped for lunch by yet
another ancient ash and checked the tree as I munched. The Degelia lichen was present again,
covering much of the lower trunk of the tree and another greenish lichen was
growing with it/on it Normandina pulchella, something I had seen only a couple
of times previously. Obvious black dots (a
parasite) also on the
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| Degelia plumbea and parasite Toninia plumbina (black spots) |
Degelia required me to take a tiny sample home to
check. These ‘parasites’ are known as lichenicolous
fungi and though a lichen is a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and an
alga, the lichenicolous fungus is not the same as the fungus component of the
lichen (confusing ain’t it!). In
addition, lichenicolous fungi live exclusively on lichens and most are host
specific so if you can identify the lichen there is a good chance that you
might be also able to name the parasite.
Amazing
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| Toninia plumbina ascospore x1000 oil |
ascospores appeared under the microscope, comprising four
‘segments’ and measuring 25 x 6µm (microns or millionth parts of a metre) and
when I looked up Degelia plumbea in The Lichens of Great Britain and Ireland
handbook it told me that there was a parasite called Toninia plumbina, and my specimens
and spores were of the right size. The
handbook also told me that the parasite was “very rare”. Wow!
Despite there only being 21 UK records on NBN Gateway that amazing
lichen expert Brian Coppins had found it in two woodlands adjacent to mine. Brian had also recently asked me to look out
for another rarely seen lichen parasite, but more about that one later.
The next day the last of the potatoes were lifted from the
veg patch before I set off to collect more leaves from some of the remaining
locations for the Balsam-type poplars mentioned in the last blog. Some sites were nearby in Tulloch but others
further afield out near Insh Marshes RSPB reserve. As Andy also continued to visit the site he
knew he was also developing an excellent guide covering the main features
needed to identify the tree species from mainly, just the leaves. As our knowledge increased a few sites had to
be re-visited to collect more leaves to be certain of species and at one
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| Stropharia pseudocyanea |
group
of trees right next to the A9 a group of amazing slightly slimy, greenish
fungus were growing under the poplars so time for a few photos and a specimen
for checking once home. As my leaves
arrived back at home I checked and tried to name correctly before passing on to
Andy to double check and by the end of the first week of November most of the
trees we knew about had been visited.
Ian Green was also visiting some of the known trees in the Morayshire
area to add to the species distribution picture. Andy also made progress with the mystery
poplar near Aviemore and after arriving at a name he sent the leaves off to a
BSBI Poplar referee to confirm that we had found Populus maximowiczii, a
species new to Scotland. Andy has now
made his guide to identifying the Poplars available on the internet, just
follow the link at the end of the blog. The
“amazing fungus” turned out to be from the Stropharia family of fungi but with
two species being very, very similar I
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| Effect of plaque revealer dye on cheilochrysocystidia on gills of Stropharia pseudocyanea |
had to contact expert Liz for help. She agreed that it was either Stropharia cyanea
or S. aeruginosa but suggested I needed to do something I had never attempted
before and it involved something a dentist might recommend - blue plaque
revealer tablets! Under the microscope
it is possible to see something called cheilochrysocystidia along the edge of
the gills found under the cap of the fungus and by dissolving a bit of one of
the tablets in water this mix was used to wet a section of gill as prepared on
the glass microscope slide. The cheilochrysocystidia
on the gill of just one of the fungi would react by turning bright blue and
this would confirm the species.
Amazing. Under the microscope I
could see bright blue, confirming that I was dealing with Stropharia cyanea. Thank you Liz.
The entry in my diary for the 10th November asks
“The end of life as I know it?” This was
the day for a return visit to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness to find out the
results of two whole body scans carried out a few weeks earlier. The scans were needed as a follow up after a
biopsy revealed there was cancer in my prostate. A new species to me but one with lots of dots
on the UK distribution map. The good
news was that the cancer was contained and hadn’t spread to bones or body
tissues. Mr Douglas then explained to
Janet and myself the three options open to me, two types of radiation based
treatment or complete removal. He also
explained that I could choose to do nothing and probably live for many more
years with little effect. But if there
was an effect……………..probably too late.
Removal was our option and the last visit to Raigmore saw me going
through all the pre-op procedures so that I’m ready to go once a date is
offered. Personally, I don’t feel any
different than before the diagnosis and am carrying on with all the things I
normally do. Fingers crossed that this
is how it will be as we progress into 2016, but I’m not likely to be doing all
the things I normally do for four to six weeks.
Perhaps I can bring it home and see how much I can raise from the
‘prostate fairy’!
On the 6th, Janet once again converted the chalet
into her Christmas pop-up-shop with an amazing display of tweed crafts and additional
displays of other local crafts. A
percentage of sales income
went to support Marie Curie and despite the odd
quiet day things went quite through to the last day on 22nd. Daughter Laura came over for a few days to
provide moral support but also to do a bit of walking with dad as we both
sought out photo opportunities. I introduced
her to pipe club fungi (Macrotyphula fistulosa), both Sclerophora pinhead
lichens growing together (a first?) and views to the Cairngorms, Sluggan Bridge
and Abernethy Forest. However, she won
the photo competition
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| The winner - Laura's snow shot © Laura Taylor |
with an amazing early evening shot of the first heavy
snow fall lit-up with the street light just outside the house.
November has been the oddest of months weather-wise. There were 9 night frosts the lowest being -40C
but many mild days so much so that we still had lupins in flower, the rose bush
with several flowers and buttercups, ragworts and daisies still in flower and
even fox and cubs flowering just
down the road.
Waxcap fungi continued to pop up and expert Liz even delayed her annual
waxcap count at Haddo until mid-month when usually it is undertaken in
October. Whilst visiting Tulloch to look
for Brian’s lichen parasite I was pleasantly surprised to see a group of pipe
club fungus by the track and a wider search found about fifty fruiting
bodies. I just had to re-visit them a
few days later when the snow had fallen to repeat my photo. However, the snow had all gone a couple of
days later
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| Pipe-club fungus (Macrotyphula fistulosa) |
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| a few days later! |
and the pipe clubs looked just fine.
Blackbird numbers in the garden increased as they normally do at this
time of year and it was interesting to see the blackbird from the summer without
a tail was still around. The tail had started to re-grow but completely
white! It never looked quite right
though and within a couple of weeks all the white feathers had gone. We got the feeling that there was something
physically wrong with the bird’s tail and perhaps it was meant to go through
life without
one. As the month
progressed more whooper swans were passing overhead and a count of birds
roosting on Loch Garten during a goose roost watch by ranger Alison produced a
total of 63 swans, the highest count to date for the Abernethy Reserve. I also made a big effort during the month to
catch up with entering my records into MapMate, reaching the end of August and
the running total reaching 6500!
Emptying the recycle bin on my photo external hard-drive was even more
impressive – 14,000 photos (jpeg and RAW per photo), and that was just the
deleted ones since August! Quite a bit
of time was spent being a press officer for the HBRG to try and publicise an
amazing achievement by two Highland naturalists, one a long-standing member of
the Group. All the records I put into
MapMate go initially to the data manager for the HBRG to be checked and then
added to the Highland Region record database.
He then sends the records to The National Biodiversity Network (NBN) to
add to the UK distribution maps of the species recorded. In 2010 the 50 millionth record
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| Callum (left) and Ian with their NBN Awards |
by
Callum Ullman-Smith from Auchtertyre, in Ross-shire. I was to attend the HBRG AGM in Lochcarron at
the end of November to photograph the two winners and to send background
information and photos of Ian and Callum to local Highland papers to publicise
their success and highlight their recording efforts in Highland Region. Lots of phone calls and emails and in the end
several papers carried the story. I
might have also managed to get the BBC Scotland Out of Doors team to meet and
interview the winners for a programme sometime in the New Year.
The trip to Lochcarron had a couple of aims, take the
winners’ photo and possibly to visit a lichen-rich woodland on the west coast
in the couple of hours that would be spare.
There was lying snow at the 7am start and occasional snow showers until
I reached Garve and then heavy rain until about ten miles before Lochcarron. As the rain stopped I was close to
Achnashellach and as I slowed down to
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| West-coast rain! |
find a quite loo stop I noticed several
trees by the side of the road covered in lichens, probably the good old
lungwort again. I parked up in a
convenient Forestry Commission car park, donned my waterproofs, and made my way
back to the roadside trees. The damper
climate of the west coast is ideal for lichen growth and apart from the trees
being covered with lungwort and textured lungwort
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| Roadside tree covered in lungwort lichen |
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| Lobaria virens |
there was another Lobaria
present in quantity, L. virens, a lichen I had only seen three times previously
and only once on my ‘own patch’. Passing
motorists must have wondered what this strange man was doing staring at trees! A new one for me was Degelia atlantica and a
jelly lichen turned out to be Leptogium saturninum, a new species to that
area. Time to push on to the AGM where
Ian and Callum were photographed with their awards followed by two excellent
presentations by Roo Campbell covering his work with Scottish Wildcats and
Becky Priestly and the red squirrel reintroduction project. To make the most of the journey there were
swift goodbyes and I drove back down the road a little where lunch was spent
wandering through a bit of hazel and oak woodland before setting off on the 95
mile drive back home. A grandson-sitting
evening finished of a long but enjoyable day.
Two emails mid-month started a bit of serious searching
during late November. One was a request
for a sample of a lichen parasite for DNA work and the other informed me of a
recent find of a tiny Mycena fungus found growing on juniper which was new to
Britain. The parasite required old
aspens and the fungus old juniper bushes with both being in good supply
locally. The lichen parasite,
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| Physconia distorta (black circles are re-productive apothecia) |
Opegrapha
rotunda (a lichenicolous fungus) had only been recorded a few times in the UK (about
x10) which was a little surprising considering that the host lichen, Physconia
distorta is fairly common. This lichen
was to be found quite regularly on older aspen trees and I saw it often enough
on outings to only record it occasionally, but knew it occurred on the local
aspens in nearby Tulloch. The host
lichen, which turns from grey/brown when dry to a brilliant green when wet
would be easy to see after rain so that was when I made my first visit. It’s funny though isn’t it, you think
something is common until you go looking for it and that was the case on my
first outing, when only
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| The tiny black central 'spots' are the parasite Opegrapha rotunda |
tiny scraps of the host were found. More luck on the next outing with a few trees
supporting big populations of the Physconia and then the search really
began. The host could be classed as
generally ‘circular’ in shape with individuals growing 3-4” in size, but that
is the easy bit. The parasite is also
circular, black, but with the fruiting body (apothecia) just a half to one
millimetre in diameter and was to be looked for on the ‘leafy’ sections of the
host (the thallus). My first bit of
excitement turned out to be an error with the small, black ‘spots’ belonging to
a Bacidia lichen and
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| Opegrapha rotunda asci (sort of spore 'sack') x1000 oil |
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| Opegrapha rotunda ascospores x1000 oil |
not actually growing on the host! The next outing though lead me to something
that looked correct after checking several aspens, with the tiny black growths
sporting a slightly rounded rim similar to the ones in the photo I had with me
of host and parasite. This aspen, with
good populations of the Physconia, produced two population of whatever was
growing on the host so one part of the lichen was carefully removed, complete
with black growths. The big test would
be checking the ascospores under the microscope once home and with little
guidance to be found on the internet I would have to rely on the lichen
handbook for information. Bingo, what
was found under the microscope matched the description in the handbook so the
specimen of Opegrapha rotunda was forwarded to Brian for
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| Protective clothing for juniper bushes |
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| Sticta limbata lichen rarely found on juniper new to RSPB Abernethy Reserve |
confirmation before passing
on to the experts undertaking the DNA work.
The other information was about Mycena juniperina, a tiny fungus found
on a juniper bush in the south of England which, when confirmed, was a species
new to the UK. This is a late
autumn/early winter species so the time was right to go a-looking which is
easier said than done. Juniper bushes
have lots of small needles some alive and many dead and as you push your way
through them the needles go everywhere, so the use of waterproofs to stop the
needles going down wellies, the back of the neck etc was needed. Despite
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| Ichneumen fly to be identified |
lots of crawling in and out of many
bushes the Mycena hasn’t been found but several unusual lichens have turned up
many with few records with juniper as the host.
Whilst searching, a small ichneumon fly was found, which being late in
the season might be something unusual and awaits being seen by that rare
species an ichneumon expert. Most
unwelcome, on the last day of the month was a tick in the leg, hopefully the
last one of the season and a by-product of the juniper searches.
Early November also saw my hopping out of bed early in the
morning to check on one of the celestial highlights of the early winter – a spectacular
coming together of three planets, Venus, Mars and Jupiter. It was suggested that the best time to see this
was just before dawn which around the 7th was between 5 and
6am. The first morning was hopeless with
lots of cloud but the following day there
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| Venus bottom right and Mars to left, Jupiter top of photo |
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| Moon bottom, Venus, Mars (just visible) and Jupiter |
they all were, Venus and Jupiter
shining brightly in the southern sky with the tiny dot of Mars side by side
with Venus. The camera and big lens was hurriedly
put together, mounted on the tripod and, still clad in my pyjamas but with a
warm jacket on top, I popped out into the house driveway and fired away,
running off probably 50-80 shots as I varied shutter speed, aperture and zoom
in the hope that the tiny spot of Mars would show up in the photo. It just about worked. The big test though was a couple of days
later when for one morning the crescent moon would be in the middle of the
triangle of planets, an even bigger test if Mars was going to be visible in the
photo. The clouds won and it wasn’t
until the following morning that I was able to see planets and moon but in just
one day the moon had moved to below the planets all three of which though were
now in a line. Again, the biggest test
was to try and capture a shot of tiny Mars with the bright moon now in the
picture. As I tried to capture a photo
it was amazing just how quickly the moon was descending towards the horizon. As
it ‘dropped’ it met some mist created by cold air. The quartet were just about
visible in one photo with the moon a bit of a hazy blob as it started to drop
below the nearby trees. Then it was back
to bed for a couple of hours before getting round to checking the photos. All good fun and almost successful.
Enjoy the read and with best wishes for Christmas and 2016
Stewart and Janet
West Coast lichen-rich woodland
NBN Gateway
Andy Amphlett’s guide to Poplar identification
MapMate
National Biodiversity Network
NBN Trust UK Awards for Biological Recording and Information
Sharing
Scottish Wildcat Action
Red squirrel reintroduction
Opegrapha rotunda
Come to Scotland the windfarm capital of Britain! Sit down before opening the following!
Fungal Records Database of Britain and Ireland (FRDBI)
BSBI – Botanical Society of the British Isles
Highland Biological Recording Group
and how to join HBRG
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| Photographing Opegrapha rotunda hasn't been easy |
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| A bit of Ho, Ho, Ho in the pop-up-shop |
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| Red deer in late afternoon when out with Laura |
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| HAPPY CHRISTMAS |
Photos © Stewart Taylor unless stated otherwise
