A marathon month sealed with THAT KISS

Why is grandson Finlay running?

I managed to fill the garage with sawdust at the start of the month as I set about converting all the reasonable sized pieces of stacked wood, some from house building time no less, into inch by half inch strips of wood to make up into trellises. The original trellis work by the chalet had seen better days and it was time for replacements. Sawing the wood was the easy bit. I then used one of the old sections of trellis as a template and proceeded to screw the framework together. Of course I ran out of screws after the first couple of trellises as there were so many needed to secure all the joints. And then came the fun bit – painting the damn things. Round and round each square, talk about watching paint dry, with two coats it took about four hours for each one. However, by month’s end all were completed and installed; I just hope the squirrels and visiting birds appreciate what has been done for them!

Cos’ grandma’s chasing him!

To break the trellis marathon I made a dash one afternoon to a wee waterfall by the B9007 road from Carrbridge to Ferness, not visible from the road, but a gem with a nice stand of aspens, willows and birch trees. As I left the road I came upon a carcass of probably a dead mountain hare, part of which was covered in the most amazing growth of moss. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I remembered that a moss, now thought to be extinct, was last found growing on the carcass of a dead sheep (sorry about the gore) in the hills near Newtonmore and I just thought there might be a chance that this could be it. So tiny leaves were removed and set up on a slide for checking under the microscope but try as I might, I couldn’t quite find the correct features for the long lost moss. Just to be sure, a piece was sent to the UK expert on these mosses and the reply confirmed what I had thought and the moss turned out to be my old favourite from last summer, Tetraplodon mnioides the slender cruet moss. At this early stage of the season the moss lacked the characteristic red colours found later in the year with the end result that the search for the carrion moss – Aplodon wormskioldi, continues.

And then it was off to Lancashire to visit Janet’s mum (91) and family and to sample the delights of pub lunches in the nearby Ribble Valley (right). A visit to Worston produced the first willow warbler, chiffchaff and blackcap of the year, all of which seemed to follow us back up the road to Scotland. I never fail to be impressed by the fossil filled stones which make up many of the farm field walls in this area and outcrops of the same rock forming the rounded hills all around Clitheroe and Downham and one of the reasons that Ribble Cement (now Castle Cement) set up its quarrying operations between the two towns. The carboniferous limestone was created some 300 million years ago by a major marine incursion across Britain hence the abundance of marine fossils such as brachiopods, trilobites and crinoids. The limestone outcrop between Kirby Lonsdale and Silverdale, next to the RSPB Leighton Moss reserve, gives rise to some of the best examples of limestone pavement in the country supporting a wide range of lime-loving plants and insects. But back to the present. The opportunity to spend a couple of hours in this amazing landscape (whilst Janet visited Clitheroe market) was grabbed with both hands and I headed for the outcrop by the Calf’s Head at Worston. A bit early for most flowering plants I was able to make a list of birds for the final breeding season of the BTO Atlas, and to see if any of the unusual lichens of limestone, so rare in Scotland, could be found. A strange black lichen on many of the rocks turned out to be Collema auriforme and on some of the grassy areas between the sheep tracks there the remains of carline thistle. A small plant, just coming into flower and found amongst rocks and on walls was the slightly hairy rue-leaved saxifrage (above left), something new to me and quite a rare plant in Scotland.

The visit inspired me to have a look at some of the lime-rich areas close to home, and though none of them compete with the Ribble Valley outcrops, many are important in their own right, remember the dark red helleborine encounter of last summer. A visit to rocks above the river at Bridge of Brown though not limestone, produced a tiny wee fungus which is also a lichen!? called Lichenomphalina alpine (right) and new to the site along with a wee moss called drumsticks due to its reproductive “gemmae” being borne on a ball at the top of the stalk. For the “real” limestone I made a trip to Invercald on Deeside where it pops out in small sections of crag and large boulders of lime-rich rock sit at the base of the crag. On the walk from the car the first redstart of the year was singing and by the crag a ring ouzel was in fine voice. It was on one of these boulders that the lichen Solorina saccata had been recorded in the past and whilst looking for it I had been told to keep my eyes open for a very unusual puffball! The plants growing at the base of the crag indicated richness with maidenhair spleenwort, hard shield fern and shining cranes-bill to name a few. Gradually the rocky scree gave way to an area of loose, pale gravel which turned out to be the limestone outcrop. And there, by a rock outcrop was a strange greenish lichen with a dark central “eye” the reproductive apothecia, I’d found my Solorina (left) but in a completely new location to that found previously on a nearby rock. As I made my way up the steep gravely slope there was more, and more, growing in nooks and crannies for about one hundred metres. Amazing. But could I find the one growing on the rock? For about an hour I searched but on this occasion failed completely to find the lichen. However, what was the wee round growth on the top of one of the rocks (right)? – the complete but spent body of a tiny white puffball Tulostoma niveum, just the thing I had been advised to keep an eye open for. This had to be the find of the day and though it wasn’t a “fresh” puffball (they appear in September), it had all the features and characteristics as though it was. The puffball was no bigger than a 1 pence piece and it was sitting on top of a huge limestone rock weighing many tons. Currently, this site is one of only three known in the UK, and though it has been found on several rocks at this site it remains a very rare fungus.

On the 10 April the first of this seasons RSPBs butterfly transects was walked, a small tortoiseshell being the only butterfly recorded and on returning home the remainder of last seasons parsnips were lifted. The following day I attended a meeting to discuss the possibility of being involved in an Osmia uncinata (mason bee) nest box project. It is thought that one of the limiting factors in the bees lifecycle is the lack of suitable nest sites which, as far as is known, is the vacated holes, in dead trees, of long-horned beetle larvae. The projects aim is to see whether by providing artificial nest “boxes” the bee can breed more successfully. A nest box comprises a piece of plastic drain pipe, blocked at one end and the pipe filled with small cardboard tubes, 6 – 8mm in diameter. In all, 100 boxes are to be installed at 15 sites where I recorded the bee during a survey in 2007. After the meeting a day was spent sourcing materials to allow the nest boxes to be fixed to suitable trees. The nest boxes are to be delivered by the end of April allowing installation to take place before the bees emerge in early June. Watch this space. Visits to a couple of lime-rich sites produced a new location for (left) purple saxifrage (Inshriach) and moschatel with loads of cowslips (right -Tomintoul) the latter visit re-finding locations for the lichens Lobaria pulmonaria (lungwort) and Peltigera rufescens previously recorded in this area in 1968.

I managed to discuss my limestone searches with near neighbour Donald, a geologist, and a day later an email arrived suggesting I should visit a site by the A939 Lecht ski road where Donald knew (from his geology maps) that over a hundred years ago limestone had been mined to burn in lime kilns before spreading the resultant “quicklime” on the farm fields. The visit didn’t disappoint and after an afternoons search I had found a new site for the Solorina lichen, and new sites for moschatel (left), mare’s tail from a wee lochan, an amazing white scale insect (right) and, in the last juniper bush visited, a ‘post-it-note yellow’ lichen Vulpicida pinastri. As I looked further into the juniper bush a mass of orange coloured “tentacles” were seen covering the main stem of the bush, this was a strange fungus with a double life called Gymnosporangium clavariforme (both shown below left - don’t you just love these Latin names!) which appears first on its primary host juniper, from which spores are released in April. The spores travel on the wind until they meet their secondary host either hawthorn bushes or apple trees and there the fungus appears again in the autumn but in the form of yellowish depressions on their leaves. This outing resulted in my first tick bite of the year. Studying a section of geology map borrowed from Donald I noticed another small outcrop of limestone by a burn near Bridge of Brown. I visited the site a few days later and found that there was a major quarry of similar age to the Lecht one complete with on-site lime kiln. Inside the mouth of the kiln was another group of moschatel flowers, a first for this particular 10 km square. On my climb back to the road my delight at finding a rare lichen for these parts Sticta sylvatica growing on an ancient willow was somewhat reduced when I found (yet another) dead buzzard.

The third week of April will be remembered for its sunny days, lack of rain and daily night frosts which caused havoc in the Firwood garden. The flowers which had been tempted to push on during the hot days (20+ degrees C) were all laid low by temperatures as low as -4 degrees C. The sun worked wonders on the butterfly transect and in addition to green-veined whites and orange tips, one section on the moor produced 21 green hairstreaks (right), more than is normally recorded in a whole season. Netted mountain moth and cream spot ladybird were also found. On the 24 April Janet attended her first Cairngorms Farmers Market in Aviemore an interesting day and a new outlet for her crafts (see http://www.cairngorms-farmers-market.com/index.html and click on Craft Producers). An amazing day where a patch of grass was converted into a tented market in about an hour and all packed away in about half that time at the end of the day, all by the stall-holders themselves.

The most emotional day of the month had to be the 26th. The day started early with my early morning tramp over the hill to complete my first breeding bird survey of the year for the BTO (http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/bbs ) and then it was into the car to drive over to daughter Laura’s for the local planners decision on an application to install two 80m high wind turbines within a 1000m of Laura and Douglas’s home. The nearest home was half that distance. A year ago I did an independent bird survey of the proposed turbine site to help with the resident’s objection to the application, though at the end of the day this sort of data seems to carry little weight with the planners. The meeting started at 2pm with applicant and objectors assembled for the decision. Short presentations were given by both sides before the Councillors had their say on whether they would support or object to the application. The tally list in my notebook showed most seemed to be against and eventually the chairman of proceedings brought the meeting to a close by saying planning consent would be refused. It took a few moments for what had just been said to sink in but when it did the Cairncake objectors/residents clapped their approval to the planners decision. Tears flowed, hugs all round and huge relief after two years of hard work by all those involved (right). Will there be an appeal? It would be hoped not but watch this space. The objectors exposed many flaws in the application, the planning process and the way the turbine company collate their data and to see what they found visit http://www.cawt.co.uk/index.php?page=cairncake .

The end of the month was sealed with THAT KISS though I was baby-sitting at the time.

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

Stewart & Janet

Blackburn Rovers stayed in the Premiership but Accrington just failed to gain promotion

Bridge of Brown lime-kiln

Sister-in -Law Paula (right) -London Marathon 17 April 2011 & famous back-drop

All photos © Stewart Taylor

So close, just 221,567 miles away!

What a joy, as I write we have green grass, singing willow warblers and spring bursting out all over. Great, though it does mean more time outside and a slight delay in getting the diary for March written. Without one you don’t get the other! Despite the month officially being part of the winter period it was good botanically, all brought about by my favourite green shield-moss. An email arrived from the Forestry Commissions Ecologist saying that he had found a group of moss capsules on a decaying branch which had fallen from an ancient willow in Inshriach Forest, with an approximate grid reference. A week later I managed to head to the site and on the branch, counted 21 bright green capsules. Colin had also said that a couple of rock outcrops nearby might be worth visiting as they “seemed quite good for mosses and lichens”. Hmm, how could I resist having a look. The first outcrop had a few young aspen trees sprouting from its face and a few fairly standard plants, mosses and lichens. The second outcrop immediately started to show it was something better. Again, there were groups of young, but older aspen trees and the trunk of the first was covered with a fairly local lichen in this area (Nephroma laevigatum), something a little unusual for a young aspen tree. A crested tit calling close by reminded me that I wasn’t on a mountain, but in a pinewood. With the rock towering above me I made my way gingerly along the jumble of rocks at their base wishing I had the ability to put names to much of what I was seeing. All along the damper rock were clumps of apple moss (Bartramia pomiformis). The first hint of something special was a huge population of Peltigera britannica, and a clump of evergreen leaves/fronds of hard shield fern, hinting at the rock being a bit lime-rich. A tiny leaf with a very spiky edge caught my eye and made me think of holly fern! Hmm, if this was holly fern the site would be even more special. As is usual with me I spent a while photographing the wee plant so that I could check my photo with the flower book once I got home. I needn’t have bothered, within a few more metres I could see an explosion of fern fronds all with saw-like projections along their edges (left) confirming without doubt that this was holly fern something I hadn’t seen for decades. The more I looked the more I found – brilliant. Another group of leaves looked like mossy saxifrage, confirmed once I got home, and as I was starting to run out of time and daylight I came upon a wee damp recess protected by a rock overhang, and there was another fern which had me scratching my head. It was a spleenwort but was it maidenhair or green? A closer inspection showed the base of the stem was black but the rest higher up the plant was green (right), confirming green spleenwort (Asplenium viride) perhaps a better find than the holly fern. Both ferns only grow on rock with a high calcium content, so this place was turning out to be quite special. When I got home the first thing I did was check the distribution maps (NBN Gateway) for all the species listed above, and all turned out to be new to the area, it was fairly obvious that nobody of note had checked out the site previously. Hopefully I will have tempted a few of the plant, lichen and moss experts to see what is “really” present at this amazing site.

Frogs and toads have been very obvious this month with the usual carnage on the road into Nethybridge and along the road by Loch Garten, involving mainly toads. I found my first frog on the move (left) on a visit to Abernethy on 3 March the same day I saw a tussock of cotton grass in full flower. A few days later Bruce, our neighbour said I should see his wee garden pond as it was full of croaking frogs and would I like to photograph them. Having sat, no, knelt for over an hour doing something similar at a pool in the forest I thought this was too good an opportunity to miss, no carrying of heavy camera bag and tripod for miles and I could sit on a wee stool to boot! So in relative comfort, I sat for an hour watching about 25 frogs cavorting around setting about producing the current season’s crop of frogspawn (right). Another couple of days later I was at the Osprey Centre advising about tooth fungi location so that a seat could be installed without damaging known sites and the first thing that greeted me as I set off up the track was a “paired” set of toads heading ultimately I would guess, to Loch Garten. Before reaching the Centre another 6 toads were encountered.

It happened! The “lambing snows” arrived mid-month, with 10” falling over-night and posing a few travel problems for a couple of days. For a second year in succession a school bus, complete with pupils left the B970 road, just before the Loch Garten turn off. Not sure why as we drove past the same spot fifteen minutes earlier and the road seemed fine. Perhaps driving a little slower would help! The snow ensured I stayed in doors for a couple of days finalising a talk on tooth fungi for the Highland Biological Recording Group AGM a week later. Ironically, the same talk should have been given last November but the AGM had to be cancelled because of SNOW! Wood was also cut for making new trellises for around the chalet. A brilliantly sunny day on 18th saw the snow start to melt but I also saw the potential for a nice Cairngorms sunset photo, the only trouble being the best location would be at Rynettin, a mile up into the forest from Forest Lodge. As I drove up the track towards the Lodge I wasn’t too sure that I had made a sensible decision, eight inches of remaining snow in Nethybridge developed into a foot or more by the track at Forest Lodge. Leaving the car, with full camera gear on my back, I set out up the track to Rynettin, the first person since the snow to walk this track, not what you need when you are also running a bit late. To compound the problem the clear blue sky which had tempted me out on this journey had also started to cloud over. Nothing ventured nothing gained so I plodded my way through the snow up the hill to Rynettin. To the north, behind me, the hills were bathed in the light of the setting sun, the Cairngorms when I reached Rynettin on the other-hand, were half covered in low cloud! As I hung about, cooling down, a tiny patch of sunlight appeared on the slopes of Bynack More, slowly expanding to cover most of the mountain ten minutes later – I was going to be in luck. Despite the snow a blackbird flew past to head for its roost site in a group of Norway spruces by the farm buildings. This is a rare bird in Abernethy so what on earth this bird was up to baffled me. The Cairngorms were now starting to glow with late evening sunshine (left) and with the camera mounted on the tripod I tried hard to capture the developing scene in front of me. It sort of worked but none of the pictures really interpreted what I was seeing. As the frost was developing I noticed a large full moon starting to poke its head above the horizon to the east, a setting sun and a rising moon, what an evening. As the sunlight was rapidly disappearing from the Cairngorms the moon also disappeared behind a huge bank of cloud. Help, it was six-o-clock so a quick call was made to Janet to say sorry, but I was already late for dinner (again!) and I was still half an hour from the car, even after packing up the camera gear. As the sun finally disappeared for another day the snow covered mountains took on a sort of beautiful blue/grey colouring before they finally headed towards the darkness of night. Time to head down the hill. However, the clouds to the east parted and the full moon pops out in all its glory. Sorry Janet, but the camera bag is unpacked again and the lense pointed at the moon suspended as it was between Carn a’ Chnuic and Carn Bheadhair. And this wasn’t any old moon, this was the “super moon” the closest it had been to good old earth for 20 years a mere 221,567 miles away, not that it looked any different to me though it did help light my way back down the track to the car! As the white and yellow plants of spring started to appear it was time to catch up with one of the less conspicuous species – lesser chickweed (Stellaria pallida), a mainly coastal species with just a few inland locations. One of the inland sites is near to Cromdale and travelling to see it here and the habitat it occupies might help lead to new finds elsewhere. The plant is fairly prostrate, and with tiny, petal-less flowers is very easy to overlook (right) so travelling to see it would only help with searches elsewhere. Inspired by my success in finding the wee spotty Peltigera didactyla lichen highlighted in the last diary I did a detour on my way back from Cromdale to visit an old disused sandy quarry near Dulnain Bridge, could lesser chickweed and the lichen be here? In many parts of the quarry the banks were still quite “mobile” and unsuitable for lichens and specialist plants to establish themselves, but the old quarry floor was quite different and, despite the vast amounts of very young regenerating birch trees, the lichen was found (left), and in quantity. The quarry also produced my first wheatear of the year, lots of rabbits and a site with huge potential for digger wasps and solitary bees later in the year.

Regarding solitary bees I have been invited to help with an Osmia uncinata nest box project during the coming summer months so watch this space. I had my first peacock butterfly (right) on Deeside on 24th and we had a roding woodcock circling the house on 29th.

That’s it, for another month, enjoy the read. Stewart & Janet

Saviours of the countryside in action with redshank, lapwing & black-headed gulls looking on

Job done. Wader habitat destruction still goes on & this is 2011!

Parsnips are better after a little frost - not bad after 3 months frozen in the ground

All photos © Stewart Taylor

STOP PRESS. Sister-in-law Paula completed the London Marathon, today, in 4 hours and 3 minutes. What a brilliant effort and well done Paula. If you would like to help Paula’s chosen charity please visit: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserPage.action?userUrl=PaulaTaylor&faId=93057&isTeam=false as every little helps.

Van valeting & sales, house repairs & posing by big rocks and trees

It was Janet’s turn for waxwings this month with 20-30 perching briefly in the Firwood apple tree whilst she sat having her coffee. They all flew off with about a dozen returning briefly, completely ignoring apples that Janet had halved and thrown out for them, before disappearing never to be seen again. Just as well I didn’t dash back from the forest to try and see them. Up to 16 have been seen recently four miles away in Tulloch, feeding on juniper berries and a few insects that have been emerging on some of the warmer days. Yes, the temperature reached a balmy 12 degrees C on a couple of days and overall February was quite a good month with more days of sunshine than appears to have been the case further south. The longer days and the rise in temperature saw a mini dawn chorus developing by the end of the month, robins to the fore but also “singing” crested tits, coat tits and chaffinches spreading out into the forest. Mistle thrushes were also clearing their throats and the first song thrush was heard in the village on the 23rd where my first local wren of the year was heard singing on 19th. As the first snowdrops pushed up through the soil Janet was busy catching up on garden tidying jobs so abruptly stopped by the heavy snows way back in November. Best of all, warm feet in the wellies, but only when the sun shone! Will we get the “lambing snows” – watch this space.

Quite a bit of the month was spent getting Ruth and family moved to their new accommodation near Kingussie, despite having promised everyone that my days of house removals was over! Re-wiring TV aerials, shelf fixing and sorting the wood burning stove was all good fun, but lending a hand to clean Ruth’s VW crew-bus every time a potential buyer turned up was something new and the smell of Turtle wax polish will live long with me. A real bonus though was driving to the cottage for the first time and saying to Ruth that her surrounding woodland looked like it might be good for leafy lichens just in time to see the first leafy growth of lungwort waving to us from one of the trees. Running through the trees was a nice wee burn and immediately I could see the potential for a good day out. Good move!

Finding big willows in the Ryvoan Pass in Glenmore led to an invite from the Forestry Commission to attend a training day for land managers, similar to something that had been organised in Abernethy a few years ago. The aim of the day was to highlight the importance of their estates for lower plants and attending the day were three experts, Liz Holden for fungi, John Douglass for lichens and Gordon Rothero for bryophytes. I had been invited along to lead the way to the “big willows” if time allowed towards the end of the outing. The problems and expense of micro-managing for the lower plants was raised but just generally being a little “untidy” when thinning woodland was agreed as a possible way forward. The suggestion of leaving all dead trees standing if possible, the odd pile of logs left on the ground and a bit of small-scale ground disturbance by management machinery (there are few manual chainsaw operators these days) would all be beneficial. Both Gordon and Liz have appeared in earlier Firwood diaries and it was great that on this day out, both would have a wee role to play. The first was Gordon (the original green shield-moss expert) when the group stopped in an area where large-scale removal of exotic conifers had taken place some ten years earlier. As the work on the site was being explained by Richard from the Forestry Commission, Gordon was beckoning me over to see something he had found right at his feet. On one of the rotting logs left after the felling were two bright green capsules of the green shield moss (right) – brilliant, and a perfect example of being a little “untidy”. The day had been organised by Plantlife Scotland, and in the delegates pack was a copy of their booklet on management aimed at helping this very moss! See http://www.plantlife.org.uk/uploads/documents/Green_Shield-moss_and_other_deadwood_mosses_mgt_guide_FINAL_PDF_lr.pdf . There was time to visit the willows on the way back to Glenmore Lodge and there was just time to show Liz a huge fungus that I had found on my earlier visit, growing out of a section of a large dead willow. The large, crumbly fungus which was way passed its best, did pose a problem for instant identification, so Liz took a small piece away with her. An email the following day gave the name of the fungus as – “chicken of the wood” or Laetiporus sulphurous, something new to the site. Not the best photo (left) but the log on which the fungus is growing is about two foot in diameter.

I am afraid that the rest of the month has seen me wandering up wee burns and rivers, checking out sites where folk thought they might have seen examples of these mighty willows. A wee burn near Dulnain Bridge produced a few rarer pinhead lichens but no big leafy species. A pair of buzzards were also busy nest building. The burn by Ruth’s cottage was better and produced lots of trees with lungwort (Lobaria pulmonaria), a tree with Degelia plumbea (right) and an aspen with Pannaria conoplea with “fruits” or apothecia, something quite rare. The best outing was to try and re-find a big willow near the Allt Mor burn, running down from the Cairngorm ski-grounds. In perfect weather on the drive to the site, the snow capped Cairngorms (left), from the B970 road near Coylumbridge, were crying out for everyone to stop and photograph them, which many were doing. I parked by the ski-road and made my way along the Allt Mor trail looking for old willows along the way. Twice I crossed the Allt Mor burn running fast with melt water from the Cairngorms to check out biggish willows the second occasion proving too much for my wellies and one of them took a fill of icy water. I needn’t have bothered, the willow I was looking for was right by the path and what a beauty it was (right). The basal part of the tree trunk was angled at about 45 degrees allowing a less than vertical section to develop a great covering of mosses and lichens with masses of lungort, a minimum of 3 species of Peltigera and, in a slightly hollow section near the base, a group of greenish pinhead lichens – Chaenotheca furfuracea. The roaring burn was also quite impressive and the camera was pointed at it and with a slow shutter speed a classic photo of blurred water and rocks was achieved. The more I look for these ancient trees with their important populations of lichens and bryophytes the more worried I become about where the next generation is coming from. When ancient trees are found they are usually approaching death and, with the heavy snows of the last two winters huge limbs have been broken off and in some cases the trees themselves have been toppled. Birches, aspens, willows and rowans all reaching senility but with little evidence of the next generation of young trees becoming established. If these self-contained wee nature reserves are lost there is currently a gap of 2-300 years before anything similar will be available nearby. I think this has to be the next crusade to try and safeguard this important resource. Perhaps a start will be to try and measure all my important trees and get them added to the Woodland Trust ancient tree map though not sure this will provide any protection or regeneration action. Perhaps time to contact the amazing campaigner Ted Green – Ancient Tree Man http://frontpage.woodland-trust.org.uk/ancient-tree-forum/atfnews/news03/030103.htm , perhaps he can set me along the right road.

In between times, we managed to purchase a red deer carcass from RSPB so a day was spent skinning and preparing the venison for storage in the freezer. The best meat and organically grown to boot. Two outings in Abernethy proved interesting. The first was into a section of the Abernethy Reserve known as Rymore where a wander through a couple of bogs and along a wee burn lead me towards the top of the “hill”. Along the boundary fence was one of the best areas of dense juniper scrub I have seen in a while the area looking ideal for pine martens and wild cats. Pine marten scats were seen but there wasn’t a sign of any cats. To aid my return to the road and car I got out my compass and headed straight back down the hill. Strange leaves were found which belonged to a whitebeam which must have been established via tree seed in a birds dropping. My straight line then took me towards a very large rock (an erratic?) and on the forest floor close by was a tiny plant of twinflower, possibly a recent seedling. The 50-odth site for Abernethy. A pose by the rock was needed to give an idea of size.

The second outing was again a “cross country” outing wandering through the pinewood towards Loch a’ Chnuic. In the distance a large mound caught my eye which, as I got closer, turned out to be a fallen Scots pine tree, as big as anything I have seen. A search of the sections of trunk which weren’t covered in snow couldn’t find anything unusual but some tiny leaves hanging from the underside of the trunk turned out to be not liverworts but a tiny moss called Tetraphis pellucida and a sphagnum moss on the upturned root had the wonderful name of Sphagnum quinquefarium (left). Again, a pose by the leviathan was needed to show just how big it was. The tree looked like it had been lying there for a couple of decades and would continue to decay, in situ, over the next hundred years or so.

Find of the month has to be another lichen, Peltigera malacea (see the December diary). A BTO bird recording outing to Kinchurdy, near Boat of Garten lead me through a mixture of brilliant bog, birch woodland and ancient aspens. Dropping down through the trees to check out one of the thawing lochs I came across a shallow, sandy depression and there on the sandy ground was a bright green lichen Peltigera leucophlebia, a lichen I had only seen once before. But what was that even brighter green lichen looking up at me?– Peltigera malacea, a species with only one other current inland site, in an ex-quarry near Nethybridge. The birds were forgotten about for the next hour or so as I searched the sandy hollow a little more thoroughly along with the surrounding heathery hillside. About 6 clumps of the lichen were found in the sandy hollow along with 3 more on the heathery hillside. Brilliant. A return visit was made with the “good” camera a few days later and a copy of one of the photos emailed to the experts for full confirmation. “Do you realise that Peltigera mebranacea and didactyla (left) are also in the photo?” came back the reply – 4 in 1 (above right), not bad, particularly as the latter is also quite a rare lichen locally, meaning another trip to see how much was present and to take another photo! The last photo was forwarded to Mike at British Lichens to add to his amazing lichen gallery (see http://www.uklichens.co.uk/species/Peltigera%20didactyla%20small.jpg ). A nice end to a day’s bird-watching. On the same outing the first fresh shoots of cotton grass were seen on one of the bogs the reason why, a few days later when on another bird recording outing, I flushed 4 females and a male black grouse from an extensive area of boggy ground in Abernethy Forest. Black grouse, deer and sheep all head for the bogs at this time of year to feed on this first flush of new plant growth. Spring is a-comin’.

Congratulations go to sister-in law Paula who was successful in her application for a place in this years London Marathon. Well done, and we all look forward to trying to spot you on the telly on the big day.

That’s it, enjoy the read.

Stewart & Janet

A frozen Loch a' Chnuic & Cairngorm

Sunset Crofts of Tulloch


All photos © Stewart Taylor

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