Butterflies rule - OK!

My late Dad would have enjoyed the last month. Despite living in Lancashire he had a “like to see” list of plants in his head that he had developed from books such as Highland Flora by Derek Ratcliffe and Wild Flowers by John Gilmour and Max Walters. When Janet and I moved to the Isle of Rum and then to Loch Garten the chance to fulfil his wish started to become a reality because some of his wish plant list could only be found in the Highlands. Many of the important Rum plants were really out of Dad’s reach, involving long walks and mountain tops, but our move to Loch Garten opened up the world of the rarer pinewood plants, creeping lady’s tresses, lesser twayblade, perhaps twinflower but probably not one-flowered wintergreen. Over time Abernethy almost provided them all but we had to travel to Culbin Forest and Golspie to search for and find one flowered wintergreen. In 1910 the wintergreen had been recorded in several places “in pinewoods at Loch Mallachie” (The Flora of Moray, Nairn & East Inverness-shire by Mary McCallum Webster), but despite many searches I have failed to re-find it there. In 1990 a survey worker stumbled on a single patch of about 30 plants at the end of a day's mapping and two years later a few more plants were found nearby – never to be re-found. Plants reported by a visiting Dipterist in the 1990s have never been re-found, and the fortunes of the original plants have ranged from a few rosettes of leaves some years to 50+ plants and a few flowers in others. 2009 has been one of the latter type years with 40+ plants producing about 25 flowering spikes, and a site near Grantown on Spey that I have been monitoring produced a few flowering spikes despite a heavy predation event during February by marauding sheep. Checking these sites this year reminded me just how small the basal rosette leaves seem to be in this area, individual leaves in the range 5-10mm and the whole rosette being no more than 15-20mm wide in many cases. The evening of the 12 June therefore turned out to be quite memorable as I made my way back to the vehicle after a botanising session along the River Nethy. Making my way up a damp runnel something white caught my eye and as I leaned on my Leki poles for a better look I realised that I was looking down at a flowering spike of one flowered wintergreen (Moneses uniflora). In the gathering evening gloom out came the GPS to record the spot along with the camera to try and get a photo, and so as not to “loose” the spot, a short piece of red and white tape was tied to the vegetation. A wider search found another flower and a couple of metres away, 8 flowerless rosettes. Without the two flowers it would have been impossible to have found the plants. Let’s hope the next find isn’t another twenty years away!

BTO Atlas surveys are also good for providing plant records! Yet again, wandering along recording birds something else of note was found. On the same day that my BTO survey took me close to the 5-spot ladybird site, I also popped my head in to a young patch of Scots pine woodland that had become established on a section of old river shingle. A couple of lesser twayblade leaves caught my eye and then another with a huge flower spike, and another, and another………… the wood seemed to be full of twayblade leaves and flowers. There were so many that it wasn’t possible to walk in sections of the woodland for fear of trampling the plants, but a quick estimate from checking from the edge of the trees was that there was more than 1000 plants and possibly as many as 2000. An amazing sight particularly when the small patch of trees didn’t look like anything special from the “outside”. Elsewhere in Abernethy this wee orchid seems to be having a very good year with many more flowering spikes being seen in areas of the forest where it has been known for many years. And it happened again, in a similar patch of young pines, also on ex River Nethy shingle, another gathering of 1000+ twayblade plants. Amazing.

I hadn’t realised just how diverse plants and insects can be on river shingle, and the River Nethy has had a few visits when the sun has shone. Two more sites have been found for the 5 spot ladybird, two bees were new to Abernethy and a very striking small moth, flitting around on the freshly emerging thyme flowers evaded two attempts to catch it in a tube, so as a last resort I had to rely on the camera, and though the picture was taken from a distance, it did allow a record to be made and the enlarged picture to be sent to Tom our local expert for identification. The moth turned out to be one of the bigger “micro” moths, hence the reason I couldn’t find it in my own moth book, and it goes by the name of Pyrauta cingulata. It hasn’t been recorded in this area before and was quite an amazing find. For more information see http://ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?id=970 where the information suggests the moth is found on the coast! Well there was water, sand and its food plant wild thyme.

This wasn’t the only species I found this month that really belongs to the coast. Towards the end of one of the weekly butterfly transects in late June I saw what looked like a 6 spot burnet moth. Unlike my river Lepidoptera encounter, this time I was well equipped complete with butterfly net and with a quick waft of my arm, the moth was in my net and then in a tube for a better look. Sure enough, I was looking at a 6 spot burnet, Tulloch Moor is some way from the coast but not that far from the orchid field site where I had recorded it in 2008. I let the vice County recorder know of my find and he visited a few days later to find there was a well established colony on that bit of the moor, linked to the bird’s foot trefoil flowers on the burnt heather patches, numbering over 100 individuals. He also located cocoons from 2008 showing that the moth had been around for more than a year.

The 6 spot burnet moth was also seen at the orchid field site again this year but that wasn’t the reason for my visit. With the permission of the fields owners I had made a count of the orchids in 2008, and with their permission I was back to repeat the count again this year. This small field, right next to the B970 (right), is considered the best site in Scotland (and possibly Britain) for the number of flowering spikes of lesser butterfly orchids. Past estimates put the population at several hundred and my hurried count, after the frost, last year give a total of around 700 plants. This year I was determined to do a more logical count, line transects right across the field with red and white tapes for accuracy/guidance, and with a hand-held tally counter to take care of the running total rather than remembering 101, 102, 103 etc in my head. It turned out to be a full afternoon of a task, particularly when there was also a small population of small white orchids also to count. Looking into the field from the road there seemed to be a lot of flowering spikes and at the end of the count I wasn’t too surprised to find the total to be over 1200 plants. Throw in a couple of hundred small whites and a few thousand fragrant orchids and there can’t be many sites in the UK that can boast something similar. My hat goes off to the Fletchers for managing the grazing of the field so sympathetically as to maintain this amazing annual botanical extravaganza. A bonus for the day was finding a nice colony of flowering common wintergreen plants (Pyrola minor), many of which were in flower. Usually, there are lots of basal rosettes of leaves with just a few flowers, but this patch was just about the opposite with lots of mini-towers of white waxy flowers popping out of the vegetation.

What about the real butterflies? The weather during June and into July hasn’t been the best for butterflies and in common with other parts of the country blinks of sun have been followed by drinks of rain. I would say that numbers of butterflies in the Firwood garden are down on previous years, probably due to the poor weather during the last couple of summers. Red admiral, painted lady, common blue, large white, small tortoiseshell and ringlet have been seen in amongst Janet’s amazing floral displays, but mainly as singles rather than regulars. The weekly butterfly transect has been good when the sun has been out for the whole of the one and a half hour visit, but for most it has been a mix of sun and cloud and quite a bit of wind. Not ideal. However, the requirement is one transect walk per week so TV weather maps have been studied to try and aim for the best day for the walk. Chronologically the season has so far produced the following butterflies:
Small tortoiseshell
Peacock
Green-veined white
Green hairstreak
Orange tip
Small pearl-bordered fritillary (right)
Ringlet
Small heath
Large heath
Meadow brown
Common blue
Red admiral
Painted lady
Dark green fritillary
Scotch argus.
The real eye-opener has been the high numbers of ringlets, from a first record in 2006, 44 were counted during one visit in July and to date, this has to have been the most numerous butterfly. For details of all previous surveys see http://www.ukbms.org/site51/description.htm and click on Species count. In addition, Butterfly Conservation have teamed up with the BTO to ask those recorders involved in carrying out the Breeding Bird Survey (one kilometre squares surveyed annually - see earlier diaries) if they would visit the recording squares again, monthly, between June and August to record butterflies. Great if your breeding bird square covers nice flowery meadows but not so great when your square rises to over 500 metre asl (left). However, nil or low counts are just as valuable as massive counts, but I do feel my square will be lucky to locate more than a couple of species. Watch this space. A bonus from the first visit was a male hen harrier and a family of jays, a rare bird in this part of the world, good records for the breeding bird atlas.

A bit late for breeding but there have been a few unusual bird records over the last few weeks. A singing whitethroat was found on the butterfly transect, but had gone a few days later, two wrynecks obviously heading for somewhere else as they were only heard once each, and a couple of quails one locally, where one has been heard in other years so a possible breeder and one near Blair Atholl during an interesting visit in late June. The weather map had shown full sun throughout Britain for the day of the Blair Atholl visit so I headed south for the day to look for the small solitary bee Osmia inermis, the one we built a few rock nesting sites last September. The more local weather forecast hinted at early morning mist in the Atholl area first thing, burning off by late morning. As I left the house the coolness of a clear night was giving way to a hot sunny day. As Dalwhinnie passed by on the starboard side and Drumochter Pass beckoned mistily in front I was hoping the weather folk had got their calculations correct! No sun and these small bees don’t fly and that would be a waste of 120 miles. As I left the A9 by the House of Bruar, the mist had gone but the clouds remained low, but it was only 10am. Boots on and off up the hill when the “whit, whit, whit” of the quail stopped me in my tracks. As I climbed the track I was amazed at the richness of what, from a distance, looked just like plain old heather moorland. But this wasn’t any old moorland, this was lime rich moorland and famous and designated as an SSSI for a land snail, round-mouth whorl snail (Vertigo genesii) I think. Orchids, bird’s-foot trefoil, clovers and then large round yellow flowers on long stalks appeared, globe flowers, masses of them running up the hillside, an amazing sight (left). The first area of rock bee nest sites was reached and the cloud overhead remained stubbornly solid. A few bumblebees were on the go visiting the trefoil and clover flowers, but with the temperature quite low there was no chance of seeing the solitary bee. The next hour was spent checking the rock nest sites, none of which had been used. Just beyond the last site was a small burn and I could see lots of yellow flowers along its sides so I went to investigate. Starry saxifrage, yellow mountain saxifrage, the insectivorous butterwort in full flower and a small white flower growing in amongst the bog asphodel leaves (right) turned out to be its close but much rarer relative, Scottish asphodel, a nice find to brighten my sunless day. I followed the burn up the hillside towards a natural rock outcrop which could hold out future potential nest sites for the Osmia bee, and close by was a natural stone wall, with again many potential nest sites, something not found by earlier surveyors. It was 4pm and time to retrace steps and head back to the car and I noticed the first break in the cloud cover. By the time I had reached the globe flowers the sun was beating down but all a bit late to start standing by the patches of bird’s-foot trefoil waiting to see if the wee bees would visit to feed. Next year……

Enjoy.

With best wishes
Stewart & Janet

A recent visitor to the Osprey Centre - watch Countryfile

The joys of late evening botanising, Ryvoan Pass & Cairngorms

All photos © Stewart Taylor

Gotcha!

Monday morning 20 July, 05.50, blackbirds alarm calling in garden! It's back. Mad dash for camera but too late. Cycling in to work at 07.30 I meet another one on the road!

Tuesday morning 05.45, camera and tripod all ready and set up at window. Photograph red squirrel, woodpigeon, chaffinch and jackdaws. 06.15 time for breakfast before heading off to work.

Wednesday morning 05.45. All normal, red squirrel at box feeder, chaffinches and woodpigeons in garden. 05.56, red squirrel very alert on top of feeder. Be afraid, be very afraid! Within seconds squirrel at top of telegraph pole and off into birch trees.





It is still a bit dark but suddenly the camera is firing at 5 frames a second as something dark and brown appears at the feeder, the pine marten is back and this time I'm ready! Time 05.58.








Within seconds its head is in the box and in the background a few chaffinches are alarm calling. Looking at the pictures later I can see that the marten turns to its left and snarls at something. Head back in the box and then it turns to its right, again snarling at something.




I suddenly realise that I am shaking, half asleep, over excited, who knows, but watching this deadly predator at reasonably close quarters is a real privilege, and despite having "bumped" into several over the years, this is the first time that I have been able to watch one so closely. Amazing.





Short and sweet, but I thought you would like to share this amazing moment.



06.01 - end of encounter.

Best wishes

Stewart & Janet

All photos © Stewart Taylor

1000 up but where did the last month go to?

A lot happening this month, with early June seeing the second round of BTO Breeding Bird Atlas visits made to the five tetrads locally in cool weather conditions, but good to see lots of lapwing and curlew chicks on some fields. Not too sure that oystercatchers have done quite so well, but we will need to wait for the farm wader survey in a couple of years to tell us if this is so.

An outstanding item from the last diary was my visit to the Highland Council archaeologist to talk over how to finalise a list of the key Abernethy Forest sites and to see if John’s flint find in April was at all important. Well, to cut the waffle, the sites can all be ground truthed and sorted but only if I or other volunteers were keen to take on the task because the Council don’t have any money or staff available to assist with the job. I think I saw a flicker of recognition that John’s find was indeed a bit of flint but there seemed little enthusiasm to make a note or register the find. Perhaps these thing are turning up all the time, but a bit more encouragement or even a ‘well done’ wouldn’t have gone amiss. Well I thought the find was brilliant so well done John!

A second diary item that had also been left a bit up in the air was the majestic old Scots pine tree that was brought down by February snows (left), forming a perfect natural arch over the Dell track running between Nethybridge and Forest Lodge. Would it stay or would it go, that decision had been left with the Nethybridge Community Council. Well, I am able to report that the tree will be part of the future deadwood habitat on the reserve but sadly it no longer remains a natural feature for visitors to walk under. The tree was lifted by a JCB and now lies in a fairly undignified heap (right) by the side of the track just in case a fire engine should need to drive along the track one day?


Now for the good news! Well done Ran – “Sir Ranulph Fiennes conquers Everest for Marie Curie Cancer Care” – what a man, wonky heart, bits of fingers missing from earlier frost bite, and he stood on top of the world. http://www.everestchallenge.org.uk/ . Happy birthday to daughters Laura and Ruth – again! And, some of the natural history challenges have been met. The first was a search for a long lost fern, hard shield fern (Polystichum aculeatum), last recorded on Abernethy in the 1990s. It took half a day and quite a bit of scrambling around on grassy and rocky slopes bumping into lots of other nice ferns along the way, before it was located. Just one clump, growing happily on a shady rocky ledge, but still there after all those years.

The weekly butterfly transect has continued, with just one week so far lost to cold weather. Green-veined whites have been a feature of most weeks but it is a little worrying just how few small tortoiseshell butterflies have been seen. Perhaps the recent warm spell will help them. For many years I have half-heartedly been looking for one of our rarer ladybirds - the 5 spot – a bonny but small ladybird that lives happily on river shingle. There is a well known site on the River Nethy near to where it enters the River Spey, and two people have found single specimens on the Nethy south of Forest Lodge. With the latter site being within the Abernethy Reserve, this seemed the best area to start my search, but with the earlier records being pre-GPS equipment, it wasn’t known quite where they had been found. So, on went the wellies and my search along the river began, wandering from shingle bank to shingle bank. The first unusual thing that caught my eye was a cranefly (daddy long-legs - left), but with even longer legs than usual, so long in fact, that it didn’t seem to be able to control them, and regularly ended up in a bit of a tangle. Not only did it have extra long legs but their colour changed from black at the body end to white at the foot end – strange. I managed to take a photo and expert Mike was able to tell me that it was Dolichopeza albipes, a cranefly which, like the ladybird I was looking for, lived on river shingle, but feeding on liverworts growing close to the edge of the river. On the next bank of shingle a brilliant blue flower came in to view, a shortened version of a speedwell, the thyme leaved speedwell but sub-species humifusa, a flower that Andy at work had been asking folk to look out for!

I was starting to think that the ladybird would have to wait for another day, I had been searching for about four hours, the sun was getting hotter and I wasn’t really sure whether I should be looking for it close to the river edge or in amongst the vegetation on the more stable sections of gravel. As I deliberated what to do I had slightly switched off from search mode and there, on a very small rowan sapling was something small, red and with black dots... this could be it, but in my hurry to try and get it into a plastic tube for a better look, I slightly flicked the sapling and the beetle fell to the ground and disappeared into the gaps in the shingle! Dam it! As I contemplated building a low seat out of rocks to sit and wait for it to re-appear, I realised that I could just see it, lying quite still, in between two rocks. If I moved the rocks I could see that the ladybird would drop further into the myriad of gaps further down and that would be that. Out came a stub of a pencil from my pocket, a dab of spit on the rubber, gently bring rubber and beetle together, and seconds later I was looking at my first 5-spot ladybird, now safely in my plastic pot! I quickly took a few photos in the pot, and, with camera at the ready, removed the lid from the tube and took a few more photos as the beetle emerged before it opened its wings and was gone. Brilliant! An extended search of the rest of the shingle bank failed to relocate the original ladybird or any others, but a few days later I was passing the same spot whilst doing Bird Atlas recording and I was tempted to have another look. My luck was in and there was ……a 6-spot ladybird, a 5-spot ladybird, but with an extra spot. So there was definitely more than one ladybird on that particular bit of river shingle. As I continued up river on the day of my original find, the sun was getting warmer and a few more insects were appearing on the wing. Bumblebees were visiting the first opening flowers of bird’s-foot trefoil and suddenly a brilliant flash of orange whizzed by, a butterfly, but which one? It settled on a rock, constantly opening and closing its wings, orange one second then hard to see the next. This was my first small copper butterfly of the year and, being recently emerged, was as well coloured as it would ever be. It was also kind enough to allow me to take its photograph.

A few days later and I was sorting out the last of the seasons records for the green shield moss, and putting the GPS location details into a format that would allow a distribution map to be produced. Despite the moss not featuring in the diary for a while work had been continuing in looking for more capsules during the course of other work. It was an interesting season and when I tallied up the various totals for the year it became apparent that a minimum of 998 capsules had been found by all the people who had been involved in looking, but more on that in a minute. 998, I just could not let the season end on a figure like that so a couple of areas were visited to see if an extra 2 could be found to make the seasons total 1000! After a mornings searching it was very appropriate that it was a deserted wood ants nest (left) that provided the final two! I’m not too sure though that others are pulling their weight in the search, out of a total of 166 logs checked, I was responsible for 155 of them. Out of the 166, 144 logs had capsules, 115 of which were in Abernethy. During the period September 2008 to May 2009 I ended up being responsible for finding 102 of the 107 new sites for the moss, perhaps it is time for a few others to have a look during the next growing season! I have certainly been a bit disappointed by the lack of interest shown by the expert Bryologists in wanting to see the variety of new habitats found in Abernethy during this period, a coach and horses wouldn’t have kept me away!

With the breeding season well underway, the Firwood garden has proved a haven for many birds. A recent chalet visitor recorded a minimum of 18 different species even with crested tit and long-tailed tit missing from the list. With the arrival of June, dawn kicked of at about 4am and the songs of many species could be heard. We now have at least two yellowhammers singing within hearing distance of the house, and the visiting pheasants have provided much amusement and display. I probably hear many of the dawn choruses and happily fall asleep again afterwards, but one morning at about 6am, a few jackdaws remained so noisy that I had to get up to see what was going on. What was that cat doing with its head in the squirrel’s nut box feeder? It seems to have a very long tail – good god, it’s a pine marten! I waited for the head to go into the box again and I backed off from the window and dashed to get my camera and big lense assembled. Despite accomplishing this task in record time when I returned to the window the marten had disappeared along with the scolding jackdaws. I wonder just how regular a visitor the pine marten is to the garden and particularly to the feeder? Despite many subsequent checks, nothing has been seen since, but who knows what goes on during the night!

Aficionados of the osprey site webcams (http://www.rspb.org.uk/webcams/birdsofprey/lochgartenvideo.asp ) will know that we had a bit of a panic on a few weeks ago down at the nest site, our brilliant male bird had come back to the nest one day not just with a fish but with 20-30 metres of fishing line tangled about his body and streaming out behind him. Watching his head shaking actions, there was a good chance that he also has a fish hook in his mouth or somewhere on his body. A few years ago, the then female osprey became tangled in a similar way and departed the site one evening, never to return. Was the same fate due to happen to Odin, our male osprey? When he went missing from the site for over 30 hours we certainly thought so, and, with newly hatched osprey chicks in the nest, a contingency plan was put in place and to help the female and her chicks, fish was taken out to the nest to tide her over the initial period when the male was absent. Thankfully Odin returned the next day and must have been a bit puzzled to see a nest with a couple of fish lying there. Later in the day he brought in his own fish, but it was obvious from a wing feather out of place that somewhere along the way he had probably had a battle with the fishing line which thankfully now had gone. However, he wasn’t quite his normal self and the fish supply, which up until the fishing line incident, had been quite prolific, was now at a bit of a trickle. We assume that the final parting from the fishing line could have been quite a painful experience, perhaps leaving the bird stiff and sore because within a few days he was back to normal and excelled himself one day by bringing in nine fish. With this amount of fish worries about the youngest chick not getting enough food were quickly dispelled and for many an hour all the chicks could do was lie in the nest stuffed to the gunnels with fish! We really do have an exceptional male this year highlighting just how poor the male bird in 2008 really was.

This year is also an osprey anniversary year, 50 years since the site was open to the public using a wee gypsy caravan tucked away in the trees as the first osprey “centre”. George Waterston obviously wasn’t expecting 14,0000 folk to turn up to see the birds in that first year! To celebrate the event Frank Hamilton RSPB Scottish Director for many years AND one of the original protection wardens in 1958, came along to give a wee talk and open the site to free entry for the day for all our visitors, almost fifty years to the very day when the first visitors came in to see Britain's only breeding pair of ospreys all those years ago. Yours truly was there to take the photos and Julie, one of the Caper Watch staff made a brilliant anniversary cake, complete with osprey nest and chicks, to celebrate the occasion.

In May the reserve welcomed Ellen Rotheray to Forest Lodge, as she embarked on the breeding season phase of her PhD research project working with the very rare pine hoverfly Blera fallax. This fly was mentioned briefly in the New Year edition of the diary, and is one of the species that has often been looked for in the forest but hasn’t been seen since 1985. Its current status in the UK is that it is known from only two forests, both close to Abernethy, and the estimated population numbers 100s rather than 1000s. Over the last few breeding seasons attempts have been made to provide artificial breeding sites (left) either by cutting holes in the stumps of recently felled Scots pine trees and filling them with wood chips and sawdust and allowing the holes to fill naturally with rainwater, mimicking the natural breeding sites that occur in very low numbers, naturally, in the forest. Other artificial breeding sites have comprised plastic pots filled with chips and sawdust, and waterproofed wooden boxes similarly filled. Of all the artificial sites, the natural stumps have proved to be the most successful so far outside Abernethy, but thereby probably hangs a tail. In the “wild” suitable natural breeding sites in our impoverished natural forests, are always likely to be at a low level. A natural site comprises a biggish old conifer, Scots pine trees in our case, that has had an attack of heart rot fungus. The tree eventually dies and in some cases the lower, stump section of the dying tree, develops a central core of soggy, decaying wood, kept moist by an ingress of natural rain water. A bit like the artificial sites that have been trialed over the last few years. The hoverfly has been most numerous in historical times, when large sections of old growth forest have been felled, exposing many stumps with heart rot, kept moist each time it rains. Typical felling episodes of this nature happened during the last two great wars, and on a smaller scale when pinewood owners carried out heavy fellings as part of the felling and replanting management of their woodlands.

Ellen’s research actually started in 2008, when she monitored breeding sites at one of the two woods where the hoverfly occurs. Many hours were spent watching stumps with cut holes in the hope of actually seeing the fly, the males will mate with the females close to where a suitable breeding hole exists, and the females will then visit the cut holes to lay her eggs. The hoverfly has been monitored at this wood for several years so Ellen also put muslin “tents” over some of the cut stumps to try and get an idea of how many adult flies would emerge from the known number of larvae in the cut holes. At the end of the breeding season a few of the breeding sites held good numbers of pine hoverfly larvae and several of these were removed, under licence, so that they could be studied in captivity during the winter months to learn more about their larval stage requirements. Most of the larvae survived the winter and in early spring they left their watery home to pupate in the vegetation that had been provided surrounding the water filled holes. This was the stage of the breeding season that Ellen arrived at Forest Lodge and her first job was to build several muslin “cages” in to which the adult flies would emerge from their pupal cases (above right). The first question to answer was would the adult flies emerge successfully considering that this had never been done before, and if they did emerge, would it be possible to keep them alive and entice them to breed completing the first ever captive breeding cycle? If this stage was reached a few flies would be retained to carry on breeding in captivity and the others would form part of a introductory release programme in a new area of woodland in Strathspey. At the time of writing all of these stages have been successfully achieved with some hoverflies released in the Rothiemurchus pinewood, where recent fellings have taken place, and within the breeding cages at Forest Lodge, the flies have mated successfully and eggs have been laid. The emergence of the first captive bred larvae is now awaited and, if everything progresses successfully a few adult flies will be released in Abernethy in 2010. For more information see http://www.mallochsociety.org.uk/blera-2006-status/ & http://www.sbes.stir.ac.uk/people/rotheray/index.html . Sadly, neither of these write ups show just how much Ellen as achieved in the research project so far, but hopefully this will be addressed later in the year.

Enough! Lots more exciting things have happened, some of which will need to await future diary entries.

With best wishes
Stewart & Janet

A visit to see the dolphins at Chanonry Point with grandson Finlay

25th June in Strathspey - yes, that is snow!

All photos © Stewart Taylor

30 years on!

A short diary to counter the family criticism that I failed to mention either of our daughter’s birthdays in the last edition! Of course, what everyone forgets is that the diary is written about a month in arrears, so that there is usually lots of topic to choose from during that period. So, with ears burning, here we go...

Thirty years ago I had been at RSPB Loch Garten for just three years and on the 26 May 1979, England were playing Scotland at football. As the final whistle blew Laura made her entry into the world, not that I had any clue as to what the score was because I was deep in the bowels of Raigmore hospital holding Janet’s hand, lending moral support (but little of the pain) whilst witnessing that most amazing event, a natural human birth. Apart from trying to strangle herself with the umbilical cord and spending the first twenty-four hours of her life in an incubator, Laura was fine, mum and daughter were re-united, and settled into the routine of feeding and nappy changing. Amazingly, in the maternity ward at the same time was the wife of the couple who had moved into the cottage on Rum, where we had lived whilst working for the old Nature Conservancy Council (now SNH) up until the time we moved to Loch Garten! Kathy, the wife of the boatman/joiner/handyman on Rum was also in the same hospital suffering from severe back pains.

Meeting up with the couple from Rum whilst at Raigmore I found out that Ian, the husband, was dossing in Inverness, so I offered him a bed down at Loch Garten. On the evening of Laura’s birth we both returned to Loch Garten to a meal of mince and tatties and, thinking back to our move from Rum, I remembered that we had brought with us several bottles of home-brewed Yuletide Ale, a strong, dark beer traditionally brewed for special occasions like Christmas. Well, we had a special occasion, but would the beer still be okay three years after bottling? Opening the first bottle went well; there was a wee hiss as the cap was removed, and the beer smelled fine. We had a trial sip and the warming glow that we felt made me realise that we had something special. It was so powerful however that we decided it was safest to stick to sherry glass sized measures! It was then off to celebrate Laura’s birth with the rest of the osprey staff and volunteers at the then “Osprey Camp”. Three days later Ian also became a dad but before mum and baby would be heading back to Rum, Ian would have to return briefly to get everything ready.

Now the journey from Boat of Garten to Rum by public transport is not easy and, knowing in the back of my mind that there was a rare alpine flower growing on a mountain top somewhere along the road between Fort William and Mallaig (the ferry port) I offered to give Ian a lift as far as Glenfinnan. It was the 1 June, it was very hot and sunny, and this would be the last day before my life would change for ever, Janet and Laura were due home from hospital the following day, and the learning phase and responsibility of being new parents would begin. A quick stop at Corpach just outside Fort William to buy a map then it was cheerio to Ian and the climb up the side of a very steep mountain began. A couple of hours later and with a bit of intense searching around the summit area of the mountain (the old fashion type of search pre GPS!) and there I was, looking down at the flowering cushions of Diapensia lapponica, or Diapensia as it is commonly called. This is a plant that is found on nutrient poor ground often on high mountain tops throughout the world. However, in Britain it is only known from one mountain top, being discovered there in 1951 by a birdwatcher! It’s amazing what we “birdwatchers” turn up! At the site there are many cushions of flowers but you need to be on site at just the right time to see the flowers open and at their best. In 1979 the 1 June was just about right, and there was a brilliant display of big white flowers in amongst the rocks and gravel. One thing though that did shock me was the obvious evidence of clumps having been removed and it would appear that this wasn’t just a “one off”. See the Independent article at http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/black-market-threat-to-britains-rarest-flowers-496453.html for more information on this illicit trade.

Fast forward 30 years, happy birthday Laura, and happy birthday Ruth for earlier in the month. To celebrate the occasion we all met up for lunch at Logie Steading, near Forres, good food, good ice creams and a nice antique furniture shop where Laura treated herself to a wonderful kitchen chair for a birthday present. The day was very hot and sunny, with the settled spell of weather due to last into the start of the new week. The start of the new week was 1 June and I was starting to wonder – would it just be possible to make a repeat visit to a mountain top near Glenfinnan? I had the map but would wonky knees and hip get me there? If the sun shone and problems did start to develop there was always the option of going looking for chequered skipper butterflies, something else I hadn’t seen for almost 30 years. THE TRIP WAS ON!

The morning of 1 June 2009 in Nethybridge was almost frosty, but the sky was clear and the weather forecast perfect if going to be a little hot. A bit like 30 years ago, the day started at 5am, departure at 6am and arrival at Glenfinnan was just before 8am and just like last time, it was hot. Boots on, sun cream on, bag packed and off I set with my trusty Leki poles for ‘support’. One thing I wasn’t hearing on this repeat trip was whitethroats on the wires by the road, though there were plenty of birds singing in the surrounding woodland. Up through the woodland and out onto the open hillside to be greeted by a wonderful display of bluebells, something we don’t see in Strathspey. Bluebells, violets and other flowers got me thinking about butterflies, and sure enough, even at 8am, a green-veined white butterfly was on the go. Another quite dark butterfly caught my eye and when it landed on a clump of bog myrtle I was pleasantly surprised to see a chequered skipper – one of my target species for the day and it still wasn’t half-eight. I was very resolute, and the camera stayed in the rucksack and I remained focused on the climb ahead. Gradually the richness of the lower ground gave way to the typical hill ground of the west of Scotland, the sweat was rolling very freely, and, with shirt sleeves rolled down and shirt collar up to keep the bulk of the sun off, I plodded steadily up hill. The first hour saw the views getting better and the hill getting steeper, and another half hour and I reached one of the lower hilltop summits. In the not too far distance I could see the top of the mountain I was heading for and away to my right was the massive lump of Ben Nevis (left). So far so good with just the odd meadow pipit for company overhead and the early signs of the insectivorous butterwort in the damper bits of ground underfoot.

Two hours after setting off the summit at about 2500’ was reached and it was time to find a bit of shade and have a quick bite to eat. With camera weight preferable to bottle of water weight, I had been taking on water from the wee burns on the way up, wetting my hat to keep my head cool. Peeping out from the rocks all around where the white flowers of Diapensia, the timing of the visit looked to be just about right, despite the hot weather of the last ten days. I just couldn’t sit still, so I took this self portrait with the wonderful mountain scenery in the background. In the distance to my west was the Sgurr of Eigg (left), the island now owned by the community and next to our old home of Rum. With the heat is was quite hazy but the views were stunning all the same. My marvellous watch told me that the temperature even on the summit, was 24 degrees C, phew! Screaming overhead went a group of swifts followed by a few swallows, there was obviously plenty of insect life on the wing even this high up. And then, after a gap of 30 years, it was time to say hello properly to the cushions of Diapensia, so landscape lens was swapped for macro lens, and it was down to work, taking great care not to damage any of the plants on this rocky summit.

I will leave the photos to speak for themselves, with thanks to the plant for putting on such a brilliant display.

Close by there were a few tussocks of trailing azalea, a bonny plant and reasonably common on many of our higher hills.

An hour later and it was time for the hardest part of the day – the descent! I must be getting old, it took almost as long to get down the mountain as it did to get up. My estimate of where the track at the bottom of the mountain was worked out well and with the woodland below starting to get ever closer I came back into butterfly country with green-veined white and small heath being the first contacts. A stop by the bigger burn to take on a decent amount of water, and it was on down the track. And there it was again, a chequered skipper flitting about by the track. This time the camera was out in a flash, and making the most of these modern digital cameras, a trial shot was taken to get exposure right, and then, in an effort not to disturb the butterfly which had settled again on bog myrtle, the camera was held out at arms length, and the auto-focus was left to do the rest. I just didn’t have the energy for a long pursuit and trying to get the ultimate photo, but the end product I think worked very well and the butterfly is very recognisable. This photo is dedicated to Nigel, Rachel and the boys who did a trip to Loch Arkaig from the Firwood chalet the week before to see this very special butterfly. Down through the woodland and a green hairstreak butterfly was nice to see before reaching the road with a short walk back to the car. Soggy clothing was exchanged for clean tee-shirt, shorts and sandals and it was off via Spean Bridge and Loch Laggan-side getting back to Firwood in time to pick Janet up from school.
A brilliant day, thank you Laura for being part of both trips, perhaps I should do something similar when Ruth hits the 30-mark!

And that football match some thirty years ago, England 3 Scotland 1 at Wembley.

We hope you enjoyed this wee trip down memory lane.

Best wishes

Stewart & Janet

Oak fern

All photos © Stewart Taylor

When not to have great views of a golden eagle!

It has been a busy few weeks as the breeding season gets into full swing and a few of the ‘winter’ specialities stayed around just into May. The highlight for many locally have been the late staying waxwings with a gang of up to 20 feeding in juniper bushes and in Tulloch on flowers of Norway maple. I have managed to bump into groups of these birds in various areas of the forest from right out on the moorland edge in April through to the last ones popping up by Firwood on 1st May as if waving goodbye for another season. The hope of hearing a bird singing locally hasn’t materialised – we will just have to wait for another season to see if a pair of these remarkable birds stay on to breed.

The 1st April saw the start of the second breeding season for the BTO Atlas and, following an appeal from Hugh, the local Atlas organiser for help in ensuring the minimum level of survey in 10 kilometre square NJ01, I offered to take on 5 standard recording “tetrads” (2x2 km squares on the OS maps as detailed below.) locally. The difficulty in this part of the world with atlas surveying is timing the first of the two required visits late enough in the first April-May recording period, to ensure that most of the summer migrants have arrived, and allowing a bit of time before the second round of visits start in June. Late into the first week of May I decided to go for it, but failed to find any spotted flycatchers, and with chilly nights even swallows and house martins were low in numbers. I will just have to hope these are all picked up in adequate numbers on the second visit in a couple of weeks time. There is nothing better than visiting places you rarely go to, testing yourself out in trying to record all the birds that you know should be there. So far, nothing too unusual has turned up, but following the heavy snow and low temperatures of February, many of the regular residents seem to be in much lower numbers, with wrens becoming a rarity in some areas. It’s difficult to concentrate though when views like this pop up in one of your tetrads.

Tetrads are 2km × 2km squares and labelled A to Z within each 10-km square. Recording visits do not aim to produce a complete species list for the tetrad, but a sample of what one can find during a pair of visits in winter and/or summer. We aim to cumulatively cover at least 8 tetrads in every 10-km square in Britain and Ireland during winter and summer. You can take on one or as many tetrads as you wish. This is a great opportunity to visit those hidden corners of the landscape and find new birds. (From BTO Atlas website http://www.bto.org/birdatlas/index.htm ).

The first visit of another survey was also completed with my visit to the Breeding Bird Square north of Grantown on Spey. It was misty as I left the house at 5.30am but knowing part of my site is a hill rising to nearly 500 metres I didn’t think there would be a problem. Wrong! Thankfully, a lot of the survey is done on bird sounds as well as sightings, so all worked out okay, and just after the sheep was surprised and photographed, a light breeze got up and the mist started to lift. Using my GPS gadget ensured I stayed on roughly the right line.

I was also involved in something new but a little frightening – taking wedding photographs! The photographer booked to take the pictures at Ruth’s sister in law’s wedding gave back word at short notice, and I was asked if I could help. Batteries charged, lenses cleaned, practice with the highly technical flash unit, and I was off to Inverness – arriving fully two hours before the event! Being early though did allow time for thinking out photo locations (left) and opportunities, which saved panicking later in the day. My Dad took lots of wedding photos and many a night I would go to bed in a room with a strange glow and to the tap, tap of the plastic tongs pushing the photo paper round in the tray of developer liquid. From camera lens, to roll of film, to roll of film being developed in little round tank and the film image then being transferred to paper under the glow of the orange light, the resultant photo then being hung up to drip dry. What a brave man, no second chance, and no instant image on the back of the camera to check that everything looks just about right. I’ll tell you about the set of cow’s horns appearing out of the brides head in some future diary, and how my dad managed to “manipulate” them away.

Our local volunteer who has walked the Loch Garten butterfly transect for the last few years warned me that he would not be able to carry on with the survey due to pressure of other work. With no obvious replacement from within the reserve team I was drafted back to continue a project I started up way back in the late 1970s, collecting annual butterfly abundance information, for ITE (as it was) at Monks Wood. The Loch Garten transect comprises a mix of farmland, roadside verge and moorland, and takes about an hour to walk. It’s a fair old commitment (hence the lack of takers!) in that the transect has to be walked weekly, from the first week of April through to the last week of September! And only when the sun shines! Normally I would paste a web link here for you but the http://www.ukbms.org/sites website is down currently, but do try it later and you can see the results from Loch Garten and all the other sites over the years. So far, small tortoiseshell, green-veined white, orange tip and green hairstreak (right) have been recorded, it will be interesting to see if dingy skipper can be re-located after an absence of many years. Watch this space.

My brother John made a flying visit (2 nights and 1 full day) but during his short stay he managed to leave what could be quite an impressive mark. John is famous in the family for finding things in/on mole hills! His best find to date has been a Queen Anne sixpence from 1790. So, on his one day outing he did an Abernethy round trip, visiting one or two old croft sites en route. Having lunch at one site (right) he was tempted to check out the local mole hills and found, what appears to be, a piece of flint (left), along with a bit of clay pipe and several bits of pottery. It just happens that I have been working on the archaeology of the Abernethy reserve and the words “flint find” had stuck in my head, so I checked these out. Close to John’s find were the Clachaig flint find and close to Forest Lodge, the Lynmagilbert flint find (http://her.highland.gov.uk/ ENTER site and type MHG4611 in Record ID you can view the Clachaig record and MNG4619 the Lynmagilber record). Both of these records date from 1868. Last week I tried my luck and visited the Lynmagilbert site, found a few molehills and, entering my destructive mode, kicked them over. A bit of blue pottery, and nothing else. Much of this area is alluvial, sandy, river deposit, and the area I visited didn’t look like it would be producing anything too interesting. I will be visiting the Highland Archaeologist next week, and John’s find will be going with me, so I will need to report back via the next diary.

From what you have read so far everything would appear to be fine with the old hip – well, more or less. A big test would be the second round of black grouse lek counts on 8 May, an early morning half hour hike to my lek counting spot. These co-ordinated counts of all the reserve leks are undertaken twice each spring (mid-April and early May) to give a reasonable picture of what is happening to the black grouse population on the reserve. As count day approached we looked like we were short of counters so Michael our chalet guest was roped in to assist. A quick outing the night before showed him where he was going and where to look and at 4am the next morning we left Firwood firstly to drop Michael off where he was due to count and than for me to drive on to where I could walk to my counting location. I got there, the hip was fine but there seemed to be a major problem – no black grouse! Overnight there had been a fall of snow (right) and I did wonder whether the birds had spotted me against the pale background as I made my way in to the counting spot. Half an hour later and still no birds, so not a problem linked to me, and I began to wonder if someone was camping or photographing the site but hidden in the junipers. A heavy snow shower passed through the site and at 6.15am I found out why there were no birds on the lek site. As I scanned the site looking for signs of any birds in the bushes or heather, a large brown bird homed in to view, sporting large white flashes on wings and tail. Sea eagle? No, just an immature golden eagle which had been perched up near by and the obvious reason why the birds had stayed well away from the lek. Momentarily it perched in one of the trees close to the lek and then floated lazily off over the forest. Briefly a single male black grouse ventured on to the lekking arena but wasn’t happy and soon disappeared. At 7am it was time for me to disappear, bacon butties beckoned as the count figures were compiled back at Forest Lodge at 7.30, and for the first time in 20 years of counting I had drawn a complete blank. The lek was re-visited the next day and, without the presence of Aquila chrysaetos, a full compliment of birds were present. A morning to remember, and the hip survived.

Despite the snow and a few showers of rain, we are lacking real rain and the forest is very dry. Along the forest tracks yours truly has been in action trying to save frog spawn and tadpoles as the pools started to dry up. In many cases I was just too late but in others hopefully a few were saved. It has been dry but quite cold with night time temperatures regularly below freezing, -3 degrees C being one of the recent lows. On one chilly Sunday Laura was over visiting and we made our way to Jack Drakes nursery to see the plants as well as purchasing a few large slices of cake to take home for lunch. In between the showers the sun came out and it was quite warm, so much so that an occaisional butterfly appeared and there were lots of wee flies and a few bees round mountain willow catkins (Salix lapponica hybrid). I just happened to have a tube in my pocket and collected one of the small bees for Murdo to identify. At the same time a large, bee-like insect appeared (above left) on the scene, a robber fly was my first instinct, but the fly looked just a little smaller. There were two of them and mating took place. The action of the fly was to “attack” the other small bees and hoverflies on the willow. A second tube appeared, and the fly was sent to Murdo. The small bee was nothing unusual Andrena haemorrhoa, but the “robber” fly turned out to be a hoverfly and initially caused a bit of excitement because it might be Criorhina rannunculi, a fly that is very rare this far north (right). A couple of days later and the fly was confirmed as Criohina, and, because there are so few current records for this area, the specimen was sent to the National Museums of Scotland for their collection! So I now have a beetle in the British Museum and a fly in the Scottish!

That’s it for another diary, enjoy the read.

Best wishes
Stewart & Janet

Sunset and lone pines Abernethy Forest


All photos © Stewart Taylor