Very early in October, as I was working at home putting
together an order for electric fencing equipment, the doorbell rang and fungus
exert Liz Holden arrived with some fantastic news. To explain why Liz was there I need to step
back a year to when I spent several days putting together a paper for the
Cairngorms National Park staff on the importance of a group of grassland fungi
(waxcaps and fairy clubs) and the grassland habitat they occupy in the local
area. I felt I had to do this to
highlight the problems this group of fungi are facing currently with a very
important field in Carrbridge being ploughed up to remove ‘a problem’ the
owners had encountered with a housing
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| Date waxcap (Hygrocybe spodicia) as found by Liz |
planning application. Also, more of the rough grazing sites they
occupy in agricultural areas continue to be ploughed up, fertilised, and re-seeded
with intensively managed grass crops. In
2010/11 the Cairngorms National Park had paid for a survey of these type of
grasslands in the Badenoch and Strathspey area and, by allowing Liz access to
24 of these surveyed sites she undertook her own survey in 2010 of the waxcaps etc
present. After presenting my paper to
the Park they agreed to a new contract for Liz to re-visit the 24 sites to see
what changes had taken place during the last eight years. It was after Liz had checked a field close to
Firwood that the doorbell rang. Over a
cup of tea Liz told me about her amazing find just a few hours earlier – the
date waxcap (Hygrocybe spodicia), a species which highlights a very important
grassland particularly if other waxcaps are also present. At this particular site the date waxcap was
added to a list of 9 waxcaps and 3 fairy clubs putting the field almost into a
nationally important site. I wondered if
this appearance was due to the very hot dry
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| Parrot waxcap (Hygrocybe psittacina) |
summer we had experienced where the
grass in the field had partly browned off and horses grazing the site were
having to be supplied with hay – in October!
Interestingly, several of the other regular waxcaps and fairy clubs
hadn’t appeared and neither had the field gentians, another feature of the
site. As Liz finished her cuppa and
departed to carry on with her survey I just had to go and see the two groups of
date waxcaps. This waxcap is one of
Britain’s rarest and is recognisable by its very dark-brown cap and fairly
bright yellow or orange gills. Seeing
the fungus for the first time didn’t disappoint. One group comprised quite small fruiting
bodies and not fully developed, whereas the second group were absolutely
perfect and growing just as the books and websites describe this Red Data Book species. Inspired by this find I visited the
Flowerfield orchid site for the first time to look for waxcaps and managed to
find six different species the most unusual being the very slimy (viscid)
parrot waxcap (Gliophorus psittacinus (syn. Hygrocybe psittacina). A grassland in Abernethy Forest
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| A poor specimen of the golden waxcap |
which used to
be important for this group has now become very rank due to the lack of heavy
grazing by a once enormous deer population. Despite the deep grass I did find the golden
waxcap (Hygrocybe chlorophana) last recorded here in 1989 by one of the UKs
waxcap experts the late Peter Orton, an annual visitor to the reserve. This is a site I’m hoping to work with the
RSPB, SNH and possibly the Park to re-introduce regular grazing to see if the
important numbers of waxcaps and allies can become re-established. This site alone highlights the problems
facing waxcaps, too little grazing and they disappear, too much grazing and
ploughing and fertilising and they disappear.
I just need to put pen to paper to start this ball rolling.
A short walk along the Speyside Way near Grantown proved
interesting. The site owner of the site
where we planted aspens back in May said he would be happy to have a few hazels
established also and, having walked this track earlier in the year I had seen
several hazels hanging thick with nuts.
On the way to the hazels I was keeping an eye open for hawkweeds with
possible galls as mentioned in
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| A few of the crop of hazel nuts |
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| Wood hedgehog (Hydnum repandum) |
the August blog but the only one found was in
one of the plant’s stem (Aulacidea hieracii).
Having had a few quite breezy days ahead of my visit I realised I would
be picking up the hazel nuts from the ground rather than from the trees and in
quite a short time I had half a bag full.
I also spotted a fungus delicacy, the wood hedgehog (Hydnum repandum) which
has spines instead of gills under the cap although from a different family to
the tooth fungi. A short extract from
the First Nature website about this fungus states “Hydnum repandum is a popular
edible species, but it should be picked while young. The Wood Hedgehog is
delicious in all sorts of dishes from soups and risottos to our own favourite
invention which we call 'Hedgehogs on Toast'”.
For me a photograph sufficed, and the
fruiting bodies were left as
found. Back home I wondered if the red
squirrels would be interested in a few fresh hazel nuts and it didn’t take long
to find out! Some were eaten at the
place they were found and some were taken to nearby tree limbs before cracking
open. Hopefully, some carried off by the
squirrels will have been buried for ‘later’ but perhaps with the chance of
remaining unfound and popping up to give us our own hazels trees, though it
would be many years before there would be a nut crop. At the aspen site I wandered back and forth
with bag and wee spade and, creating a small split in the vegetation I was able
to drop a couple of nuts into the soil in the hope that a few would grow into
trees. An aspen/hazel wood would be a
brilliant outcome and something quite rare in our area.
A wedding anniversary lunch (49th help!) outing
saw us drive up to Logie Steading near Forres.
The food and coffee are always good and there’s a nicely looked-after
garden to visit. After a bite to eat
though we headed off to the River Findhorn to enjoy the sunny day and to wander
as far as Randolph’s Leap a location were a famous incident involving local
clan warfare occurred many years ago. No
matter how many times we walk this route, with a few wee variations, we always
find something new. The fields by the
path have a small herd of longhorn cows which convert into
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| Sweet chestnut seeds top and false deathcap fungus |
amazingly delicious
and tender portions of mince and stew which we take home from the Logie Farm shop. A mix of trees by the river have small
populations of the lungwort lichen and by the path patches of woodruff with
their distinctive whorls of leaves around the plants stem. By Randolph’s Leap Janet held out her hand
with a sample of what I thought was a very large beech mast but then realising
it was a sweet chestnut fruit. The
nearby tree, which we had both missed on previous visits, had a huge crop of
seeds with some still on the tree making amazing pictures against a bright
green sunny backdrop. Nearby a single
false death cap fungus (Amanita citrina) was growing by the path along with a large
population of shaggy scalycap (Pholiota squarrosa) growing from a dead fallen
tree. This fungus is often confused with
the common honey fungus but taking a specimen home and obtaining a spore print
helps identification: white spores for the honey and brown for the
scalycap.
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| Conkers top and Melastiza contorta cup fungus and spores x1000 oil |
Crossing the Bridge of Logie
(over the Dorback Burn) on our return allowed me to spot an out of reach
population of brittle bladder fern. Walking
up the drive back to the Steading produced huge numbers of fallen ‘conkers’
from the horse-chestnut trees. Not sure
why but we both find it quite hard not to end up taking a few conkers home, a
tradition hard to break that dates back to childhood! On the root-plate of a fallen drive-side tree
an orange fungus caught my eye and once checked at home this turned out to be Melastiza
contorta, a cup type fungus growing on deadwood with quite unusually shaped
spores. A record in NBN Atlas told me
that I’d found this fungus once before in 2015!
Back at the Steading we headed off to the walled garden where I spotted another
odd-looking fungus by the track, possibly a Boletus. To get a decent photo I had to hop over the
fence and when I
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| Sepia boletus (Xerocomus porosporus) top and Logie Rainbow |
heard footsteps approaching, I had to explain why I was lying
on the ground! It was the sepia boletus
(Xerocomus porosporus synonym Boletus
porosporus), a most unusual fungus with a crazy paving pattern on the top of
the cap along with a reddish flush near the base of the stem (stipe). The garden was interesting as always and once
again we looked in amazement at the sheer number of apples the well-managed
trees produce every year, many of which are left on the ground to feed
blackbirds and thrushes. Suddenly the
sun disappeared, dark clouds developed and with a heavy rain shower giving us a
nice rainbow-end to our day out.
Mid-month saw us head south to Lancashire for our October
holiday in one of the wettest drives south in a long time, 50-100m visibility
at times which is a bit of fun on a motorway!
With Janet’s mum now in a care home we decided to hire a house in
Waddington for the week, one of many bonny villages in the Ribble Valley and
one regularly visited when out with the Cyclist Touring Club many years ago. Altham Care Home was our first stop to catch
up with Nellie before heading to Waddington to unpack. A Lancashire Village with a typical village
pub. People, dogs, chatter and folk standing
at the bar, a real pub so time for just one drink before retiring to the house
for the
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| Nuthatch top and dipper in the village stream |
evening. A walk round the
village next morning gave us our first nuthatch and a small stream running
through the village was home to grey wagtails and a resident dipper despite the
traffic driving by. The village bird
list for the week, without any intense walks and searches, was 20 species,
another list for the BTO Birdtrack.
Lunches during our stay allowed us to catch up with family and friends
of Nellie and to meet up with Nellie for part of each afternoon. Waddington is quite an amazing place to walk
around, particularly with the one-hundred-year anniversary of the First World
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| 1st World War tributes |
War
due in less than a month’s time. All
around the village were Perspex people shapes each with a tribute to someone
from the village lost during the war. It
was very sad reading just how young some of the soldiers were, bringing home to
the reader just how many people from one small Lancashire village died. An amazing sight was the number of large ivy
bushes, all fully in flower, and all being heavily visited by flies,
hoverflies, wasps and honey bees, the latter with large pollen baskets visible
on their hind legs. With a little help
from Murdo I was able to add common wasp (Vespula vulgaris) to my species list
for the village. Returning to Waddington
one evening after dining with brother
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| Common wasp top and honey bee feeding on ivy flowers |
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| Common house spider |
Peter and wife Paula and family Janet
spotted a large spider wandering across the floor so the camera was grabbed,
and the spider photographed so as to be able to identify it. The best photos were of the spider happily
walking on my hand, posing as it went.
Once again, the spider turned out to be the common house spider (Tegenaria
domestica). When I found it in the same
place on the floor the next morning I thought it had died but no, a little
later it was off and lost behind the kitchen cupboards. On our last day, before meeting up with
family, we had a pleasant walk from the house, down to the River Ribble where
the only kingfisher of the trip was seen before heading along the river bank
through Cross Hill Quarry Local Nature Reserve.
Exiting the reserve, we walked to West Bradford
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| Redwings stripping the rowan tree bare |
for a bit of liquid
refreshment before heading back to Waddington for a late lunch. This former limestone quarry, along with
another visible about half a mile away would have been perfect for a recording
day out in the plant flowering season. Next
day we spent an hour with Janet’s mum before heading back north arriving home
to find hundreds of fieldfares and redwings had arrived and were in our rowan
trees devouring berries. Just time to
get the cars packed up for a craft fair the following day before heading off to
bed.
After helping Janet set up her stall at the Boat of Garten
craft fair, I drove back home to catch up with winter thrushes rapidly removing
berries from our rowan trees and was nicely surprised to see about
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| Just a few of the long-tailed tits |
20
long-tailed tits also visiting the garden.
There were so many thrushes that by the next day the rowans had been
stripped bare and the birds had mostly moved on to other mainly rowan trees
around Nethy Bridge. Having made my
acquaintance with the fungus growing on interrupted clubmoss last month I
thought it worth checking out a big population of stag’s-horn clubmoss along
the route of my Grantown butterfly transect to see if it might also be
there. There was something on the
‘cones’ of
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| AAGGHHH! Tick on clubmoss head |
the clubmoss but I wasn’t sure it was what I was looking for so
samples were sent off to Brian at Kew to check.
Whilst checking the clubmoss I was also aware of something orange and
black on one plant and, on closer inspection, found a big tick waiting to
attach itself to a passing host for a drink of blood. On this occasion it wasn’t going to be me! Whilst away, a message had arrived from Hilary
in Grantown informing me of her find in Anagach Wood, the golden bootleg fungus
(Phaeolepiota aurea), and could I please check it out. Having never heard of this fungus before I
thought it worth
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| Golden bootleg fungus |
visiting on my way home, she said I couldn’t miss them, and they
didn’t disappoint. This rare, oddball
fungus grows to about 20cm in height and before reaching maturity is covered in
a grainy sheath joining cap to stem which eventually tears around the edge of
the cap leaving a ring on the stem. At
full maturity the cap can expand out to about 20cm in diameter though none I
saw had reached that size. Despite being
such a big fungus it is inedible and is known to contain hydrogen cyanide which
is quite toxic to humans. The books say
this fungus is “usually associated with disturbed ground and often with nettles”
which was a perfect description of the disturbed ex-quarry where it had been
found. Well done Hilary.
After a drive over to Kingussie to pick up Janet’s Strathy
crossword prize, a nice bottle of malt whisky, I was tempted to call in at Insh
Marshes RSPB Reserve to check out a few aspens with rare lichens, and also to
see the best area for the rare dark-bordered beauty moth (Epione vespertaria)
and the aspen logs used by the aspen hoverfly (Hammerschmidtia ferruginea). This was to try and guide
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| Violet webcap (Cortinarius violaceus) |
future aspen
management ideas via the current CNP aspen project. The aspens with rare lichens were all still
surviving thankfully, and it was interesting to see the aspen suckers (natural
regeneration from the aspen tree roots) where the moth bred were quite tall
when compared with the much smaller “guide-sized ones” which I know of in the
Grantown area. Making my way to logs which
have been brought to the reserve from fellings elsewhere I spotted two
beautifully blue/purple coloured fungi
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| One of the aspens (propped up!) with a rare lichen Collema nigrescens. The middle photo was taken in March 2010 and the bottom one October 2018 showing the lichen is not surviving. |
growing amongst the aspens. Photos taken I knew I would have to take a
sample with me to check under the microscope if I was to arrive at a name, so
one was carefully packed into a plastic container. The big aspen logs that had been deposited
for the hoverfly also held a bit of a surprise - a group of small, round,
orange fungi all with long eye-lash-like hairs around their edges. Another sample needed so plenty of homework
once home. The purple-ish coloured
fungus turned out to be Cortinarius violaceus, the violet webcap with one
website stating, “and so unless a sample is required for detailed study it
seems wrong to remove any from their natural habitat.” Sorry, so next day I
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| Scutellinia setosa fungus and asci and spores x400 |
planned to return my
specimen to the spot where I’d found it, better for it to drop its spores there
than in our house. The orange one also
posed a few problems before arriving at the name Scutellinia setosa, a rare
species also in the UK with just 25 records but at least abundant on the decaying
aspen log where it was found and a fungus I had to get better photos of during
my return visit next day. On my return
visit I met up with Pete Moore the reserve warden and when I showed him the
violet webcap he told me he had seen that fungus a few years ago and not too
far from where I had found it. On
returning my specimen a wider search of the location turned up another 7,
making the return trip worthwhile.
Late in October Janet and myself had a day out in Elgin, where
we headed for Moray College University of the Highlands and Islands where
daughter Ruth was attending her graduation ceremony after three years of study
for a Diploma of Higher Education in Person-Centred Counselling and
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| Daughter Ruth's big day, bottom left in photo with fellow course students |
Psychotherapy. Along with mum and dad
were Ruth’s boys, Finlay, Archie and Harry all there to cheer on Ruth as she
went up on stage to receive her certificate.
The boys had a great day out, drinks and cakes in a café by the college
as Ruth disappeared to get into her graduation gear, and, after sitting
reasonably still for the whole of the ceremony, returning to the café for lunch
and more drinks. As we disappeared off home
with the boys Ruth spent one last afternoon with her fellow course students
chatting over progress since the course ended back in June. A great day and well-done Ruth!
The order for electric fencing equipment mentioned at the
start of this blog progressed to a delivery, and, whilst at Insh Marshes, I collected
a solar panel and battery, one of several that had been used last winter on an
aspen protection project. One of the
farmers in Tulloch, James, has been involved in the Park aspen project during the
last year allowing me to map out aspen areas, suggest fence modification ideas,
and, at the site to be worked on currently, add electric tapes to a stock fenced
plot. This fence had been installed
about fifteen years ago to exclude grazing by sheep and cattle but had failed
to stop the deer from jumping in and continually browsing the new suckers. It is known
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| Fitting solar panel at start of installing electric fence |
that electric fences can deter
deer from jumping over stock fences and that is what James was allowing me to
try at this site to try and get the new generation of trees established. So, right at the end of the month fence posts
and other bits of wood were sorted and over the course of a morning the solar
panel was fitted, and holes drilled in the stock fence posts ready for the
insulators to be attached early in November.
Another positive bit of work to try and help the aspens by the second of
two Tulloch farmers. However, the last
day of October wasn’t quite such a memorable day, and it might go down in
history as a very sad day for an area of very rare habitat. I had an early start for the drive up to
Clashmore just west of Dornoch where an initial meeting was being held to
detail the way
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| Coul Links planning meeting with potential wreckers front left and the conservation bodies front right and reporters front middle |
forward regarding a public enquiry into a planning application
to covert the heavily designated Coul Links dune system into a golf
course. Lined up on one side of the
village hall were the local councillors and legal representatives supporting
the application whilst on the other were all the conservation bodies and
organisations and their legal team all presided over by two reporters from the
Scottish Office who would be hearing all the pros and cons before making a final,
vital decision. A billionaire is funding
the application with all the conservation organisations having to cover their own
costs of bringing together all the reasons why the application should be turned
down. One can only hope this isn’t going
to be yet another disaster as happened with Trump and the wrecking of Menie
dunes in Aberdeenshire. It all kicks off
on 25 February 2019 with the whole inquiry planned to last four weeks! No doubt a local MSP will be working his
socks off to see this development goes ahead, destroying yet more of Scotland’s
important natural heritage.
One of Lichenologist heavily involved with recording at Coul
Links also paid a visit to Firwood during the month accompanied with two other
experts to carry-out surveys of sections of three local woods. Brian and Chris are based at the Edinburgh Royal
Botanical Gardens (Brian is retired but, like several RBG ex-staff still
regularly works there) along with Jan, a visiting Czech lichenologist. Jan has been doing these surveys in several
woods in Europe based on recording as many species in a marked out 100 x 100
metre square in each wood. The wood they
surveyed in Grantown on Spey is a very important aspen wood, rich in rare and
common lichens and, having contacted the owner to
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| Jan and Chris marking out the plot top, Brian hard at work middle and the team ready for the last days recording |
request access permission, I
left them to carry out the survey. In
the evening there was time for a chat and a few drinks over dinner, expertly
provided by Janet. The following day saw
the team heading off into the RSPBs Abernethy Reserve to carry out the survey
in one of the oldest sections of ancient Caledonian pinewood. I accompanied them on this outing to guide
them to an area of the forest rich in ancient Scots pines along with many
standing and fallen dead trees, a natural process that had taken place in this
remote section of the forest over many decades.
Having helped them set up the hundred metre quadrat I left them to do
the recording as I know very little about lichens growing on pines and set off
to walk back through the forest to Forest Lodge where Janet had arranged to
pick me up, recording anything unusual as I walked. This allowed me to visit areas of the forest
where I hadn’t been for many years but I was glad to reach home and enjoy a
nice cup of tea! The last outing saw the
team visiting an ancient area of mainly birch trees but with a good scatter of
alders again
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| Lichen competition, slug eating a Cladonia lichen! |
within the Abernethy Forest.
As this was close to where the new aspen wood had been planted earlier in the year I led the way in my own car so that I could check on the progress
of the aspens before heading back down the track. This small but ancient birch wood is an
unusual feature of Abernethy Forest, a forest dominated by Scots pines and with
very few areas of birch woodland or any other broadleaved species if it comes
to that. I did manage to add one lichen
species to their list before I left so nice to have played a small part in this
important survey. The day ended with a
last gathering at Firwood to enjoy a few beers and sample a malt whisky won by
Janet via the Strathy newspaper’s crossword competition. An enjoyable few days and I look forward to
seeing a list of the lichens recorded, especially to see how many will be new
to the Abernethy list.
That’s it for another month, still catching up but enjoy the
read.
Stewart and Janet
First Nature – Wood Hedgehog
Randolph’s Leap River Findhorn
Waddington village
Meet the people who plan to destroy Coul Links, and don’t
believe all you read
Not Coul who are trying to save the site
Scottish Government - details of application
Public Inquiry information
NBN Atlas
Strathspey Weather
Parkswatch
Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group
Mapmate recording database
Fungal Records Database of Britain and Ireland (FRDBI)
BSBI – Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland
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| Archie and Harry and the well used 'truck' |
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| A pipers welcome on Ruth's big day |
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| Loch Mallachie |
Photos © Stewart Taylor
