A belated - Happy New Year!
The generally cold weather which kicked off around the 10th
December, with a day’s break over Christmas/Boxing Day, carried on through
January with the occasional day reaching 4-5 degrees C with a maximum of a 100C
late in the month. A slight thaw on the
13th made walking along paths
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| Janet and frosty breath heading home |
and tracks very dangerous. A layer of
water on top of the ice beneath restricted outings. Occasional falls of snow added to a lack of
things to see. Our lowest garden temperatures
matched those of the local Strathspey Weather website with minus 9.6 and minus
10.60C twice between the 20th and 22nd, the
frost though did create the right conditions for sunshine, with a respectable
75 hours from the weather website.
Despite this amount of sun, the ground didn’t really get a chance to
thaw but we did manage during one thaw to lift a few parsnips for just the
second time this winter, before everything became solid again. Overall, January saw the average temperature
at just 10C, the average minimum -2.20C, the average
maximum 40C and the rainfall at 31mm. Brrr!
An email on the 1st informed me that the BSBI
had, once again, organised a ‘plants in flower’ survey during the few days over
the new year, so I started to check when out locally. Under the frosted vegetation in the village I
managed to find a few daisies and a dandelion so it became obvious that to
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| Shepherd's cress (Teesdalia nudicaulis) |
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| Shepherd's cress seed-pods |
find
more we would need a day out at the coast.
The 3rd was forecast as a dry and mostly sunny day so we
headed north to Findhorn and Findhorn Bay.
Fortified by coffee (very good), scones and cake at the Findhorn
Foundation, we made our way through the dunes towards the sea, recording
cock’s-foot grass, groundsel, gorse and an odd little white plant that Janet
found which looked like a scurvygrass, so photos and a tiny sample taken
(thankfully) to check once home. The
walk through the dunes and back along the sea-front added the following:
thrift, daisy, slender thistle, ivy-leaved toadflax, sand couch (Elymus
farctus), common ivy, red dead-nettle, annual meadow grass, prickly
sow-thistle, dandelion and shepherd’s-purse, a total of 15 species. I thought this was quite a good list for so
early in the year but when compared with other lists from the deep south it was
some way behind, especially the longest list which comprised 114 flowering species! The un-named plant took a little while to
confirm once home but, thankfully, the tiny sample, complete with seed-pods
helped to confirm that we had found shepherd's cress (Teesdalia nudicaulis), the
only UK record linked to the survey, so well-done Janet for spotting. Interestingly, our list contained 7 of the
top 10 species recorded nationally.
A few days later I was tempted out for a walk, despite
freezing temperatures, and headed up to the Lurg area just south of Nethy
Bridge. The sun was out and views over
towards the Cairngorms were excellent as I followed the path out towards the
River Nethy. As I turned to head towards
Lurg Farm I recognised the gent walking towards me as Sandy McCook, also from
the village, and the photographer for the Press and Journal. He was heading back to his car because he had
lost a piece for his top of the range camera and after a quick chat we both
went our different ways. As I headed
round towards the farm I could see more of the tops of the Cairngorms and the
rapidly sinking sun and, using the sun I spent quite a bit of time trying to
get something unusual with my wee camera
linking footprints in the snow and the
mountain backdrop. Half a mile further
on I met up again with Sandy who had made good progress back from the car to
try and get setting sun photos over one of the wee lochs. The rescue helicopter flew by almost overhead
and we watched it for a while buzzing around the Northern Corries below
Cairngorm as though it was on a training exercise. Sandy’s amazing phone app showed me exactly
where it was and where it was heading but with the sun getting ever lower I
said I had better go just in case there was the possibility of a ‘weather
watcher’ type photo. Photos of the sun
and mountains looked good but a little ordinary and it was only as I was
heading down towards the farmhouse that I looked back to see a nice group of
lone birch trees,
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| Kawser Quamer and the sunset photo on Scottish BBC weather |
backlit by the setting sun and with just a hint of the
mountains in the background. More photos
taken before finally heading back to the track and road to the car. Once home a couple of the photos were loaded
up to the BBC Weather Watchers website and that was that. As we watched the end of the BBC national
news the weather came on and there was my photo, and, a few minutes later it
appeared again on the Scottish weather, a first as far as I know to get it on
both weather forecasts! I wondered if
Sandy was watching the same weather forecasts!
Irrespective of the photos it was a brilliant afternoon’s outing and a
good test for the new gloves which had cost me an arm and a leg the day before.
Over the last year I have been visiting aspen woods which
were visited by two expert bryologists (moss experts) in 2003 to look for the two
rare aspen linked Orthotrichum mosses (Orthotrichum obtusifolium (blunt-leaved bristle-moss) and Orthotrichum
gymnostomum (aspen bristle-moss), just to check on the state of the trees and continued
presence of the mosses. The rarer of the
two, aspen bristle moss, was only found at three of the 36 sites surveyed with blunt-leaved
bristle-moss at eight of them. The two
mosses were only found growing together at one site on two trees. This is still the case at that site. On a day to test out the new gloves once
again, I headed to the River Findhorn
where it was difficult crossing frozen
fields due to the quantity of icy ground.
The sheep at the site benefitted from additional feed brought in but
must have had frozen lips, gums and tongues when eating the remains of last
summers grass. I digress. On site I found the first aspen bristle-moss
tree reasonably easily from the report photos taken in 2003, but it was the
lichen richness that started to take over, recording what I was seeing as I
wandered from aspen to aspen. In the end
the outing became a lichen recording exercise because I knew what I was seeing
was of huge importance, particularly when linked to the sites importance for
the moss. The main lichen was lungwort (Lobaria
pulmonaria) but with big populations of Pannaria rubiginosa and Degelia
plumbea, and, for the first time for me growing on the ground, Protopannaria
pezizoides. The first three of these
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| Lobaria pulmonaria on aspen surrounded by masses of Pannaria rubiginosa, a rare sight |
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| Masses of Degelia plumbea and Pannaria rubiginosa |
lichens have their main populations in the west of Scotland, so to find many of
the aspens at this location supporting big populations, was important. With lots of aspens to check and a long walk
back to the car I got my timing badly wrong and it had gone dark by the time I
reached the car. I was a bit worried
knowing that Janet was aware I was heading to the River Findhorn and I was even
more worried when I found my phone had no battery. Arriving home at quarter to six was timely,
“Six o clock and I was going to phone the police!” was the greeting I got when
arriving home. The following week I
bought a new phone with long battery life guaranteed. As I left the river I realised from the map
from the moss report that there was more aspen woodland a little further up
river and that some of the trees there had lots of small cushions of the rarer
moss. Late in the month Janet headed
south to stay with her mum for a week whilst brother Alan was away and, leaving
full details
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| Degelia plumbea (main lichen with brown apothecia) and the black dots of the parasite Toninia plumbina |
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| Cutting open one of the Toninia plumbina apothecia produced an asci (top photo) with 8 ascospores with a single one shown in the bottom photo. x1000 in oil |
at the house as to where I was heading, I went back to the River
Findhorn. Once again, the aspens
produced the lichen goods with the same lichens as the earlier visit but adding
lots of Lobaria scrobiculata populations, Nephroma laevigatum, Peltigera
britannica, Peltigera collina, the crust lichen Parmeliella triptophylla and
lots more Degelia plumbea but some populations with the black dots of the
parasite Toninia plumbina a rare species and something I’d only seen once
before. As I made my way further up
river to another group of aspens I could see in the distance there was a heavy
sleat/hail shower arriving but I could see that these aspens didn’t have the
masses of lichens like the trees a few hundred metres down-river, something I
see quite a bit. Not sure if this is linked
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| Hail shower over a fast flowing River Findhorn |
to the aspen clone, quite often all the trees in one group might have
originated from the same parents via the root suckers, or is it the bark
chemistry, perhaps something to check if these finds develop into more work via
the experts. The first tree though
produced a pleasant surprise, cushions of the rare aspen bristle moss and I
began to wonder if this might be a new site.
To ensure I had lots of details I set the camera up to take a timer
photo and pressing the button, ran to the tree to point to where I could see
the moss. Once home a photo from the
aspen survey report showed exactly the same tree with markers showing the
mosses location and taken from just about the same angle. Next time, but
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| Aspen bristle moss (Orthotrichum gymnostomum) top and me pointing to location on aspen |
at least I’d remembered what
the moss looked like. I checked the last
of the aspens in this group and hopped over the fence to start to head back to
the car but as I walked along the edge of the field I could see more young
aspens on the edge of a spruce wood along with some quite old hazels, just time
to check. The aspens and hazels
supported small populations of some of the lichens seen earlier but Nephroma
parile was an addition along with a nice wee bracket fungus on some dead hazel
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| Plicatura crispa fungus on dead hazel branch |
branches, Plicatura crispa. The first
leaves of primroses were also starting to appear as were the foxgloves. Once home Janet rang to ask what I had had
for dinner from the collection of tasty items she had prepared and left in the
freezer, “beef curry”, “Was it too hot and did you have the rice with it?”. “No
it was just right and I had lettuce and tomatoes with it”. There was a muffled ‘yuk’ at the end of the
phone but I was being economical and using up what was in the fridge. And, the importance of this bit of the
Findhorn doesn’t end here, but more about that next month.
There was also progress with the fence for the new aspen
wood mentioned in the last blog. Early
in January I saw a 4x4 with trailer loaded with round fence posts pass the
house and I wondered if this might be for my fence, but, having asked Davie to
let me know when he was going to do the work I thought this must be for
something else. Three days later the
same 4x4 drove past the house going
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| Fence with new deer posts (top) and the view from the fence (bottom) |
back into the village followed by a tractor
with post basher attached, and again I began to wonder, but with no phone call
to say it was done, I wasn’t sure. Next
day I drove up into the forest (Abernethy) and walked to the fence site and was
very pleased to see that all the deer fence posts had been installed (adding
height to the smaller stock fence) and that it was now down to me to get the
wires attached. A few days later and I
was in Inverness buying the fence wire, staples and tighteners (radisseurs) and
in a moment of madness on the way back decided to drive out to the site and
hump all the materials up the hill to the fence – it used to be easy when you
were in your 20-30s! Whilst Janet was at
her mums I spent two days on site rolling out the wires and stapling them in
place but then the snow arrived so everything continued into February. I also needed to find the wire tightening
‘monkeys’ in the RSPB workshop and some additional equipment to support a
couple of the corner posts so watch this space.
A day in Fochabers produced a couple of nice surprises. We parked in the town and decided to walk out
to Gordon Castle and just as we left the car I heard a couple of waxwings, my
first of the winter. We decided to go
for our lunch at the castle café and once back at the car head off to see if we
could re-find them. Walking back down
the drive I spotted some nice stands of Norway spruce so just had to check if
there were any recently fallen cones.
Nothing fell out when I tapped the first dozen or so and as I was
exiting the second wood I thought any chance of finding the spruce cone beetle
(Gastrodes abietum) were receding fast, particularly as Janet was disappearing
off round the next
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| Spruce cone beetle top and common flower bug (Anthocoris nemorum) bottom found together once again in the same spruce cone |
corner on the track.
One cone when tapped started to drop lots of springtails and usually
this is a good sign and sure enough, out popped the beetle – a first for
Morayshire. Eventually we got back to
the car and despite a fairly methodical walk round various streets/roads we couldn’t
re-find the waxwings so a very disappointing waxwing winter this year compared
to last. With a bit of time to spare we
headed out to Spey Bay but with a strong, cold wind blowing there was just time
for a quick scan of the bay and to watch lots of gulls diving into the water
where fresh water from the river runs into the sea and wondering what fish or
other food might have been there in abundance.
Time for
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| Spey Bay gulls |
home. Another visit to
the coast found the riverside paths by the river at Nairn just as frozen as the
ones at home. Interestingly, some of the
plants found flowering a few days earlier at Findhorn were also in flower at
Nairn but too late to add to the list. The
water around the harbour was well frozen despite the power of the sun and after
last year’s experience with the brent geese we wondered if they were around
again this year. As we walked along the
sand and rocks we could see the first of the geese in the distance despite the
passage of regular walkers and dogs, and, with lots of ice between beach and walkway
we had to walk slowly past where the birds were feeding. From their actions
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| Nairn Brent geese and close up photographer |
most seemed to be feeding
on seaweed attached to the rocks and so long as we walked slowly they didn’t
take off. Despite only having the small
Panasonic Lumix camera lots of decent photos were taken and from several of
them it was possible to get details of the leg rings three of the 48 geese were
carrying. The colour rings on the birds
left legs were the same colour as those seen last year (yellow with a black X)
so I assume they were attached by the Highland Ringing Group, but I’ve yet to
get any details back as to when or where the birds were ringed.
On the occasional milder day, I’ve started checking the
fence posts close to the River Spey for stoneflies, particularly for the first
northern February red (Brachyptera putata).
The first two outing failed to find any but the last one on 27 January
found the first one to be seen in 2018 by the Spey at Boat of Garten. Whilst checking a fence line near Grantown on
Spey there were no stoneflies but a small weevil was on the top of one of them
and, being next to aspen trees I wondered if this was the
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| Dorytomus tremulae weevil with distinctive 'spur' on front leg |
same rare one found a
couple of years ago near Newtonmore.
Photos were sent to expert Stephen who asked if I had a decent photo
that showed the beetles legs, accurate identification depending on a protrusion
on the internal face of the front tibia.
Having deleted most of the poor photos I had to go into the recycle bin
to see if there was one and sure enough, I had taken enough to ensure one had a
view of the front legs. Without a body
(which I wasn’t happy to take) Stephen couldn’t be 100% but
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| Toothed jelly fungus - once again! |
most likely this
was another sighting of the rarely seen Dorytomus tremulae. The toothed jelly fungus (Pseudohydnum
gelatinosum) kept up its appearance again this month, with two more sightings,
the last one appearing in numbers on an old sawdust pile at the ex-Forest Lodge
Sawmill. When I found these, I wasn’t
too sure it was this fungus, until I turned one over, and there were the
‘jelly’ teeth hanging down.
A meeting with my ex-boss at RSPB but now Head of
Conservation at the Cairngorms National Park early in January left me with a
bit of work to do involving orchids and waxcap fungi. Several times I have now tried to make a case
for the Flowerfield orchid site being recognised as nationally important and
someone taking up the case to ensure protection or designation. With there now being no possibility of the
site being given SSSI status Scottish Natural Heritage is likely to keep a
watching brief over it, so it will be down to the CNPA to work with owners etc
to ensure its future should any threats arise.
So, I’ve been asked to draw up details of how important the Flowerfield
orchid populations are in a Park, Scotland and UK context, with particular
attention being given to the lesser butterfly and small white orchids. A few hours have been spent so far drawing
together all the records re locations and dates and these will be put into a
short paper to answer this request. The
waxcap details will be much more difficult to assemble and this will take well
into February to try and sort and present.
I just hope all the effort is worth it and we manage to arrive at a
positive outcome for these key species within the Park.
The first great spotted woodpecker was heard drumming on the
23rd and a few birds started singing on 26th. As I type we have snowdrops in flower and
bright splashes of yellow winter aconites.
The birds are singing and we are, thankfully, heading back into another
breeding and growing season.
That’s it for another month, enjoyed the read.
Stewart and Janet
Mayfly decline
Strathspey Weather
BSBI New Year Plan Hunt
Firwood Cottage blogspot February re aspen mosses checks
Parkswatch
Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group
Mapmate recording database
Fungal Records Database of Britain and Ireland (FRDBI)
BSBI – Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland
BBC Weather Watchers
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| Green shield moss capsules (Buxbaumia viridis) braving the snow |
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| Sparrowhawks continue as regular garden visitors with 2 appearing during the RSPB Garden Bird Count on the 28th. |
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| Sorry Janet, I didn't realise it was quite so late |
Photos © Stewart Taylor
