What a dam month

Happy New Year.

Blackburn Rovers 3 – Liverpool 1, unheard of!

A new site for the funny limpet like fungus under a log (Erastia salmonicolor) and a patch of Ruffled Freckled Pelt lichen (Peltigera leucophlebia) a beautiful green lichen with an amazing common name growing all over an old sand quarry. A great start to the year which belied a major upheaval in the family when Ruth and the boys, Murphy the dog and Monty the cat moved back in with us.

Celestial events dominated the start of the year, though a 3am start to photograph the Quadrantid meteors proved to be almost a non-event, with the predicted “up to 120 meteors/hour” trickling by at less than a tenth of that. Undeterred, and with a full moon in a clear and frosty sky, I headed off again to try and capture a photo of the partial eclipse which was due around dawn just before the moon disappeared below the horizon. 7am and the moon lit up the road and everything else as I drove to a good vantage point to capture the event. 8am the moon disappeared behind a cloud and remained hidden until after 9am by which time the eclipse was passed. The rest of the day was frosty and sunny and with a beautifully clear sky. The next clouds didn’t appear for another day and a half! Oh well, I did try. When the cloud did return we started to see falls of the white stuff, not a lot but enough to see the snow shovel brought into action again. The cloud though did obscure the next heavenly event, the big and brilliantly bright planet Jupiter right next to the crescent new moon and by the time we returned to frosty evening skies the moon and planet where quite a way apart but still worth a quick photo.

The 14 January was notable – the temperature rose to +4 degrees C. All around the roads have been treacherous during January with rain falling onto frozen surfaces and creating sheets of ice. Over parts of the garden veg patch the tops of the parsnips have started to re-appear but remain frozen in the ground. They say the flavour improves after a bit of frost – we will let you know, 72 days frozen and counting. The rise in temperature tempted coal tits into song a timely reminder that I still had 5 outstanding tetrads (2 x 2 km map squares) to walk to record birds for the BTO winter Atlas. These tetrads should have been walked last winter but the snow during January and February made this impossible for these slightly remote sites. My preference would have been to walk the sites in February but, with the possibility of more snow, I thought it best to push on and get them done whilst conditions allowed. The first site to be visited covers a brilliant area for a walk, departing Forest Lodge in Abernethy Forest and walking out to Lurg Farm and back. However, with the conditions being generally cold and with still quite a bit of lying snow(above left), I knew a few of the birds that should be present in February would be missing. 12 species were recorded in the two hour count the most unusual being a single snipe in boggy alders by the River Nethy. Twenty feral pigeons near the farm were a surprise. By the 24th all the tetrads have been visited with one of the better records being 7 waxwings in juniper bushes by the River Nethy south of Forest Lodge. Capercaillie and black grouse, thankfully, were recorded but the lack of crested tits may have been an effect of the cold weather, pushing the birds into woodland areas at slightly lower altitudes. The most remote tetrad was left until last, comprising the scatter of pines and moorland close to Ryvoan Bothy. The drive out in a 4 x 4 proved interesting – beyond the edge of the forest the track was still covered in deep snow drifts! The remoteness reflected the number of bird species recorded, just 3, with the most numerous being bullfinch! These hardy finches manage to eke out a living in these remote areas by feeding on heather seeds, provided the heather isn’t buried under a foot of snow. As I left the path to check out a group of pines and an ancient willow I came across two amazing patches of intermediate wintergreen (Pyrola media) plants, with over 100 leafy rosettes at each site. As the name implies, the plant has evergreen leaves, but, if you only have leaves available to identify the plant, you have to rely on counting the number of teeth, via a hand lens, on the leaves (see http://www.bsbiscotland.org.uk/Documents%20on-line/Wintergreen%20identification.pdf). Intermediate wintergreen leaves have less teeth than the similar leaves of common wintergreen (Pyrola minor). A search revealed several dried up flower spikes (above right) from the 2010 growing season and poking out from the remains of the flower seed pods (the petals had long since disappeared) was quite a long, straight style, confirming that the plants were P. media. The ancient willow was a nature reserve in its own right covered from tip to toe with masses of mosses and lichens including two species of Nephroma lichens (laevigatum & parile) two species which are very local in this area (see left). If only trees could talk this particular one would be able to tell you all about local crofters whisky stills and the passing of cattle raiders who came all the way from Lochaber to raid the richer pastures of Strathspey, herding the stolen animals back through the nearby Ryvoan Pass (Rathad nam Mèirleach). It probably also saw the last Abernethy osprey nest being plundered before their UK extinction in 1916.

The tree would also tell you all about the efforts that were undertaken in this remote area to create artificial river spates to allow felled timber removal during the 1800s. My morning Atlas survey took me past what remains of some of this work – dams! Running centrally through Abernethy Forest is the River Nethy, fed in the upper forest by two major burns (streams). On both burns there have been, locally, major engineering works to create a series of dams, which were used to store large quantities of water to create artificial spates to flood the River Nethy. (The photo on the right shows where the old dam was, the dam was as high as the banks on either side of the gap.) Trees, which were felled in the upper forest, were dragged into the River Nethy, and, by releasing the water from the dams the rush of water into and down the River Nethy, would float the logs down and into the River Spey. From there, special teams of rafters would “ride” with the logs down the Spey to sawmills on the coast at Garmouth some 45 miles away. See http://www.forestry.gov.uk/newsrele.nsf/WebPressReleases/199FE999E63CBD3C80256FF100440995 for a recent re-construction of a log raft and http://www.exploreabernethy.co.uk/explore/page6.html for information from the Nethy Bridge Explore Abernethy Centre.

The photo which ended the November diary was taken in Ryvoan Pass during a walk myself and Janet had out to the Green Loch and back through the ancient pines, birches and willows to Glenmore. Right by the path on the way back we spied a very large, very old willow, something I can never walk past without having a look at. Hanging off the willow were abundant leaf-like growths of lungwort (Lobaria pulmonaria) and there in smaller quantities, L. scrobiculata, (with Lobaria amplissima left) something that was new for the site. I made a note that this was an area worth re-visiting. The site is part of the Forestry Commission’s Glenmore property and it was with great sadness that in mid-January we heard of the death of Jim Gillies, long-time a member of the FC staff at Glenmore, an adjacent site to RSPB Abernethy Forest. Jim took early retirement, like me, in the autumn of 2010 and was a vast fount of knowledge about the history of the site. On the day of Jim’s funeral it seemed appropriate to make a return trip to Ryvoan to see what else was growing there. The track towards the Pass was quite icy so I decided to cut across the bog to the general area of older trees and I walked straight in to ancient willow heaven (right). It took about four hours to look over the half-dozen willows, taking photos as I went and several lichens new to the area were found. Goodness knows what an expert would find, something I hope will happen now that I have alerted the Commission’s Ecologist about the site. Watch this space. A bonus from this visit was finding a rare local fern – hard shield fern (left), and a wee umbellifer – sanicle, both plants indicating the soil locally has a slightly higher pH (lime rich). Looking over these ancient trees I still keep an eye open for the green shield-moss, but none were found in Ryvoan. However, the month ended by finding the second UK site for both the green and brown shield-mosses growing together, again, as the first site, on a wood ant nest. Brilliant.

Happy reading

Stewart & Janet

Spey flood at Broomhill bridge

Look, no hands, Grandson Archie's first steps


All photos © Stewart Taylor

Christmas dinner plucked from the snow

A month of snow, frost and keeping the garden birds alive. There were several nights of minus 15 degrees C, a low of -20 C and a daytime low of -14 C and there were only 8 days when the mercury rose above freezing, reaching a balmy +6 degrees C on the 10th. I don’t keep daily maximum and minimum temperature record now, but a check of the Strathspey Weather website (http://www.strathspeyweather.co.uk/ ) shows that the -20 was the lowest temperature recorded since the weather station started in January 2001, and the mean temperature for December was -3.5 degrees C, possible the lowest mean yet recorded for any year. The last time I recorded a below freezing average was way back in the early 1980s when making daily weather recordings at Loch Garten. Brrr. Needless to say, the parsnips for the Christmas dinner remain nicely chilled under two foot of frozen snow. Ice chrystals at sunset (left) make an interesting photo.

The outcome of all the cold and lying snow is that I have had few outings to look for things and the main camera activity was pointing it at birds in deep snow and very low temperatures – in the garden. The huge fat balls attracted a growing number of starlings (12) and scattered corn up to 10 yellowhammers along with masses of chaffinches, coal tits, blue and great tits and the occasional gang of rooks and jackdaws. Great spotted woodpecker also became a regular on the fat balls. Sparrowhawk also became a regular visitor during the coldest spells, the deadliest visits being later in the month. Janet witnessed the first of these on Christmas Day when the first terrorising whiz through the garden saw birds dashing for cover everywhere but one blackbird took the wrong option and collided with the glass windows of the patio doors. As the bird hit the decking the sparrowhawk was back and within a split second it pounced on the slightly stunned blackbird before carrying it off into the woods behind the chalet. It was only later that I noticed a perfect set of wing imprints in the snow (left) where the sparrowhawk had captured its Christmas dinner, enough food to ensure it survived another freezing night.

A car service in the Grantown garage allowed me a morning to re-visit a few trees in the adjacent aspen wood where I had found groups of the tiny Sclerophora pinhead lichens growing in March, but, without the knowledge at the time to identify them to full species. Most turned out to be the rarer Sclerophora pallida lichen (right) with just a couple of trees with S. peronella. I just hoped nobody was watching me staring at the aspen trees for 10-15 minutes at a time – all good fun and adding a few new sites for these amazing tiny lichens. During the brief thaw about mid-month a visit to Tore Hill produced a second Abernethy site for log hugging fungus Erastia salmonicolor, whilst tucked under the snow was a single specimen of the tiny Mycena rosella. How such a small fungus can survive under the frozen snow beats me.

Janet also had a busy month, attending two craft fairs locally in the run up to Christmas with me helping out as the event “gopher” arranging tables and erecting event banners. After the last event in the 18th the Christmas tree came home just in time to be erected in the sitting room complete with lights and trimmings. The “non-event” was the full lunar eclipse on the morning of 21st December – the shortest day. I was out of bed at 5.30am and as I drove along the road to a suitable vantage point to ensure I could see the event as the moon was about to set, the full moon was beaming in through the driver’s window. The temperature was -8 C and with everything crisp with frost everything seemed to be set fair to get good photos of the eclipse. 7.45am just as the eclipse was due to start – where has the moon gone? A great bank of cloud, despite the frost, had rolled in and remained stubbornly in place right through until 9am when the eclipse was just about finished and the sun had risen in the sky. A cold sunny day followed and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen for the next 72 hours as the temperatures remained well below freezing as the photo of frozen trees at Loch Mallachie shows (right). Let’s hope for better luck with the next celestial events in early January.

Throughout the month I had been keeping an eye on the level of oil in the central heating boiler tank. The oil folk usually require an order of about 800-900 litres before they will deliver and by 17 December it looked like this is what we would need, so I phoned in an order, expecting the delivery, as usual, to be during the next week or so. “We will get the fuel to you by 14th January” said the polite voice at the other end of the phone. “2011?” I asked, “yes” came the reply. HELP, would we survive that long? So, pencil line on the fuel gauge, limit boiler use despite the -20 C outside temperatures, and see how much we had used after 5 days. My calculations indicated that we should be okay, on restricted use, until the middle of January. Am I missing something? We are in the middle of winter, the main time for maximum fuel consumption – as usual – and all the oil delivery companies locally are short of oil and with a minimum delivery time of 5 weeks! We now have a Super-ser portable gas heater in the living room and the gas stove in the front room in operation supplementing the couple of hours of heat from the central heating boiler, hoping that Highland Fuels keep to their word. Watch this space.
Just heard that there is a bittern at Insh Marshes, and a great grey shrike in Glen Tromie – perhaps time for a twitch.

We hope you have all had a great Christmas and all our best wishes for 2011.

A few of the highlights of 2010 follow below.

Stewart & Janet

Green shield-moss article in 100th edition of Field Bryology in January

An outing with Brian & Sandy Coppins end of January

Tree snap in snow February

ST retirement end of March

Ash cloud sunset over Dufftown April

Osprey Centre power supply completed May

Blue heath Sow of Atholl June

Finding mountain ringlet butterfly (at last) July

Many great outings looking for the Solorina lichen here on Geal Charn August

Re-finding Hydnellum gracilipes September

Blera re-introduction October

Search for oak galls November

Christmas Eve family photo - and something to herald in the New Year

All photos © Stewart Taylor

Snowed under by silks and spangles but topped by a knopper

A year ago, Janet made a brilliant decision – to attend the Haddo House Christmas craft fair and not the one at Brodie Castle. All summer long Janet was very busy making her tweed crafts for sale at the Loch an Eilean visitor centre, but went into panic mode from mid-summer making items for the two day fair at Haddo House in Aberdeenshire in early November. “How many of these do you think I should make, and what about these?” Week by week storage boxes were filled with an amazing array of goods all made from Harris tweed bought on the islands or Scottish tweed from a local supplier in Elgin. Never having attended a craft fair as big as the Haddo House event left Janet guessing a little as to what items would sell and for those that did, how many to make. Eventually, November arrived, and we set off with a car loaded to the gunnels to Aberdeenshire. Day one was setting up and days two and three selling to the hundreds of visitors who had paid their entry fees to the National Trust for Scotland who were running the fair. The Trust also have responsibility for the “big hoose” (right) and grounds. Janet was helped throughout by daughter Laura who lives nearby. The two days of visitors and sales were blessed with frosty but glorious weather, no doubt a big help in tempting folk out to visit the event. After two very busy days we managed to get everything packed away into the wee Fiesta before heading back to Laura’s for a welcome cup of tea and glass of wine.

Haddo House is set in a large area of mature policy woodland and farmland an ideal area for me to do a bit of exploring, so once the stall was up and running, I was free to have a wander. Of interest on the first day were some of the areas of mature oak woodland, with interesting stands of old beech and Norway spruce. As we were setting up the stall it sounded as though a war had started outside as the estate must have organised a pheasant shoot ahead of the arrival of the visitors at 10am, so I just hoped it would be safe to be wandering off the tracks. As I crossed the car park to pick up my gear a dead pheasant lying in the middle of the parking area showed the guns had passed quite close by! A hint of the BBC Autumn Watch programme was also encountered on the road under the beech trees, chaffinches and bramblings were feeding on the beech nuts/mast which had fallen, the nuts having been conveniently opened by passing car tyres. The reason for heading for the oak trees was linked to a bit of work I had been doing back in Strathspey – looking for various species of galls growing on leaves and twigs. The Highland Biological Recording Group (http://www.hbrg.org.uk/Frameset.html ) had listed 3 oak leaf galls as their “species of the month” something for members to look for to add to our knowledge of their distribution in Highland Region. All of the galls I was looking for are the result of an “attack” on the tree by a group of small wasps, the gall being the end development for the wasp larva to grow in. The wasp attacks are quite complex, some occur in the spring and it is their offspring that create the galls that we see later in the year see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall_wasp for more information, but for the most detailed information see http://hedgerowmobile.com/Cynipoidea.html . At Haddo the easiest galls to look for were the spangle gall (Neuroterus quercusbaccarum above right) on the underside of fallen leaves and these were found quite quickly, along with the less common silk-button gall (Neuroterus numismalis above left). On the ground I also found several round galls which initially I thought, as most people do, were oak apples. However, these turned out to be oak marble galls (Andricus kollari). A real rarity for this part of the world would be finding the knopper gall (Andricus quercuscalicis) which, as it grows, covers the acorn. The HBRG website says “there are few if any records this far north” which seemed to be a bit of a challenge, though this gall had been found in Moray in September 2010. Raking about in the leaves on the ground just a few acorns were to be seen, perhaps this was a bit early as most of the leaves and possibly acorns, were still on the tree. However, persistence paid off and there, covering the acorn and part of the acorn cup was a strange green “bonnet” looking growth – a knopper gall (group of 3 right), new to Aberdeenshire!

On the second sale day I was tempted by the distant view of Mither Tap O’Bennachie (left), the highest point in rural Aberdeen-shire (518m or 1700’ high), its distinctive shape being visible from miles around. It was a hill I saw a lot of as a youngster whilst holidaying with my parents at my granny’s house at Drumoak by the River Dee. So, with Janet and Laura delivered to Haddo, I headed for the hills. The starting point was the Forestry Commission car park by their visitor centre, following the path to Mither Tap, one of three hills which collectively make up the Bennachie range. With the sun shining, and despite the frosty day, there were lots of folk making their way up the hill, the steady climb taking me about 45 minutes to reach the Iron Age fort at its summit (right). On one side, the sea at Aberdeen was visible whilst in the distance in the other direction the similar distinctive shape of Benn Rinnes at Dufftown was prominent, and beyond that the Cairngorms. Brilliant. Time for a few photos from the frozen summit (left) before heading back down to the car park keeping an eye on the clock for the end of the craft fair at Haddo. For a few interesting “tales” about Bennachie see
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/3846/bennachie.htmluarian.com/site/3846/bennachie.html . Back at the car by 1pm, I had just time to pop in to see Uncle Bill at Pitcaple. Darkness was falling as I got back to Haddo and with just an hour to go before the end of the event, there were still masses of folk visiting the stalls and milling around the house grounds. Tired but smiling faces at the stall indicated that the day had been a success, so a great weekend all round. And the Brodie Castle event a few weeks later? If Janet had chosen this craft fair we wouldn’t have been able to get there due to the snow!

Back in Strathspey the oak gall search continued, and the more I looked the more I found. In the general Aviemore to Grantown on Spey area there aren’t really many oak woods, only 3 good stands and a few scattered ancient trees, so there weren’t many searches to undertake. However, rooting about amongst the fallen leaves means that you don’t keep up the search for more than a few hours, so usually more than one visit was needed to carry out a reasonable search. In all the woods visited the knopper gall was found, all new to Highland Region! It even turned up under the 3 lone oaks on Abernethy. In an oak wood near Aviemore a 6mm diameter red gall (right) turned out to be the cherry gall (Cnips quercusfolii) but a much larger (25mm) slightly spongy gall had me really puzzled, more so when I cut it open to find there was not 1 larva but many (right). Searching the internet for clues I came across a picture of something called the artichoke gall (Andricus fecundator), looking very like something I had picked up during the day but rejected as being a gall because of its shape – I would have to return. Eventually I found the name of the larger gall – the genuine oak apple (Biorhiza pallida), a first for inland Highland showing just how under-recorded oak galls and galls in general are. But could I re-find the discarded artichoke gall? I needn’t have worried, as I made my way back into the wood there were two of them growing proudly on a low oak branch. It also turned up in all the oak woods visited locally. Whilst in the Abernethy oaks I found what looked like a drowned eyed ladybird, on a waterlogged oak leaf, which I popped into a tube to photograph once it had dried out a little. On opening the tube 15 minutes later out it walked as large as life and was released into some dry oak leaves where hopefully it would survive the winter.

I was honoured to have an outing with a group of expert bryologists early in November. Andy at Forest Lodge had asked if I would like to accompany the group as they visited one of the forest bogs to see one of the Country’s rarest sphagnum mosses at a site Andy had found a few years earlier. The aim of the visit was to see and photograph the moss and collect, under licence (because it is so rare) a sample for retention in the herbarium at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh and a further sample to be sent for DNA analysis. Personally I have never really got to grips with sphagnum mosses so I would be totally in everyone else’s hands if I was to see the moss, but, having seen it, it might be possible to look for it when visiting other suitable bogs. The moss was Sphagnum balticum and it didn’t take the group long to find tiny cushions growing amongst the other sphagnum mosses at the site. Thank goodness there was help to hand; I would never have found the moss on my own. Although it is a tiny moss (right), it has a habit of growing in the top-most layer of the other sphagna, as though trying to keep itself just above the actual bog water surface. It often grows with another sphagnum moss which looks very similar – Sphagnum fallax, posing real problems for a beginner like myself. The bog we visited has a good and healthy population and, despite being next to a once occupied croft, no one has ever attempted to drain or lower the level of the water in the bog. A wonderful site particularly when compared to the hundreds of hectares of forest bog that I tried to “repair” following inherited forestry draining operations during my time working at Abernethy.

Whilst searching the various lichen identification website one night I came across an old record of a lichen, normally associated with the sand dunes of the Findhorn coast, rather than the woodland dominated habitats of Tulloch and Abernethy. The lichen is the stunningly green Peltigera malacea (left) with many locations near Findhorn Bay and Culbin Forest, but very few recent inland sites. I recognised the approximate location of the Tulloch site so set off one morning to have a look. The only information about the location was “under a Scots pine on a slope”, but, knowing it was usually associated with sand, the possible sites would be limited. Two hours of searching and I didn’t think I had found it, something similar turned out to be Peltigera hymenina. I would need to go and see the lichen for real at the coast, with Culbin Forest possibly the best option. With camera bag and tripod loaded on my back, I set off from the car park but within 20 minutes wished that I had stopped long enough on the car park to grab one of the Forestry Commission trail leaflets. There seemed to be tracks going everywhere but thankfully, all the main junctions had numbered posts to aid navigation, so I aimed in roughly the right direction but listed the junction numbers in my notebook as I walked. Eventually I reached the general area where the lichen had been recorded about 3 years ago, so time to remove the camera bag and search a little more carefully. I noticed that the general track habitat had changed, the vegetated mainly pure sand, had given way to sand with lots of small pebbles though still with a surrounding woodland of long-needled pines. Confusion again to my untrained eye with Peltigera hymenina but I needn’t have worried because in amongst the sparse heather was the brighter green thallus (leafy bits) of Peltigera malacea – in quantity. Phew! Just time for lots of photos before heading back towards the car. On the way I noticed the remains of several species of tooth fungi, and, in some areas, clumps of serrated wintergreen (Orthilia secunda). Somewhere nearby I knew that there would be a few plants of one flowered wintergreen (Moneses uniflora) so how appropriate it was to come across a memorial to THE lady of Culbin, the great botanist Mary McCallum Webster http://www.moray.gov.uk/museums/botanical/webster.html , who spent many hours in the forest recording the plants growing there. Now I knew what I was looking for I returned to Tulloch and started a systematic search of the sandy, pebbly area visited a few days earlier. After about half an hour I was rewarded by finding a tiny patch of a lichen with a bright green thallus – it was still here and this was the first time it had been re-found since first being recorded here 12 years ago. This may still be the only known inland site for this lichen – wicked! Several similar bits of potentially suitable habitat have been checked locally but as yet, no new sites have been found.

I didn’t really want to mention the next bit, but, after a break of just 8 months, it’s back. Snow, snow and more snow, the first arrival was on the 24 November, and by the 30th, 24 inches had fallen and with temperatures dropping to -12 degrees C, it wasn’t going anywhere fast. A talk in Strathpeffer had to be cancelled, and the car didn’t leave the house for 4 days, and then it was to undertake a hairy run to Grantown for bird food. Oh well, it has been useful to try and catch up with transferring all my records from my notebook to MapMate, and Janet has been able to stock up on tweed crafts for the next fair in early December.

Stay warm & enjoy the read.

Stewart & Janet

Grandad Lightyear by Finlay!

Ryvoan Pass sunset

All photos © Stewart Taylor

Snowed under by silks and spangles but topped by a knopper

A year ago, Janet made a brilliant decision – to attend the Haddo House Christmas craft fair and not the one at Brodie Castle. All summer long Janet was very busy making her tweed crafts for sale at the Loch an Eilean visitor centre, but went into panic mode from mid-summer making items for the two day fair at Haddo House in Aberdeenshire in early November. “How many of these do you think I should make, and what about these?” Week by week storage boxes were filled with an amazing array of goods all made from Harris tweed bought on the islands or Scottish tweed from a local supplier in Elgin. Never having attended a craft fair as big as the Haddo House event left Janet guessing a little as to what items would sell and for those that did, how many to make. Eventually, November arrived, and we set off with a car loaded to the gunnels to Aberdeenshire. Day one was setting up and days two and three selling to the hundreds of visitors who had paid their entry fees to the National Trust for Scotland who were running the fair. The Trust also have responsibility for the “big hoose” and grounds. Janet was helped throughout by daughter Laura who lives nearby. The two days of visitors and sales were blessed with frosty but glorious weather, no doubt a big help in tempting folk out to visit the event. After two very busy days we managed to get everything packed away into the wee Fiesta before heading back to Laura’s for a welcome cup of tea and glass of wine.

Haddo House is set in a large area of mature policy woodland and farmland an ideal area for me to do a bit of exploring, so once the stall was up and running, I was free to have a wander. Of interest on the first day were some of the areas of mature oak woodland, with interesting stands of old beech and Norway spruce. As we were setting up the stall it sounded as though a war had started outside as the estate must have organised a pheasant shoot ahead of the arrival of the visitors at 10am, so I just hoped it would be safe to be wandering off the tracks. As I crossed the car park to pick up my gear a dead pheasant lying in the middle of the parking area showed the guns had passed quite close by! A hint of the BBC Autumn Watch programme was also encountered on the road under the beech trees, chaffinches and bramblings were feeding on the beech nuts/mast which had fallen, the nuts having been conveniently opened by passing car tyres. The reason for heading for the oak trees was linked to a bit of work I had been doing back in Strathspey – looking for various species of galls growing on leaves and twigs. The Highland Biological Recording Group (http://www.hbrg.org.uk/Frameset.html ) had listed 3 oak leaf galls as their “species of the month” something for members to look for to add to our knowledge of their distribution in Highland Region. All of the galls I was looking for are the result of an “attack” on the tree by a group of small wasps, the gall being the end development for the wasp larva to grow in. The wasp attacks are quite complex, some occur in the spring and it is their offspring that create the galls that we see later in the year see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall_wasp for more information, but for the most detailed information see http://hedgerowmobile.com/Cynipoidea.html . At Haddo the easiest galls to look for were the spangle gall (Neuroterus quercusbaccarum) on the underside of fallen leaves and these were found quite quickly, along with the less common silk-button gall (Neuroterus numismalis). On the ground I also found several round galls which initially I thought, as most people do, were oak apples. However, these turned out to be oak marble galls (Andricus kollari). A real rarity for this part of the world would be finding the knopper gall (Andricus quercuscalicis) which, as it grows, covers the acorn. The HBRG website says “there are few if any records this far north” which seemed to be a bit of a challenge, though this gall had been found in Moray in September 2010. Raking about in the leaves on the ground just a few acorns were to be seen, perhaps this was a bit early as most of the leaves and possibly acorns, were still on the tree. However, persistence paid off and there, covering the acorn and part of the acorn cup was a strange green “bonnet” looking growth – a knopper gall, new to Aberdeenshire!

On the second sale day I was tempted by the distant view of Mither Tap O’Bennachie, the highest point in rural Aberdeen-shire (518m or 1700’ high), its distinctive shape being visible from miles around. It was a hill I saw a lot of as a youngster whilst holidaying with my parents at my granny’s house at Drumoak by the River Dee. So, with Janet and Laura delivered to Haddo, I headed for the hills. The starting point was the Forestry Commission car park by their visitor centre, following the path to Mither Tap, one of three hills which collectively make up the Bennachie range. With the sun shining, and despite the frosty day, there were lots of folk making their way up the hill, the steady climb taking me about 45 minutes to reach the Iron Age fort at its summit. On one side, the sea at Aberdeen was visible whilst in the distance in the other direction the similar distinctive shape of Benn Rinnes at Dufftown was prominent, and beyond that the Cairngorms. Brilliant. Time for a few photos from the frozen summit before heading back down to the car park keeping an eye on the clock for the end of the craft fair at Haddo. For a few interesting “tales” about Bennachie see
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/3846/bennachie.html . Back at the car by 1pm, I had just time to pop in to see Uncle Bill at Pitcaple. Darkness was falling as I got back to Haddo and with just an hour to go before the end of the event, there were still masses of folk visiting the stalls and milling around the house grounds. Tired but smiling faces at the stall indicated that the day had been a success, so a great weekend all round. And the Brodie Castle event a few weeks later? If Janet had chosen this craft fair we wouldn’t have been able to get there due to the snow!

Back in Strathspey the oak gall search continued, and the more I looked the more I found. In the general Aviemore to Grantown on Spey area there aren’t really many oak woods, only 3 good stands and a few scattered ancient trees, so there weren’t many searches to undertake. However, rooting about amongst the fallen leaves means that you don’t keep up the search for more than a few hours, so usually more than one visit was needed to carry out a reasonable search. In all the woods visited the knopper gall was found, all new to Highland Region! It even turned up under the 3 lone oaks on Abernethy. In an oak wood near Aviemore a 10mm diameter red gall turned out to be the cherry gall (Cnips quercusfolii) but a much larger (25mm) slightly spongy gall had me really puzzled, more so when I cut it open to find there was not 1 larva but many. Searching the internet for clues I came across a picture of something called the artichoke gall (Andricus fecundator), looking very like something I had picked up during the day but rejected as being a gall because of its shape – I would have to return. Eventually I found the name of the larger gall – the genuine oak apple (Biorhiza pallida), a first for inland Highland showing just how under-recorded oak galls and galls in general are. But could I re-find the discarded artichoke gall? I needn’t have worried, as I made my way back into the wood there were two of them growing proudly on a low oak branch. It also turned up in all the oak woods visited locally. Whilst in the Abernethy oaks I found what looked like a drowned eyed ladybird, on a waterlogged oak leaf, which I popped into a tube to photograph once it had dried out a little. On opening the tube 15 minutes later out it walked as large as life and was released into some dry oak leaves where hopefully it would survive the winter.

I was honoured to have an outing with a group of expert bryologists early in November. Andy at Forest Lodge had asked if I would like to accompany the group as they visited one of the forest bogs to see one of the Country’s rarest sphagnum mosses at a site Andy had found a few years earlier. The aim of the visit was to see and photograph the moss and collect, under licence (because it is so rare) a sample for retention in the herbarium at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh and a further sample to be sent for DNA analysis. Personally I have never really got to grips with sphagnum mosses so I would be totally in everyone else’s hands if I was to see the moss, but, having seen it, it might be possible to look for it when visiting other suitable bogs. The moss was Sphagnum balticum and it didn’t take the group long to find tiny cushions growing amongst the other sphagnum mosses at the site. Thank goodness there was help to hand; I would never have found the moss on my own. Although it is a tiny moss, it has a habit of growing in the top-most layer of the other sphagna, as though trying to keep itself just above the actual bog water surface. It often grows with another sphagnum moss which looks very similar – Sphagnum fallax, posing real problems for a beginner like myself. The bog we visited has a good and healthy population and, despite being next to a once occupied croft, no one has ever attempted to drain or lower the level of the water in the bog. A wonderful site particularly when compared to the hundreds of hectares of forest bog that I tried to “repair” following inherited forestry draining operations during my time working at Abernethy.

Whilst searching the various lichen identification website one night I came across an old record of a lichen, normally associated with the sand dunes of the Findhorn coast, rather than the woodland dominated habitats of Tulloch and Abernethy. The lichen is the stunningly green Peltigera malacea with many locations near Findhorn Bay and Culbin Forest, but very few recent inland sites. I recognised the approximate location of the Tulloch site so set off one morning to have a look. The only information about the location was “under a Scots pine on a slope”, but, knowing it was usually associated with sand, the possible sites would be limited. Two hours of searching and I didn’t think I had found it, something similar turned out to be Peltigera hymenina. I would need to go and see the lichen for real at the coast, with Culbin Forest possibly the best option. With camera bag and tripod loaded on my back, I set off from the car park but within 20 minutes wished that I had stopped long enough on the car park to grab one of the Forestry Commission trail leaflets. There seemed to be tracks going everywhere but thankfully, all the main junctions had numbered posts to aid navigation, so I aimed in roughly the right direction but listed the junction numbers in my notebook as I walked. Eventually I reached the general area where the lichen had been recorded about 3 years ago, so time to remove the camera bag and search a little more carefully. I noticed that the general track habitat had changed, the vegetated mainly pure sand, had given way to sand with lots of small pebbles though still with a surrounding woodland of long-needled pines. Confusion again to my untrained eye with Peltigera hymenina but I needn’t have worried because in amongst the sparse heather was the brighter green thallus (leafy bits) of Peltigera malacea – in quantity. Phew! Just time for lots of photos before heading back towards the car. On the way I noticed the remains of several species of tooth fungi, and, in some areas, clumps of serrated wintergreen (Orthilia secunda). Somewhere nearby I knew that there would be a few plants of one flowered wintergreen (Moneses uniflora) so how appropriate it was to come across a memorial to THE lady of Culbin, the great botanist Mary McCallum Webster http://www.moray.gov.uk/museums/botanical/webster.html , who spent many hours in the forest recording the plants growing there. Now I knew what I was looking for I returned to Tulloch and started a systematic search of the sandy, pebbly area visited a few days earlier. After about half an hour I was rewarded by finding a tiny patch of a lichen with a bright green thallus – it was still here and this was the first time it had been re-found since first being recorded here 12 years ago. This may still be the only known inland site for this lichen – wicked! Several similar bits of potentially suitable habitat have been checked locally but as yet, no new sites have been found.

I didn’t really want to mention the next bit, but, after a break of just 8 months, it’s back. Snow, snow and more snow, the first arrival was on the 24 November, and by the 30th, 24 inches had fallen and with temperatures dropping to -120C, it wasn’t going anywhere fast. A talk in Strathpeffer had to be cancelled, and the car didn’t leave the house for 4 days, and then it was to undertake a hairy run to Grantown for bird food. Oh well, it has been useful to try and catch up with transferring all my records from my notebook to MapMate, and Janet has been able to stock up on tweed crafts for the next fair in early December.

Stay warm & enjoy the read.

Stewart & Janet




Sunset from Ryvoan theass



Grandad Lightyear!



All photos © Stewart Taylor