31st December 2017, and an amazing thing
happened, I managed to complete the transfer of all my records from my notebook
into my Mapmate database! Unheard
of! Of course, there were none of the
3-4,000 plant records via the BSBI/Cairngorm National Park plant survey from
previous years so just 3,300 records during the 2017 recording season. The first record was for the blunt-leaved bristle-
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| The hybrid orchid X Dactylodenia evansii (centre) |
moss
(Orthotrichum obtusifolium) on an aspen tree near Laggan on the 2nd
January and the last one on 31st December was for a new location for
the spruce cone beetle (Gastrodes abietum) when three were tapped out of fallen
Norway spruce cones in Dell Wood NNR. A
few highlights were the scarce 7-spot ladybird whilst on holiday in Yorkshire,
adding twayblade and the hybrid fragrant/heath spotted-orchid (X Dactylodenia
evansii (Gymnadenia borealis x Dactylorhiza maculata)) to the Flowerfield
orchid list, protecting a small area of aspen woodland to aid regeneration
thanks to Craig and finally seeing the fluted bird’s-nest fungus (Cyathus
striatus). Mid-month there was also a sad
event, the wee, faithful Ford Fiesta was traded in for a slightly newer model
Fiesta. The pale green
02 registered car
and I became a well-known combination and during the six years of ownership we
managed 40,000 miles, visited many interesting and important natural history
sites to list common and rare species, a hugely important and effective
combination. I’m now taking a year-long
course in keyless car technology and, so far, I’ve managed to stop the
windscreen wipers operating when a dark cloud just happens to pass overhead!
During November 2017 emails arrived highlighting a huge
threat to an outstanding area of active sand dune habitat just north of Dornoch
– Coul Links. The site is heavily
designated; Loch Fleet SSSI, Dornoch Firth and Loch Fleet SPA and Dornoch and
Loch Fleet Ramsar site. Once again, a
billionaire American has applied for planning permission to covert this area of
dunes into an 18-hole golf course, repeating the destruction overseen by the
now infamous Donald Trump in destroying a similarly, heavily designated dune
system at Menie, north of Aberdeen. At
this site the local council turned down the planning application only for the
Scottish Government to overturn their decision and the dune area was destroyed. BBC News at 10 website carried this note “The
£1bn plans were rejected by local councillors before being resurrected by the
Scottish Government, and the process became embroiled in claims of sleaze,
bullying and impropriety.” See webpage
link below to read more. Despite all the
weaselly words about careful this and positive that, Scottish Natural Heritage
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| Peltigera malacea (bright green) |
are now in the process of downgrading the SSSI status of the site due to
excessive habitat loss. So, here we go
again, a man with money wants to destroy a hugely important dune site for a
golf course that can only open for the summer months each year. Within 30 miles of Coul Links there are
already 30 golf courses, including the Royal Dornoch one nearby. As per norm the environmental
statements/information leave a lot to be desired and people who know the dune
site well are raising the fact that important species are missing from the
documents. Our only visit to this
general area to see something unusual was many years ago when I took my mum and
dad to a woodland on the other site of Loch Fleet to Coul Links to see the
one-flowered wintergreen and I have searched alder woodland by Loch Fleet,
unsuccessfully, for the green shield moss.
A very rare fly has been found at this site. Fonseca’s seed fly (Botanophila fonsecai) is
one of the UK’s rarest endemic invertebrates, restricted globally to a very short
stretch of coast in northern Scotland including Coul Links, and this is one
species that has received serious survey work.
However, many other groups have been checked as a ‘desk exercise’ and
some, to my eye, seem to have been written up to show that there
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| Peltigera neckeri |
will be little
effect via the destruction proposed. Having visited the nationally important dune
system at Findhorn Bay with a local lichen expert to see one of the rarer
lichens, Peltigera malacea (veinless pelt or felt lichen), I then made follow
up visits to find more locations for it.
I’ve also made a few finds of small populations of the lichen at four
inland sites and wondered if it had been found at Coul Links. It wasn’t listed in the environmental statements
though a rare Cladonia, Cladonia mitis, was, being the only lichen mentioned. Could the Peltigera be at Coul Links? With snow and frosty weather forecast I made
a trip north on the 6th December on a nice sunny day arriving on
site about 10am. With limited time I
accessed the dunes to the northern end of the proposed development battling
with gorse bushes in places. Before
setting off I’d used the planning application map to work out a few grid
references that I could aim for and which would provide the line of habitat
loss
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| The black earth tongue (Trichoglossum hirsutum) |
between some of the proposed golf holes.
On site the habitat in places did look similar to Findhorn Bay and so
the searching started. Within twenty
minutes I found my first small patch of Peltigera malacea and as I followed the
line of grid references more started to appear.
By the time I reached the marram grass area, twenty-one patches had been
found and no doubt this was a minimum count.
At one location another Peltigera was found and photographed and it was
only once home that I
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| Oystercatchers top and red kite bottom |
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| Ben Braggie and Duke of Sutherland monument from Coul Links |
identified it as Peltigera neckeri, a species with just
66 known sites in Scotland. The marram
grass area isn’t really suitable for the felt lichen but a quick search around
found a small number of earth tongues which turned out to be Trichoglossum hirsutum,
the black earth tongue. In the mouth of
Loch Fleet I could see lots of seals and on a sandbank, hundreds of
oystercatchers. I also had a single red
kite hunting the dunes and redshanks feeding in a rapidly filling tidal
channel. All my finds were put together
as part of my objection to the planning application, one of over one hundred
individual objections along with 2,669 via a Buglife Petition. One can only hope Highland Council reject this
damaging proposal and that the Scottish Government stay out of the process
unlike their involvement in the disastrous Trump development at Menie.
The following day the forecasted snow arrived falling
intermittently with heavy rain and strong winds so my trip north had been very
timely. The snow’s arrival was a bit
worrying because the next day Janet had a stall at the Boat of Garten Christmas
Fair. Overnight four inches of snow had
fallen so the first serious snow clearing of the winter was required to get the
cars out to the road. Once at the Boat
Community Hall, and with the cars emptied and the stalls looking good, I spent
the next hour or so clearing more snow around the car park and paths to try and
minimise the amount of snow being
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| Janet's stall at Boat of Garten Christmas Fair |
tramped into the hall. I was glad to say cheerio to Janet and get
home for my lunch and a cup of tea!
Thankfully no more snow fell during the day and generally the Fair was
quite a success. The next day I had a
meeting with the owner of land where fence work mentioned in the last blog was
to be carried out and there was great relief later in the week when I was
informed that the funds were available to modify the fence. Hopefully the fencing contractor will manage
to complete the work early in 2018 and it will then be down to me, and
hopefully a few RSPB volunteers, to install wires and wooden markers to deter
woodland grouse collisions before we can look forward to planting the
young
aspens, probably in March. A new aspen
wood – wow! On the 10th, the
outdoor thermometer was showing minus 9.90C, freezing the lying snow
and heralding a strange spell of weather which ran almost to Christmas
Day. Day after day the temperature
hovered between minus 20C and plus 20C allowing the
surface of the snow to melt a little but then freeze it hard overnight. Anywhere where the snow had been walked on or
run over became sheets of treacherous ice making walking anywhere quite
difficult. During this spell of frost we
had the grandchildren for a weekend so decided to drive up the Nairn on the
coast thinking it would be slightly milder there. A northerly wind ensured this wasn’t the case
and our rapid walk around the harbour saw us dodging sheets of ice once
again. Two
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| The reed bunting flock |
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| And a perfect frosty sunset to end the day |
days before Christmas Day
there was a huge change and the thermometer rose to 9-100C, the ice
melted and all thoughts of a white Christmas disappeared (thankfully) but by
the end of Boxing Day the frost returned and, as I type, we are back to there
being sheets of ice everywhere. A small
part of a field adjacent to the Speyside Way was planted with a bird-seed crop
in the summer and with the cold weather, lots of birds were visiting to finish
off available seeds. We have had the
occasional brambling in the garden but in the bird-seed crop there must have
been about 20 birds. There were about
the same number of reed buntings with at least one with a leg ring and good
numbers of redpolls along with the usual chaffinches. Good to see a simple but very beneficial bit
of work to help the wintering birds.
With the break in the cold weather we nipped over to deliver
Christmas presents to Laura and Douglas near Turiff but, with little daylight
on the shortest day we were back home before dark. The next day I was in green shield moss and
twinflower habitat, zero mosses but some good patches of twinflower. There were no leaf fungi present but as I was
checking, a white jelly-like fungus was
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| Jelly tongue (Pseudohydnum gelatinosum) |
sticking out from a log, a Norway
spruce log from a felling programme many years ago, and, having seen one in
November here was another jelly tongue (Pseudohydnum gelatinosum). You don’t see one for years and then two come
along within a month! Around the same
time one of the best TV programmes in a long time appeared on the BBC – Judi
Dench presenting ‘My Passion for Trees’, hugely informative but without delving
too deeply into heavily scientific language.
Well worth watching via iPlayer.
The spell of freezing weather though did curtail the usual recording
outings so a few less finds and species to write about in the last blog of
2017. However, on some of the outings
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| The pestle puffball (Lycoperdon excipuliforme) |
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| Common puffball (Lycoperdon perlatum) fungus and pattern top and spores x1000 oil bottom 4-5 microns bottom |
it
was interesting to find quite a few puffballs, still standing upright and most
capable of puffing out spores. This is a
group of fungi I’ve not spent much time on in the past so it was only when I
had taken a specimen home that I realised one of our common species has an
amazing pattern on the outer skin of the fungus. This is the common puffball (Lycoperdon
perlatum) which, when young and fresh has its white, outer skin, covered in
small spines and warts. As it matures
the colour changes towards pale brown, the spines and warts drop off and on the
top of the puffball an aperture opens to allow the spores to be ejected. All of my finds were at this stage and
looking at the outer skin through my hand-lens I was greeted with an amazingly
regular mosaic of ‘scars’ confirming I had the right name. Of course, I just had to have a look at the
spores and a very gentle squeeze of the fruiting body saw a brown stain appear
on the glass slide containing probably thousands if not millions of spores.
That’s it for another year, enjoyed the read, happy hunting
and best wishes for 2018.
Stewart and Janet
BBC News at 10, Menie golf course farce, 10 June 2008
Coul Links
Highland Council Planning – you might need to type 17/04601/FUL
in the search box to see the 368 documents!
Judi Dench My Passion for Trees - brilliant
Parkswatch
Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group
Mapmate recording database
Fungal Records Database of Britain and Ireland (FRDBI)
BSBI – Botanical Society of the British Isles
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| Hair ice from piece of deadwood |
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| Leuctra fusca the late needle stonefly by River Spey |
Photos © Stewart Taylor
