A tale of two cowslips and another pine marten encounter

The changeable weather of late April delayed my visits to the BTO breeding bird recording squares and with good weather forecast for the first few days of May it was up early on the 1st. and a peep out of the curtains showed a bright if misty sky. As I travelled towards Grantown on Spey it was headlights on as I started to encounter mist and by the time I was heading down the back road to Cromdale I was beginning to wish I

had stayed in bed! I got to the car parking place and despite the mist the birds were singing and with most of the survey relying on hearing birds, off I went. This survey is based on walking out along one side of a one kilometre map square, counting whilst you walk across country to the other edge of the map square and then heading back towards your starting point. The first forestry section was completed in the mist but on the return leg along a road with farmland either side the mist had lifted and it was possible to see some birds as well as hear them. Nothing too unusual was recorded, but 28 species were seen or heard, the commonest being chaffinch (24 contacts), wood pigeon (17) and willow warbler (13). By the time I returned to the car there were bits of blue sky appearing, so much so that later in the day it was sunny enough to walk the butterfly transect. The next day it was up again early to do the second breeding bird square, the one that goes over the steep hill with the two cairns and a telephone mast on top. All looked well until I got to the base of the hill when once

again the mist rolled in, but, being a hill, I thought the mist would clear as I climbed. Wrong! However, the route is simple enough so there was no problem in undertaking the double crossing of the hill top. Muir burn (heather burning) had been undertaken over a good part of half of the return leg, taking in huge swathes of hillside rather than the recommended regular thin strips ensuring this part of the survey area will remain very definitely in the MAMBA category for birds, including red grouse, for the next few years. Sorry, MAMBA is shorthand for “miles and miles of B all”. It really is appalling what we are allowed to do to our countryside in the name of sport. One benefit of the removal of heather by burning was the un-earthing of an unusual spiky moss (above right) called large white moss (Leucobryum glausum).  With a bit of woodland in the square 19 species were recorded the commonest being a flock of common crossbills (10) and meadow pipit (7), though a pair of golden plover was nice.

Not to be caught out for a third day I stayed in bed on the next morning when really I needed to be up and about to carryout the local farm wader survey. This survey relies heavily on visuals rather than sounds and with another misty start the survey would have been impossible. So after popping in to vote (local council

elections) and with the sun shining, it was off to Delnabo near Tomintoul for a walk, calling in at The Gallery in the village to drop off some of Janet’s tweed crafts on the way through. As we walked I made a list of the birds seen and heard for the BTO Bird Track programme and it was nice to see my first blaeberry bumblebee (Bombus monticola) of the year and hear my first cuckoo. The weather forecast for the next few days was looking pretty poor again so in the evening I headed out to do the first of four visits to my regular farm wader survey area, postponed from earlier in the day. The only problem with doing the survey in the evening, which is allowed, is that there is a very definite deadline – the time it gets too dark to see, whereas carrying it out at dawn there are no such problems if you encounter a few delays along the way. Another problem is that if the weather is good there is every chance that the farmers might be still working, as was the case. At one end of the survey area lime was being spread and at the other a recently sown field was being rolled. Having surveyed this field an hour earlier (the survey takes about 3 hours) I knew there were three sitting lapwings and one oystercatcher and though the farmer made every effort to avoid the nests by lifting the eggs, rolling and then putting the eggs back, it was a while before the birds felt happy enough to return to their incubation duties by which time some nests were lost to marauding common gulls. Also, with the weather having changed for the worst at the end of March, many fields had still to be harrowed and sown, a few still to be ploughed, so lots of upheaval to come for birds trying to breed. As it was getting almost too

dark to see I was heading back towards my starting point via a nice piece of birch woodland when I remembered to look out for a small group of cowslips by the track, and sure enough, there they were as found originally in 2005 and again in 2010 during earlier wader surveys. There was just time for a photo(above left), despite the darkness, before pushing on to complete the survey. The next day it snowed! The day after that remained very cold and all the swallows, sand martins and house martins from miles around seemed to converge on the River Spey by Broomhill Bridge to try and find any insects that were hardy enough to be on the wing. Thankfully the weather warmed up a bit on the Sunday for the Nethy Spring Gathering, where Janet had a craft stall for the day (white tent right), the splash of sun tempting good numbers of folk out to visit the stalls and to enjoy the entertainment.

For over a year ex workmate Andy had been extolling the virtues of a patch of ancient mixed broadleaved woodland near Grantown, and he repeated this when I queried the identification of a plant I had found on

my visit to Huntly’s Cave. The plant I was having trouble with was a golden saxifrage, was it opposite leaved or alternate leaved, and to help with my query he suggested I visit the ancient woodland site where I would find both species growing side by side, so, with the perfect excuse, off I went. The first good plant I encountered was moschatel growing next to a group of the first leaves of figwort. Next, the birch trees gave way to aspens, big, ancient aspens along with old willows and enormous elms. In between were hazel bushes many of which were dripping with lungwort lichen (Lobaria pulmonaria), a rare feature in this part of the Highlands and more akin to woodland around Loch Ness and further west. Big elms like these have the potential to be home to the rare RDB lichen I had found on a rock face a couple of months ago Gyalecta ulmi, and before the UK elm population was devastated by Dutch elm disease, elm trees were the main habitat

for the lichen. There were quite a lot of elms to check in this wood, so this would require a dedicated visit at a future date, but there on the track below the first of the elms was opposite-leaved golden saxifrage (above left) and a little further down the slope its close but rarer relative alternate-leaved golden saxifrage (right), quite different once seen. What a wood, ancient, and on this first brief visit, as good as anything I had seen locally for lungwort lichens, but what would the Gyalecta ulmi lichen look like on a tree rather than on a rock face? A return visit would have to be made to the amazing wood at Inverfarigaig, the only site in the North of Scotland where the lichen has been recorded growing on an elm tree.

So, the next day it was off up the A9, along the minor road past the RSPB Reserve at Loch Ruthven and on to Inverfarigaig just in time for the rain to start falling. So it was on with the waterproofs before I made my way up the hill to the ancient wych elm where

the rare lichen was known to occur, and sure enough, there it was (left), growing over several square centimetres of the tree bark. The only difference between the lichen here and at my rocky site was the lichen on the tree had lost the “apricot jam” centres to the disc-shaped apothecia, probably due to the attention of slugs and snails. As I checked the trunk a little higher up there were a few more bits of the lichen but most unusual was finding a snail hanging down from a section of bark, most unexpected. Mollusc expert Richard identified the snail as Clausilia bidentata (below right), a reasonably common species but a new record for this particular location. Back down on the minor road I spotted something bright red growing on a dead spruce branch and on closer inspection it turned out to be the scarlet elf cup fungus (Sarcosypha austriaca). Another unusual lichen was also known to grow on another elm nearby and the clue to the correct tree was that when the
lichen was last photographed there was an old bird nest box at the base of the tree, so the search was on, but first find the nest box. I was less than confident of finding the latter, so much so that I travelled light and left my rucksack and camera behind to allow for easier clambering over jumbles of rocks. Eventually I reached the base of the main crag and was pleasantly surprised to find good patches of flowering shining cranebill (below left), and close by clumps of climbing corydalis, both rare plants on my home patch. There were just a few elms along the base of the crag and eventually
in a wee hollow I found my fallen nestbox and in the hollowed out base of the adjacent tree, there was the Bacidia incompta lichen. Now where was that camera! The trip back down and up the hill though did have a useful ending – finding Peltigera britannica a lichen missing from the earlier survey. Armed with this “elm lichen” information I was ready for a return to my Grantown wood.

Mid-month and it was time for the second recording visit for the farm wader survey and with a -2.5 degree frost overnight, conditions were clear but cool. As I parked up at 5.45am and headed out across the first field I was aware of the sound of a helicopter close-by overhead and as I reach the high-point of the field, a good vantage point to scan several of the fields ahead, I could see a whole host of flashing lights in the distance on the A95 road, and just at that moment the wee yellow air ambulance dropped into view and landed on the road by vehicles and their flashing lights. Even from a long distance I could see that there had

been a head-on collision between a car and a delivery van, the van stopped at an angle on the road but the car, minus its roof which had been removed to gain access to its passengers, up on the grass verge. The road approaching the crash was full of lorries, some of which had decided the road would be closed for some time, and were in the process of finding places to turn around. As I got back to my starting point three hours later, the A95 had been closed and the traffic was now zooming by on the B970; it looked like accident investigators were

now at the scene. It had been a ‘not too bad’ wader morning, there were 3 lapwings sitting on re-lays in the ploughed/rolled field, a pair with very young chicks, a pair of oystercatchers looking like they would nest in a field that had yet to be sown (fingers crossed) and redshanks were alarmed enough at my presence in two locations to indicate they had intact nests nearby. In the wee birch wood the cowslips were still flowering and in one of the last fields to be checked there was a sea of flowering dandelions. Amazingly, the van driver and the two passengers in the car all survived the crash but the road remained closed for over 12 hours. Back home it was time to start sorting out photos for a talk in the Boat of Garten village hall at the end of June along with a quick snooze for and hour before heading up the road to the Black Isle to meet up with Dave (SNH) and Giles (FCS) to see a new site for the green shield-moss. Some day!

The sun came out for long enough on the 20th to allow another of the weekly butterfly transects near Loch

Garten to be completed, though only green-veined whites and orange tips (female right) were seen. Insects in general have just not had the chance to get going this month with the cooler weather predominating. On the edge of Tulloch Moor a wee ground bug by the name of the pine cone bug (Gastrodes grossipes left) was found, though it took a little help from Stephen at the HBRG to get exactly the right name. This was a first for Abernethy NNR. In the afternoon I made a return visit to the
Grantown wood and a start was made to check the elms and all the aspens and willows in between, a job that was going to take several days of searching. Sadly I was unable to find either of the rare elm lichens seen at Inverfarigaig though many had good populations of lungwort along with other lichens that an expert might be able identify. On a couple of rock outcrops the very local grass mountain melick (Melica untans right) was found
plus a couple of jackdaw nest in deep holes in amongst the rocks. Find of that week though was common twayblade in three places close to the River Spey at Spey Bridge, the two big basal leaves being the giveaway and with tiny flowering stems just starting to appear from between them. Then a miracle happened and the sun came out for a couple of days which pushed the temperature to 30 degrees C before breaking down with torrential downpours. It looked like our trip to Lancashire to see Janet’s mum the next day could be fun, particularly on the motorways.

The next day we were up bright and early as we packed and got ready for an

early-ish start to our journey south. I was in the process of packing up my rucksack when Janet shouted from upstairs “the pine marten is in the squirrel feeder”, meaning drop everything, grab camera and telephoto lens, and dash upstairs to see if I could manage a photo before it disappeared. As I got to the upstairs window with camera and lens just about assembled, Janet said it was off and I was too late, annoying really, ‘cos the camera was now ready! “It’s going up the nest box tree” and sure enough, in a flash, the marten was at the box (the tall one in the garden with 3 holes) poking its head right into the slightly enlarged, bottom hole! By this time the resident starlings, with their young in the middle hole, were going bananas, but the marten continued to try to get into the bottom section of the box. The starlings screaming attracted several jackdaws which in turn attacked the marten, which, after yet another attempt to get into

the bottom hole, decided it was time for a swift exit, and off it went through the trees. In all the mayhem we were fairly certain that one of the young starlings had made a bolt for it, taking its chance at an early attempt to fly rather than fall prey to the marten. Eventually everything calmed down and within 15 minutes the starlings were once again bringing in food to their brood. So, a little later than planned, we headed south with window-wipers on until Glasgow, arriving in Lancashire to a sunny evening. Several days of socialising followed with trips out to various eating venues in the Ribble Valley. On a free evening we headed out to an old quarry site at Clitheroe, once part of the massive Ribble Cement limestone quarrying empire, to see what was flowering and in the hope that we might have seen an early orchid or two – particularly bee orchid. We weren’t that lucky but did see lots of cowslips, water avens (left), a single
spring cinquefoil and flowering guelder rose, to name a few. Then, after a few days in the company of an amazing nonagenarian, it was back up the road in time to greet our next chalet guests.

That’s it for another month; blame the plants, birds etc for lateness.

Enjoy the read.

Stewart and Janet

The amazing nonagenarian – Janet’s mum











Lesser swallow prominent moth
















The famous Pendle Hill - witch country

All photos © Stewart Taylor

Beautiful ptarmigan in the garden

Whoa!  Too good to last?  Those heady days of 20+ degrees centigrade disappeared just as

quickly as the month of March, and as April appeared over the horizon so did the clouds.  The weather-folk did say we were in for a shock after the warmth of March and the real shock came in the form of a white covering from mountain tops to Nethybridge and surrounds – snow!  Thankfully Janet got the craft fair at Badaguish out of the way before the snows and chalet visitors David, Anne and Marie had a successful visit to Caper-watch, but by mid-week the arctic blast had arrived turning everything “bright and crisp and even”.  Perfect timing to progress my tooth fungi write up for Field Mycology, but with cabin fever setting in after a day I headed out, along the B970, down to the River Spey via

 Tomachrochar and then along the river to Broomhill Bridge.  The pink-feet were still present in one snowy field with an estimate of about 300, with 3 whooper swans by the river.  Farmland waders were gathered on one particular field, possibly ploughed, harrowed and sown, so lots of bare ground but mostly covered with snow.  The same field had a group of about 50 golden plovers, brought down from the hills by the wintery weather and on the river there were still displaying male goldeneye.  The whole circuit

produced 48 species of birds, and a new site for the wee pink lichenicolous fungus, Marchandiomyces aurantiacus mentioned in the last diary.  On returning home a beautiful snow sculpture had appeared in the garden courtesy of Marie, a winter plumaged ptarmigan.  The birch tree buds bursting into leaf at the time of writing the last diary were brought to a shuddering halt and even now in late May few are fully emerged.

It is always interesting visiting the Highland Biological Recording Group website (http://www.hbrg.org.uk/Frameset.html ) as there are often links to other web-pages, and a link in late March to the Scottish Fungi website which, like HBRG also has a species of the month in the hope that folk will go looking and add new records/locations for their database.  This request was for the Ebony Cup fungus (http://sites.google.com/site/scottishfungi/species-profiles/pseudoplectania-nigrella ) possibly a rare species with few Scottish records and, always

prepared for a new challenge, I started looking!  Liz, who writes the request, told me that her ebony cup site had produced a new crop of fruiting bodies this year and that the site was a moss covered detached branch of a Scots pine, so I visited possible sites.  A paragraph in the diary doesn’t really convey the time spent looking for something new and with several hour-long visits to various bits of Abernethy pinewood and nothing found, there’s no nice ‘fists in the air photo’ to show success.  However, what isn’t quite

so obvious is what else is found whilst looking – something I have mentioned many times before.  An outing near the dragonfly pool on the Loch Garten road produced a new site for the green shield-moss, and another on the other side of the road a record of a strange wee beastie called a common ground-hopper - Tetrix undulata (above right), a rarer variety with longer wings found in the Highland pinewoods.  Close to the track to Forest Lodge, searches found more good lichens on juniper bushes and for about 12

hours I thought that I had found the elusive Ebony Cup, it was a fungus, it was brown and it was cup-shaped, but it was growing on a buried bit of juniper stem.  Photos were taken and sent to Liz who informed me that it wasn’t the ebony cup because it had reddish hairs on the outside of the cup but it looked like another cup fungus (left & right) by the name of Plectania melastoma.  The interesting news though was that the only other record for Scotland was from Deeside and it was found by Liz herself. To be 100%

certain she would need to see a specimen to check under the microscope.  So I had failed to find the ebony cup but by looking for it found something equally as rare and by continuing to search for it another good find was made but this time, of the jelly kind.  In earlier diaries I have detailed the finding of jelly fungus on willows Exidia recisa or willow brain, on birch Exidia repanda or birch jelly but for the hat-trick I still needed to find Exidia saccharina or brown witches butter on Scots pine.  The English names are

enough to put anyone off from looking for them but they are pretty good all the same.  The last species was likely to be found in similar habitats to the ebony cup and on one evening outing I found what to me, looked like the hat-trick species (above left). To be certain Liz advised me to put a specimen on a glass slide, keep it moist and let the drop spores.  It still amazes me that in the Kingdom of fungi something moist and with a consistency of jelly would have the ability to drop spores (dust sized particles), surely they just wouldn’t drop or if they did they would just stick to the fungus? The specimen was set up as advised and two days later a patch of greyness had appeared under the fungus, it looked like I had my spores.  If the spores were circular with a little lump at one end they would be a fairly common species found on lots of decaying wood Tremella foliacea but if they were banana shaped I would have my hat-trick.  With the slide under my high-powered microscope and the magnification set to x400 the spores (above right) came into focus – bananas – I had my third jelly fungus and a new species for Abernethy Forest to boot.  Brilliant.

As the Easter weekend approached Firwood prepared itself for a two and a half day visit from grandchildren Finlay and Archie giving their playgroup leader mum a break from children during the Easter holidays.  A visit to the coast via Inverness airport allowed for lunch as the planes arrived and departed, a new experience for Archie, and then a short run along the coast

to Nairn allowed us all to whack a few balls on the putting green and crazy golf course.  We had really just got going when the sky rapidly darkened and within minutes it was pouring down, time for a rapid exit. We all piled back into the car and headed round to the harbour, just in time to see a brilliant rainbow over the boats in the marina.  With the sun back out it was time for an ice cream and a walk to the river to see if the mute swans were nesting again on the island this year, and sure enough, both birds

were there, one on the nest and its mate curled up asleep by the nest.  So regular is this event the council have erected notices asking visitors not to disturb the swans together with a little information about the birds themselves.  On the way back to the car a strange plant growing out of the cracks in the pavement caught my eye, a circular leaf growing round the stem and topped by a group of white flowers, my initial guess was spring beauty Claytonia perfoliata, which was confirmed when we returned home.  We were in a bit of a sticky mess after ensuring the ice creams were

eaten rather than ending up on the floor, so I didn’t manage a photo but you can see one at http://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/springbeauty along with the plants distribution.  On day 2 we found toys that we had forgotten we still had before a walk to the shop for the paper and a small sweet treat and then with wellies donned we headed for Loch Garten just in time to see a canoe being

launched for the statutory paddle round the shore line.  Why our open access legislation means that you can do anything anywhere whether a heavily designated nature reserve or not beats me, particularly when so many lochs locally are already geared up for water based activities.  I digress.  Amazingly, as we walked along, wee groups of chocolate mini-eggs kept appearing on rocks and tree stumps much to the delight of Archie and Finlay, and after a paddle in the ex-boatshed bay and an attempt by all of us to link hands around a monster Scots pine it was off home for dinner, bath and bed.

Over another two days, comments from a couple of experts were incorporated into the tooth fungi paper and finally the fourth draft was completed and sent of to the Field Mycology editor, with fingers crossed that it makes it into print.  Photos were put in the post today to accompany the article.  Locally, a farm wader survey briefing was attended at Insh Marshes ahead of four visits to the fields of the same farms I covered for the 5 year survey a couple of years ago.  The

objective will be to record all breeding waders but to concentrate specifically on lapwings, identify breeding locations and around the beginning of June, see how successful the lapwings have been in getting offspring through to fledging.  With the wader population continuing to decline dramatically year on year it won’t be long before we have our very own wader version of a silent spring.  On the odd sunny day butterfly transects have been walked but with few butterflies being found, no doubt those that have emerged have frozen to death before getting the chance to mate, so far small tortoiseshell,

green-veined white and green hairstreak (bove right) have been seen, but to give them a chance we really do need a run of a few days of warmer weather.  After a particularly wet day towards the end of the month – half an inch of rain by 9am – it stopped raining and by early evening it looked like we were going to get a bit of sun with the potential for a watery sunset.  The cameras were loaded into the car and I headed off over Dava Moor to see the sun set behind the castle on the island at Lochindorb.  As I approached the “Jesus Saves” rock by the A939 on the moor I was suddenly aware of a short-eared owl hunting over to my

right, just in time to allow me to swing round into the layby on the opposite side of the road.  The camera was already set up with the 400mm telephoto lens and as I stopped the car, grabbed the camera, wound out the lens to 400mm and pointed it out of the window, the owl was flying straight towards me.  I let fly with a series of continuous shots whilst at the same time trying to workout what camera settings I was operating with in the gathering dusk.  As the owl swung round to fly round me again I realised I was badly under-exposed and that all the first shots were likely to be a series of blurred owl but as the owl passed the car, crossed the road and perched on a fence post, I had time to match the camera setting to the gathering darkness and take a few photos before it set off hunting again.  Whilst the pictures of the owl on the post came out quite well just one of the first series of shots was worthy of reproduction, the picture of the owls head and blurred wings worthy of being classed as modern art!  My attempt to get to Lochindorb for the sunset fell foul of the days of heavy rains, the road bridge crossing a normally tiny burn was completely under water. 

 

On the way back I realised that I had never been to Huntly’s Cave, a climbing crag on the edge of a deep gully below the road just by the Cairngorms National Park boundary marker.  I had picked up from searching websites for various local plant and lichen records that a few unusual species have been found around this location and it was probably worth a visit. So, a couple of days later I ventured onto the site.  Following the path down to the crag I passed a willow that was worth checking and straight away I found a patch of lungwort lichen Lobaria pulmonaria.  I knew this lichen had been found somewhere in this area and being quite a rare lichen locally I thought I had found the tree that had produced the record.  Wrong!  As I approached the top of the crag (very impressive) I could see quite a bit of lungwort on several trees down at the bottom

of the gully so I edged back from the crag and began to make my way down the steep wooded slope to the side of the crag.  Being a steep-sided gully, the snows of recent winters had knocked over many ancient birches and willows and in other places trees had grown horizontally rather than vertically. When I see a big old willow growing horizontally (left) I know there will usually be something good in the world of lichens growing on it.  The first willow I came across took about an hour to search and many of the rarer lichens I had been finding on similar willows elsewhere were all present.  However, the rain was back and taking photographs under an umbrella is not to be recommended.  The rocks higher up looked interesting and though there was little of note in the lichen world there was a clump of fir clubmoss, beech fern, oak fern, brittle bladder fern. Also moschatel, sanicle and woodruff all flowers of richer ground.  April is not really the best time to go botanising (leaves but usually no flowers) and when I found a set of strangely shaped cranesbill leaves, I had to take a photo to check once I got home – shining cranesbill, another goodie.  And so the day progressed, up the slope, down the slope checking rocks and trees as encountered, Peltigera britannica, Lobaria

 scrobiculata, Degelia plumbea all very local lichens in Strathspey and then several large plants of climbing corydalis (Corydalis solida) a plant with only 25 known locations within the National Park.  The best finds though were saved until last.  On a small, leaning aspen which hardly looked worthy of checking was a small patch of a green lichen with a series of volcano like pimples on its thallus (leaf), Lobaria virens (above left), miles from it nearest known neighbour.  The last find

was a lichen that I have been searching for for months, it’s grey, it looks like a very common lichen which grows in the same sorts of locations (called frilly lettuce (rght) or Platismatia glauca) and there are fewer records in Scotland than for the Lobaria.  It was potentially Platismatia norvegica (left).  Thankfully there are good photos on the internet and it was from these that I had a

good picture in my mind of what to look for, the main one being the network of sharp ridges on the thallus.  It’s tricky enough to identify positively and even when I sent a photo to expert Brian to check he said that despite being 99% certain I was correct he would need a small sample to be 100%.  Confirmation arrived a few days later that my identification had been correct.  Phew.

That’s it for another month; sorry this edition is a bit late.

Enjoy the read.

Stewart & Janet

Lapwing in snow Carr Road

Snow on tops and sowing seeds

Sunset Rutven Barracks Insh Marshes

All photos © Stewart Taylor

Gotcha – but it took 126 years!

Let’s get the weather out of the way first.  Okay, so the south of England has been dry but so has this part of the world and March only produced 6.8mm of rain so lots of days out without having to worry about waterproofs.  19 days were completely rain free so lots of mosses and winter fungi were desperate for a bit of wetness.  The most amazing fact though was that this part of the UK was the warmest part of Britain (and near Europe) over several days late in the month with Deeside setting a new Scottish record for March of 24 degrees C.  According to Strathspey Weather (http://www.strathspeyweather.co.uk/index.html ) there were 126 hours of sunshine during the month, a monthly total beaten on only13 occasions over all months in the last 5 years.  All the heat meant that lots of plants were flowering early and larch and birch trees were bursting their buds by 31^st.  There were even signs of blaeberry flowers appearing – fully a month early, not too sure what the blaeberry bumblebee (Bombus monticola) will think of that when it emerges in late April.  A few butterflies also responded and

 there were records of small tortoiseshell, red admiral and peacock in the local area and quite a few moths were on the wing when driving along the forest roads in the early evening darkness.  Crossbill surveyor Bob ran a moth trap during this warm spell and along with the usual hebrew characters (left) and brindled beauties were engrailed, red sword-grass and in one nights catch 9 Red Data Book (RDB) Rannoch sprawlers (right) almost as many as I recorded (12) over five years of moth trapping on Abernethy Reserve on the edge of Tulloch Moor.  Perhaps the most amazing record was of a four-spotted chaser dragonfly zooming through the garden on 27^th the earliest record ever for the Highland Biological Recording Centre’s database.  The dry weather though wasn’t good news for the local farm wader population with all the wet hollows essential for bird breeding success dry enough to be accessible; most had been destroyed by ploughing before the months end.  Well, we do need to feed the world – but at what cost to wildlife?

A visit to daughter Ruth’s early in the month lead to quite a nice find.  RSPB Insh Marshes reserve on the way back produced the usual groups of whooper swans and grey lag geese and a few young aspens by the B970 were covered in the strange mite galls (Aceria populi) found way back in December.  My destination though was the Forestry Commission woodland at Inshriach and the wonderfully lime-rich rock-face to see if I had missed any Solorina lichens on my earlier visit.  On the way in I checked the willow Colin had found with a small population of green shield-moss capsules a year earlier, and there were a few new ones present, but only 3 compared to the dozen or so on the 2011 visit.  A wander along the base of the rock outcrop failed to find any

 Solorina lichens but a group of crustose (raised disc shaped in appearance) lichens (below left) looked like something  I had recorded elsewhere though didn’t look quite right so a small sample was taken to check.  On a wetter bit of rock the first flowers of purple saxifrage were just appearing a brilliant splash of colour from one of our earliest flowering plants.  Back home and the lichen certainly wasn’t the species I had recorded elsewhere so I set it up outside to get a better set of photos just in case I could get help to identify it, and with that the wee sample was left in the Petri dish and sort of forgotten about.  A couple of weeks later after another outing elsewhere, I was flicking through the photos on British Lichens (http://www.britishlichens.co.uk/speciesgallery.html ) trying to find something else I needed to identify when I came a cross a photo of a lichen that looked very like my sample from the rock-face, an RDB species which, if you know the species when you see it, shouldn’t be collected!  So photo and email was sent off to Brian who was 99% sure my ID was correct, but would need to check the sample to be 100% sure, and a few days later Gyalecta ulmi (Elm Gyalecta) was confirmed, a record from a completely new location.  The problem this lichen has faced in recent decades is hinted at in both its Latin and common name – and its link to elm trees and their decline due to Dutch elm disease.  Most known sites are now on dry, shaded, lime-rich, north facing rock faces with one site near Loch Ness on a surviving ancient wych elm, so it was nice to add a new location for this under-threat species.  Could there be more?  A visit to the Solorina rich ex-lime quarries near Grantown failed to find any but did produce lots of nicely developing frog spawn.  Geologist Donald had suggested that there might be another lime-rich quarry near Kincraig and after a bit of searching I found it producing the biggest population of Solorina saccata I’ve seen to date (right), but what was the crustose lichen growing in several places on the bare rock?  More elm gyalecta?  Hmm, not too sure, the rock in places was wet, some lichens were in full sun, and once the photos were checked at home the central part of the lichen’s disc was more of an orange colour.  Another email to Brian and on this occasion I received a very simple guide as to the difference between G. ulmi and the close relative I had just found G. jenensis.  The rare one looks like tiny raspberry jam tarts and the commoner one like tiny apricot jam tarts!  Now that beats ID via microscopes any day!  Apart from the Solorina the find of this quarry outing was a small population of a tiny Peltigera – P. venosa.

During the winter there have been hundreds of Iceland gulls in various places along the Scottish coast-line but it was down to chalet visitors Richard and Margaret at the beginning of the month to find any locally.  On their way back from Aviemore they saw up to three in a field being ploughed by the B970, along with the black-headed gulls.  We passed the field the next day on our way to our weekly grandson-sitting session but the field was empty and I thought that was that as far as catching up with the rare visitors.  Duty done, we headed back home but popped into the recycling centre at Grainish with some wood and an old car trailer.  Once the wood was deposited in the skip we had to head to the scrape metal recycling yard via the road that takes you passed the landfill site.  On our way back our timing was perfect, and as another load of refuse was deposited all the gulls were up and scavenging for food scraps.  Despite there being 60+ gulls in the air an all white one was pretty obvious particularly as it circled and then perched on a high point on the edge of the

landscaped section of the tip.  As the large bulldozer worked away at levelling and landscaping the refuse the gulls circled and it looked like there were at least two Iceland gulls in amongst all the other big gulls and black-headed gulls.  The wee camera with its 40mm lens was only able to take a token picture as a record but perhaps it would be worth returning the following day with the telephoto lens.  Tomorrow however, turned out to be Saturday so first there was a chalet to
prepare and as I rolled up at the landfill site at 1pm it didn’t look like any refuse had been dumped that day and consequently there were hardly any gulls but, very obligingly, there was a single Iceland gull on the same high-point perch as the day before!  As I waited a few more gulls visited and circled including a second Iceland gull, but with little food available none were hanging around, so with a few photos in the camera and the smell getting a little unbearable, I headed off home.  I took the route along the B970 just in case the gulls were anywhere near the ploughed fields (nil) but at Loch Pityoulish there were three cormorants perched in their usual dead tree on the promontory on the edge of the loch. 

When I got home there was a message on the answer-phone about good numbers of curlews in the yet to be ploughed fields between the village and the River Spey at Broomhill bridge, so with the big lens still on the camera I drove down to have a look.  In the fields before Coulnakyle there were at least 20 feeding and between Coulnakyle and the bridge another 60 (right), all mixed in with lapwings, oystercatchers and black-headed gulls – quite a sight.  A similar spectacle occurs between Dulnain Bridge and Carr Bridge in the fields along the minor road known as Carr Road.  No doubt these birds had just arrived in the Strath and were making the most of good feeding sites before spreading out to their individual territories to breed.  With the good weather throughout the month I was encountering curlews well out on the hills by 21 March and on the visit that produced the frog spawn in the old lime quarries near Grantown, mating curlews were seen in typical damp, heathery hillside habitat.  Of note have been the high numbers of pink-footed geese in the area right through the month.  A few were regularly encountered in the Insh Marshes area with several hundred in the fields between Nethybridge and Grantown and similar figures in the fields along the Carr Road mentioned above.  With the warm weather grass has been growing and farmers have been busy letting off the odd shot gun cartridge or physically driving into the fields to get the geese to move on to try and save grass for their own stock.  When you add a few hundred pink-feet to the now resident flocks of feral grey-lags the grazing pressure from the geese on a few favoured fields is quite high and though there will be a sigh of relief when the pinks move on north, there is a building problem from the ever increasing numbers of breeding grey-lags.  A late afternoon visit to see how many pink-feet remained by the Carr Road on the 30^th revealed around 300 but in one of the ploughed and sown fields right by the road was a sitting oystercatcher (right), fingers crossed for fair weather for the next few weeks of incubation.

The night-time heavens were quite amazing all month long with the two planets Venus and Jupiter dominating the western sky between dusk and 10-11pm.  Side by side in the sky but millions of miles apart in reality the two planets glowed like a couple of car headlights on clear frosty nights.  They were at their closest (conjunction) over a few nights around 12-13 March as they “passed” each other, Jupiter highest in the partnership up to 13^th with Venus taking top spot after that as they slowly drifted apart.  But it wasn’t over quite yet and on 22^nd the new crescent moon appeared right next to them for a couple of nights before getting brighter and drifting further above the planets as the month ended.  With a few clouds around on the night when the planets were closest meant that I had to wait for another night to photograph them so with frost forecast the next night I headed to the shore of Loch Garten  in the hope that the water would be still enough to allow planets in the sky with a possible reflection in the water – well, it sort of worked (left above).  A whiff of wind and the tiny ripples meant that the reflection wobbled up and down a lot, and when I heard a splash to my left and then a series of mini-waves, I thought I had a goldeneye diving close by – in the dark?  The mini-waves settled down and then there was another plop to my right and in came the waves again.  Torch on, a couple of coughs and hopefully the culprit would move away and sure enough, everything settled down.  A short while later and it was time to walk back to the road and drive round to the head of the loch to see what the planets looked like from there.  As I put the car headlights on I could see a set of wet tracks heading right across the road in front of me, my feeding goldeneye turned out to be an otter.  Brilliant!  The planets couldn’t be seen from the head of the loch so it was time to head home to warm up.  On the night that the moon joined the group I took a quick photo from the drive of the house (left), just ahead of the moon and Jupiter disappearing behind the trees.  It is amazing just how quickly these celestial bodies are moving, try focusing a camera with a decent telephoto lens on the moon or a planet and just see how quickly you will need to move the camera to keep the object in the middle of the lens.  It all starts again in May 2013, but the planets then won’t be very high above the horizon, setting shortly after sunset. 

I next have a tale about a sewing machine, the one that was a present to Janet a few years ago but one day decided to jump off the sewing room table, fatally injuring itself.  The machine was bought in Keith (Banffshire) and right next to the town is a brilliant wood which has featured in this diary once before – Mill Wood, so I was a very willing volunteer to return the sewing machine to the shop for repair.  On the day the machine was to be delivered the weather was quite poor so I decided to pay a visit to Auchindoun Castle, built on a lime-rich rock outcrop (right).  The castle ruin is well worth a visit but the rocks failed to provide any lichen records of note so I wandered back down the hill and headed off to the bridge over the River Spey at Carron, near Aberlour.  Here, a very unusual lichen grows on submerged rocks – in the river!  I didn’t have precise details of where this lichen – river jelly lichen (Collema dichotomum) had been seen previously but one note said “under the bridge at Carron” so this is where I headed.  This is a very popular spot for fishermen and sure enough, there were a couple flicking their rods and flies out across the water.  Under the bridge the bedrock forms the base for the bridge supports and all over the rocks, in and just above the water-line was a strange, green leafy type lichen (right), a bit like a stubby seaweed.  Surely this couldn’t be the rare lichen I had read about, but it was in the water and it was under the bridge.  The lichen is too rare to be collected (RDB and licence needed) so lots of photos were taken (left) before heading off home to check out what I had seen.  Thankfully, Plantlife have produced an online pdf file about the lichen (see http://www.plantlife.org.uk/uploads/documents/PLINKS%20River%20Jelly%20Lichen%20Course%20notes%202008%20FINAL.pdf ) and it was obvious from the first page that I hadn’t found it.  However, the document also lists other lichens found with river jelly lichen and on page nine I found the species I had photographed - Dermatocarpon luridum.  Amazingly this species isn’t shown on the NBN database despite being so close to a rare species growing on one rock nearby in the river!

So the sewing machine had been delivered and a week later it needed to be collected, and, the sun was shining.  11am and I was heading for Mill Wood, an SSSI for its botanical interest and mixed broadleaved woodland, but of archaeological interest is its industrial sized lime kiln (right).  I had forgotten that this was a wood dominated by hazel and with all my recent finds in local hazel woods, I got a bit side-tracked initially stopping to check too many that I passed, but quite interesting to see a slightly different lichen flora to that in Strathspey.  The map I had seen on “Grab a Grid Ref” (a brilliant site) showed an old quarry, inside the woodland, the source of the lime for the kiln, but outside the boundary of the SSSI, so this had to be the target during the visit to the site.  A tiny burn runs through the wood with its origins in the old quarry, so this was the line to follow zigzagging in and out of the trees along the way.  The leaves of woodruff plants (right) were just appearing along with those of celandine and wood sorrel, but overall this visit was just too early for botanising.  Interestingly, when compared to entries in my notebook from visits to my local hazel stands, there were few records of note from the rocks by the burn or the trees along the way, though the amazing alder tongue fungus (Taphrina alni) was found.  A few mounds of tussock sedge (Carex stricta) were present in the flooded base of the quarry but little else of note was found so I turned round and started to make my way back down the burn following a sort of “path” possibly created by the passage of sheep.  I had followed the same path in so wasn’t it lucky that I followed it out again because there, by the side of the “path” was rough horsetail (Equisetum hyemale left) and a wee bell in my head was tinkling.  Photo taken and GPS location recorded I made my way back to the car via the amazing lime kiln so well hidden within the woodland, but falling down and badly in need of a bit of TLC.  An email to Andy, the BSBI County Recorder for the woodland area about my horsetail find, let me know why the bell had been tinkling in my head.  The last time this plant had been recorded in the wood was in 1886 some 126 years ago!  I then remembered my last visit of a few years ago was to try and find this very plant but without success.

So, no room to discuss the England rugby team’s recent exploits (but well done) or to tell you about the first woodcock
roding on the 18^th, the brilliant Inverfarigaig Glen or the realisation how good some of our juniper bushes are for rare lichens.  I can tell you though that whilst out with grandson Archie a funny pink thing on an ash twig caught my eye and I managed to identify it as Marchandiomyces aurantiacus a bonny wee thing which is known as a lichenicolous fungus and is living on the grey coloured lichen in the photo (Physcia adscendens).  This record was, at the time, the most northerly in Britain and a new species for Highland Region so thank you Archie.

Diary work in progress with new Google Blogger layout!
Enjoy the read.

Stewart & Janet 

 A neat little jumping spider on my jacket

Rooks over local rookery

Wood ant squirting formic acid as I photograph brown shiled-moss

All photos © Stewart Taylor