Northerly winds, -20C and more snow on the
high-tops on 28th sums up the weather for the month up north, but
warmer days, masses of flowers, good birds and beer in real pubs down south,
hints at the Taylors off on holiday. A
month of two halves.
My fun with the fungus growing on leaves of alternate-leaved
golden saxifrage in April, led me to re-visiting a wood near Grantown on Spey
where I knew the plant was pretty abundant, it didn’t disappoint. Masses of flowers, more of the white leaf
fungus on the saxifrage as mentioned in last
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| Alternate-leaved golden saxifrage |
months blog (Entyloma
chrysosplenii) but a second one also turned up, a brown job this time called
Puccinia chrysosplenii, with more UK records than the former but with few
records in Highland Region. A newly
arrived blackcap was nice to see and hear and, with lots of standing dead trees
(elms) great spotted woodpeckers and jackdaws were both nesting, the latter in
a hole in a tree lying on the ground – another first! This is the wood that appeared in my blog in
May 2014, a hugely important woodland made up of ancient aspens, hazels and
elms, several of which are still alive.
A
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| Puccinia chrysosplenii |
year ago I poked my nose into a hole in amongst the roots of one of
the ancient elms and spotted a small pinhead lichen that got me quite excited,
justly so, because it turned out to be Chaenotheca gracilenta and was just the
7th UK record. Being in
amongst the elms again I just couldn’t help myself, and checked out the gaps in
amongst the elm roots once again. The
woodland is established on quite steep slopes creating a situation where the
elm roots have had to spread down the slope and outwards to give the trees
stability. Because of that, there were
many nooks and crannies to search,
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| Chaenotheca gracilenta lichen - really was just as photographed |
and bingo, another population of the pinhead
was found. Inspired, there was more
searching and at the end of a couple of visits five new populations of the
lichen had been found, this wood alone had, therefore, doubled the known
population of this rare pinhead. With a
little bit of ingenuity I also managed to obtain photos (not all good) of the
lichen in their holes and the host tree for future monitoring purposes. Sadly, with so many of the ancient elms dead
or dying, the lichen probably has
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| A typical elm site for the lichen |
a limited life at this location. Seeing the saxifrages again reminded me about
my Dorback visits a week earlier where I had great success with adders but not
with small day-flying moths. After we
had said cheerio to Colin and Jackie our chalet guests and the day progressed
to sunshine and warmth, I headed back up the track towards Eag Mor in the hope
that either netted mountain or small dark-yellow underwing moths might still be
on the wing in the areas of plentiful bearberry plants.
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| The strainer support |
Despite walking with great care and with
camera at the ready, no adders were encountered but seeing a couple of green
hairstreak butterflies gave me hope for moths.
An update a few days earlier from local moth expert Mike informed me
that he was still finding the yellow underwing moth, the last ones mating
whilst resting on a fence post. Little
did I know what a great bit of information that would turn out to be. The sun was coming and going so conditions
were not ideal and as I approached the deer fence gate, I carefully checked all
the posts and gate woodwork. A small bee
was found and photographed but without the actual specimen (I wasn’t happy to
collect) I wasn’t able to get a name. A
northern (oak) eggar moth went whizzing by, probably a male looking for a mate,
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| Small dark-yellow underwing (Coranarta cordigera) © Pekka Malien |
and when I progressed through the fence and was closing the gate, I noticed a
small black and grey moth resting on the strainer-post support. I had it, well nearly so, because as I got my
camera out to get a photo the yellow underwing was off, and despite lots of
searching, I was unable to re-locate. I
walked about a kilometre of deer fence checking each fence post I passed but
without any further sightings. However,
it was good to catch up with this early season, day-flying moth after 27 years
and I look forward to trying again next year.
The next day I did the first lawn mowing of the year, voted
in the General Election, and made a recce visit to my random recording site for
the BTO’s 2015 house martin survey. The
next day the lawn looked brilliant, the flag-waving Nationalists were marching
to Parliament and the paperwork was sorted for the martin survey. The holiday visit to North Yorkshire a couple
of days later was so well
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| Swallows at Hawes |
timed allowing time for thought, alternate
life-styles and a link to a media not dominated by all things blue and
white. And so, with bags packed, we
headed south to Masham, home to the Theakston and Black Sheep breweries and in
the midst of or very near to many great sites for plants, birds, ancient
monuments and famous gardens. Having got
the motorway part of the journey out of the way we stopped off for a wander in
the village of Hawes and saw dippers disappearing through a waterfall to
their
nest, swallows twittering away around nest sites and stared in amazement at the
yellowness of the road-verges covered in dandelions and hedges white with
massed ranks of jack-by-the-hedge or garlic mustard flowers. Everything was way ahead growth-wise, of
things back home so everything looked good for our first early summer holiday
for as long as we can remember. We
arrived at the house at 5pm, unpacked, and walked round to the King’s Head for
a meal, a G & T and a pint of Black Sheep bitter. Brilliant!
A lucky search on the internet the first evening found a
nearby wildflower meadow called Leyburn Old Glebe Nature Reserve owned by the
Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, and, being just a few miles away we thought it would
make a good outing for the next day. It
did not disappoint. This meadow, once
owned by the local church, had survived the march of ploughing, sowing and
fertilising on adjacent farmland, and had been allowed to grow on, naturally,
producing a brilliant display of wildflowers
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| Leyburn Old Glebe Nature Reserve & flowers |
every summer. Traditional management would require a crop
of hay to be taken later in the summer.
From top to bottom the field was covered in cowslips and one of the
early orchids, which, thankfully, had been identified by a group of folk
leaving the field just as we arrived – green-winged orchid (Anacamptis morio). Salad burnet was everywhere and there was a
fine show of bluebell under the hedge along the edge of the field along with
patches of ramsons, a plant we would see and smell a lot more of. Lunch was eaten sitting by the River Ure,
surrounded by more cowslips, many of which seemed to have been felled, possibly
by rabbits or slugs, a singing blackcap and whitethroat and 7
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| Cowslip lunch |
spot ladybirds. The afternoon saw us visiting another species
rich area called Leyburn Shawl, a limestone outcrop running west for a couple
of miles from Leyburn village. On top of
the wall by the path was lots of rue-leaved saxifrage and moschatel in places
along the route. A patch of nettles had
more 7-spot and several black and yellow 14-spot ladybirds, a new one for
me. Shining cranesbill and hoary whitlow
grass were also nice finds. The evening
saw Janet dragging me out for more pub beer!
I’ll just cover a few of our notable outings. The National Trust’s Fountains Abbey wasn’t
too far from where we were staying and that’s where we headed, for a day
out. A very impressive site and set up,
spoilt a little by too much grass cutting and tidiness. The ruins though are pretty amazing and we
made it a day out by wandering the site to see the abbey and other
buildings/ruins and the
woodlands.
Having walked through the old abbey we climbed up a wee bank to get on
to a track we wanted to follow. A wall
running along the edge of the track had masses of hart’s tongue fern growing from
it, with lots of new young fronds and many from the previous year. Janet had wandered on a little ahead but had stopped
to allow me to catch up, but with a look of expectation on her face. And then I saw them, several flower spikes of
the parasitic toothwort, last seen on a visit to Dingwall a year earlier. In all we counted 18 flower spikes, with some
a bit past their best. The most amazing
sight though was the massed ranks of bluebells and ramsons, covering vast areas
of the
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| Toothwort |
forest floor. We walked the main
track towards the lakes where the iconic photos of the abbey are mostly taken
from before exiting the abbey grounds and into the Studley Park part of the Trust
ownership. Very impressive ancient sweet
chestnut trees were scattered across the open fields that led upwards to the
Obelisk and St. Mary’s Church which sadly had just closed for the day, because
the photos of the main windows looked amazing.
Through a gate, onto a footpath by the road and we were back at the car
park having, unusual for me, spent a whole day at a National Trust
property. The next day Janet wanted to
have a good look around the shops in Leyburn for a morning so I was dropped off
for another visit to Leyburn Shawl to have a good look at the woods below the small
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| Ramsons galore |
limestone cliffs to see if it was possible to re-locate a site from several
years ago (1999) where toothwort plants had been found. The location for the find was so vague (10km
square scale) that the search was a bit of a long shot but worth a go. Not wanting to miss bits of wood I hopped
over a fence just where the woodland began and entering an amazing world of
trees, ramsons and bluebells and the odd cuckoo-pint flower some of which had
managed to grow without the brown/purple central ‘spadix’ having been nibbled off
by predator unknown. However, the wood
was so
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| Cuckoo-pint |
dominated by ramsons that for the first half-hour there were no records
taken apart from the odd fungus on bluebell or wood anemone leaves. Eventually a path was reached and, in places,
suitable habitat for the toothwort started to appear. Something caught my eye below a hawthorn bush
where a group of twenty-one of the plants were found growing close to elms, one
of the tree species the plant is thought to parasitise. Amazingly I was back in to Leyburn for the
agreed rendezvous time but with a pair of wellies in the back of the car
stinking heavily of onions!
All around the house we were staying in were table mats with
the words “Woodland Trust Hack Fall” printed on them, and the OS map showed
that this woodland was just a few miles down the road. Internet information show it to be a place
worth visiting, an ancient broadleaved woodland with a strange mixture of
follies scattered round the walks. Lots
of blackcaps, willow warblers and a dipper
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| Pendulous sedge (Carex pendula) |
by the River Ure, and a mystery
pigeon like call turned out to be a turtle dove, a bird not knowingly seen by
either of us previously. The path-sides
were over-hung with lots of pendulous sedge plants and two other sedges that
took a little while to identify were wood sedge (Carex sylvatica) and thin-spiked
wood sedge (Carex strigose) both plants of richer calcareous soils. More toothwort plants
 |
| Wood sedge top & spiked wood sedge bottom |
were found and one
re-find had a particularly nice link, alternate-leaved golden saxifrage, having
been found previously in these woods by the late Dr Frances Rose, one of the
finest botanists of his generation.
Sanicle was also regularly seen, a plant not often seen in our part of
the world. An afternoon visit to the
Nosterfield Local Nature Reserve proved to be quite a highlight of our
holiday.
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| Avocets - okay, they're a long way off, but who cares! |
In one part of the reserve, which
is made up of flooded ex-gravel extraction sites, we saw several great crested
grebes but on the other side of the road the pools proved to have a few more of
the seldom seen birds from the Highlands.
Shelduck with young, 10’s of swifts and other hirundines, a pair of
gadwall (not sure when last seen), a distant green woodpecker and then, in the
distance on one of the shallower pools, a pair of avocets. The G&T and pint of Theakstons tasted
even better that evening.
Janet’s query about whether I would like to go to Harlow
Carr had me scratching my head until she said it was an amazing mix of gardens
run by the Royal Horticultural Society and was only about 40 miles away. In for a penny….and off we went. We arrived at the gardens about 11 am and
were both slightly worried when we realised that several car parks were full
and we were heading for the third,
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| Wow! |
very large car park which was also filling
up fast. In we went and were both quite
surprised to find that there weren’t that many people visible and, because of
the size of the place and garden layout, visitors were sort of absorbed into
the place and it was only near to loos or tea-rooms that lots of people
gathered. The alpine house had an
amazing mix of plants as did the various “themed” areas with Janet overloading
my brain with lots of Latin names of beautiful and colourful plants a little
alien to me. Orange tip and green-veined
white butterflies were enjoying the sun and flowers and though there were bees
on the wing not too many were seen. We
found a nice seat by one of the tracks for lunch and the wee brown rust was
seen on bluebell leaves and Janet asked what the purple plant was just visible
under a nearby yew. It was a bit like
the common lousewort flower but was all
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| Purple toothwort (Lathraea clandestina) |
purple and all I could think it might
be was purple toothwort, a parasitic cousin of the toothwort found earlier but
this one is parasitic on alder, willow or poplars. We were close to a small stream with alder
present and probably willow also. Purple
toothwort is an introduced plant but one that has become naturalised in some
areas. Being in Harlow Carr this could
have been planted or, seeing its location, possibly a naturalised plant. A little further round our walk into the
wildflower woodland near the bird hide, more was found, in a much more open
woodland situation but damp and with alders present.
Grassington is always worthy of a visit and though the day
was a bit damp we headed over the tops to have a wander through the village and
then drive out to Grass Wood for an afternoon walk. No lady’s slipper orchids but “real” lily of
the valley, betony and a singing pied flycatcher, our first. On
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| Grassington |
our drive between Kettlewell and
Grassington we spotted a field full of orchids just above the road which we
thought must be a local nature reserve, but no link was found. Once again masses of cowslips but this time
growing with early purple orchids. The
day turned very chilly and we noticed snow forecast for the mountains in
Scotland! On our outings around Leyburn
we noticed a very
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| The amazing orchid field |
impressive rocky outcrop near a place called Redmire, with
what looked like brilliant wee roads criss-crossing the fells, a must for a day
out. The map did warn us about “Danger
Area” and “Rifle Range” in red letters, and as we drove towards the rock outcrop
we realised we were on the edge of the training ground for soldiers from the
Catterick Barracks. What we didn’t
expect were signs warning us of “Tanks” and “Tank turning circle”! Sadly our paths didn’t cross and the rock
outcrop was a big disappointment as most of the land hidden behind it turned
out to yet another massive limestone quarry.
Lunch was taken overlooking the quarry as we took shelter and lunch
under our
umbrellas as the heavens opened.
It was also very cold, with black skies all around. Nearby Castle Bolton didn’t look too inviting
so we drove on towards Aysgarth when we passed an area of mining and
spoil-heaps and Janet said there were signs indicating some sort of
reserve. We had stumbled on Ballowfields
Local Nature Reserve and the sign informed us that previously the site had been
a lead mine and that the old spoil heaps were now very important for metal-tolerant
plants (known as metallophytes). On warm
days the information board told us that a good range of butterflies might be
seen. Janet immediately spotted large cushions
of thrift growing (one of the metallophytes) and in the distance a large
scurvygrass could be seen and this, the board informed us was Pyrenean
scurvygrass and that the tiny, white spring sandwort was also present. As we donned our wellies to have a wander,
the sky blackened even more, and Janet took the sensible option and decided to
stay
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| Spring sandwort (Minuartia verna) |
in the car. I was keen to see the
plants a little better so set off to see if it was the sandwort growing season. The thrift and scurvygrass were by the stream
close to the carpark, but I guessed that the sandwort would most likely be
growing on the spoil-heaps across the stream.
Bang-on, and the tiny white flowers were found almost immediately, just
as the rain started to fall. Just time
for a quick photo before the rain got heavier and just enough time to get out
the umbrella before rain turned to hail and within minutes everything was
covered in the white stuff. I pottered
around under my umbrella checking out the ancient hazels for lichens and the
woodland for more plants until the hail stopped. On my way back to the car I re-visited the
sandworts just to see how they had fared and the flower-heads were just visible
above the white balls of hail!
The next day was our last in Yorkshire and we set off with intentions
of walking along the River Cover for a cuppa at Jervaulx Abbey. Orchids and other plants slowed our progress
and when Janet spotted a kingfisher, giving her a lead of 3-2 in sightings, we
ground to a halt for a while. The cuppa
went by the board and we had lunch overlooking a wee lake with blackcaps and
sedge warblers singing, coots feeding young and our only contact with a garden
warbler. A mute swan came
steaming down
the lake towards us, followed by its mate with 8 cygnets in tow and all seemed
oblivious to the pair of us watching them from a few yards away. On the way back Janet shouted “come and look
at these” and I dashed over to find two, brightly coloured “bugs” resting on a
meadowsweet leaf. They turned out to be
the UKs biggest frog-hopper (Cercopis vulnerator) and something we hadn’t seen
before. On the way back to the car Janet
spotted a hybrid
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| Cercopis vulnerator |
cowslip/primrose (Primula x polyantha) known as a false oxlip,
onion-type plants were field garlic (Allium oleraceum) and 17 twayblade plants,
amazingly, seem to be new to that location despite records for the rare
burnt-tip orchid having been made nearby.
We dodged more showers and a thunder-storm to get to the White Bear
(highly recommended) for a meal and last pint of Theakstons before heading over
the border next day to Lancashire to visit Janet’s mum for a few days before
heading back north.
We arrived home on 24th and plans had been made earlier
for a visit with Murdo and others to Blair Atholl the next day! This visit was aimed at follow up work to try
and establish whether the rare Osmia inermis mason bee still occurred at the
last two sites where it had been recorded 10-15 years ago. Myself and Murdo did similar work with this
bee in 2011 where natural rock “nest” sites were created but without any
success. Similar nest sites, where the
bee creates a nest cell under the rocks,
 |
| The "wee bee" team |
had been erected on the site in 2007,
and cells had been created by a bee, giving some clues that it was still
around, but sadly this wasn’t repeated in 2011.
This time we were going to re-visit the 2011 site, plus another one a
few miles away where again breeding cells had been found in the past. On this occasion, the nest “sites” would be
terracotta plant-pot saucers, turned upside-down, and slightly embedded into
the soil/vegetation, but with the majority of the bottom of the saucer (i.e.
upper-most surface) accessible to sunlight.
These saucer nest sites have been used successfully in Canada by this
bee as an aid to fertilise commercial blueberry crops (Vaccinium angustifolium)
as well as to ensure conservation of bee populations. And so, at 8am on the Monday morning we
headed off back down
 |
| Hopefully, a bee nesting site |
the A9 to Blair Atholl to install 50 of these saucers at
the first of the two sites. On site, the
five of us started to install the saucers, in groups of five, across the
birds-foot trefoil rich moor, this plant known to be one of the main food
plants for the bee. The ten sites were
completed by 12.30 and we then drove to a farm close to the second with the aim
of seeing how suitable it would be for accepting the saucers. This site is on moorland but the trefoil-rich
areas occur on outcrops of limestone, quite a way up a moderate hill. To human eyes, it looked a much better
location than the first for the bee, and despite there being limited numbers of
flat rocks lying on the ground, there was a stone wall and many nooks and
crannies in the limestone rock itself.
As we walked about the outcrop we were regularly aware of a small,
purple-coloured moth flitting about.
Eventually we caught up with one
 |
| Pyrausta ostrinalis |
but weren’t able to get a good photo
which is probably just as well because a bell was ringing in my head about this
being a Pyrausta micro-moth and a specimen would be needed to tell two very
similar species apart, so one accompanied us as we made our way back
north. The site looked so good that we
were all looking forward to making a second visit once the rest of the saucers
arrived. Back home I contacted moth
expert Mike about the moth and he gave me the information that it was the
under-wing of the moth that would need to be checked to confirm the ID. So, for the first time in about 20 years, I
got out my setting boards, pinning out the moth to allow the under-wings to be
checked carefully. Mike’s guidance was
that in Pyrausta purpuralis a white line on the under-side of the forewing
stops before it reaches the edge of the wing (Costa) but in P. ostrinalis it
goes all the way. We had found Pyrausta
ostrinalis, in numbers, and from a new site.
And one wee bit of local good news to end with. The Nethybridge pond and birchwood walks are
getting better as the woodland recovers from management two years ago. The gales of the last couple of winters have
toppled a few of the spruces that were left at the time of thinning and last
year the local school children helped Ross from RSPB to install several
nest-boxes. These ranged in size from
the usual blue and great tit boxes, a few open-fronted ones and a few of the
larger owl/goldeneye
 |
| Goldeneye female & family |
ones. Nipping down
to the village one evening late in May to deliver the last of my aspen maps I
spotted something moving on the pond and was amazed to see a female goldeneye
with nine recently fledged chicks. Wow! I ran, sort of, back to the house for the
camera and big lens and dashed back to the pond to take a few photos thinking
the whole family would disappear off down the Duack Burn by morning. But no.
The family stayed around for three whole days before the female started
to disappear no doubt trying to entice the chicks down to the River Spey. She would have been
 |
| Long-tailed tit family near goldeneye pool |
incubating the eggs for
about 30 days with brief breaks to get a bit of food. Once out of the box, with her chicks, she
would have been desperate for food which she would normally dive for and the
pond just wasn’t deep enough for her to do that. So, despite the chicks looking very relaxed
and feeding well from insects on the pond vegetation, she would have liked to
have moved them on quite quickly after jumping from the box. We wish mum and chicks all the best – wherever
they are.
That’s it for another month, sorry about the delay, bees, fungi and plants got in the way! Enjoy the read.
Stewart and Janet
Leyburn Old Glebe Nature Reserve
Nosterfield Local Nature Reserve
Harlow Carr RHS
Ballowfields LNR
The White Bear Hotel
Osmia inermis
NBN
Highland Biological Recording Group
and how to join HBRG
 |
| Family outing to Longridge |
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| Memories of Tour de France 2014 |
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| The amazing Yorkshire countryside |
 |
| Just blame Grandad! |
Photos © Stewart Taylor
