Dead buzzards and a Dickie fern

The leaves on the birch tree outside the window are rapidly turning yellow and falling from the trees, and a little after 6pm, it is getting quite dark - autumn is upon us, and I just about managed the bike ride to work and back this week without lights. The male black grouse have started their autumn leks and a single male caper was also seen lekking, an odd occurrence at this time of year. Overhead we are starting to see a few more redwings but only a handful of fieldfares. Unusually, there are quite a few song thrushes in the forest still, no doubt finishing off the last of the blaeberries, cowberries and crowberries in amongst the heather on the forest floor. Song thrushes don't spend the winter with us unlike the mistle thrushes, a few of which do brave out the winter months. Also overhead we have seen lots of pink-footed geese, no doubt heading for the Vane Farm reserve or the carrot fields of Lancashire. Greylag geese are also now starting to appear, though only a few are to be found roosting on Loch Garten where we also have about 30 roosting goosander. Water rails were heard squealing at Loch Mallachie on Tuesday and a walk round the Mondhuie woods located thirty-five species of birds. A group of about 50 greenfinches feeding on juniper berries along the Speyside Way was unusual. Both male and female capercaillie have been seen 'gritting' along tracks in the forest this week, October being a good month to see capers on track and road verges.

This is also the time of year for the red deer rut, as we have seen in graphic detail on our TV screen over the last couple of years. Autumn-watch with Bill Oddie and team showed excellent footage of fighting and roaring stags live from the Isle of Rum last year, and whilst we can't quite match that in our local forests, roaring stags have been heard from the house over the last few days and a single stag with his harem of six hinds was seen from the bike as I pedalled in to work last Thursday. He didn't quite stand watching me for long enough to take a photo but he was every bit as 'good looking' as the one in the picture. Calves conceived during the rut will be born during May next year.

I has not been a good month for buzzards. I picked one up from the garage in Aviemore which had been hit by a car whilst feeding on a roadside rabbit kill. It died during the same night from its injuries. However, it was carrying a BTO leg ring so I forwarded the number to the British Trust for Ornithology who will eventually get back to me to let me know who ringed the bird along with the location where ringing took place. It is from the ringing programme that we learn so much about how long birds live, how far they travel etc, that the effort to visit nest to ring young birds before they fledge or to catch migrating birds in mist nets is well worthwhile. See http://www.bto.org/ringing/ringinfo/index.htm for more information on bird ringing, and whom to contact if you find a ringed bird. The second buzzard to be handed to me was much more worrying as it had been shot - illegally. The estate where the bird was found has been brought to my attention three times this year so far; a suspicious bait laid to try and poison unsuspecting birds of prey, pole traps on a grouse moor and obvious efforts to get rid of raptors by shooting. Can you believe that this is 2007 and not 1907?. In the fifty year period to 1907 many of our once common birds of prey were made extinct or brought close to extinction by human persecution during the advent of the "sporting estate" and all because the birds the raptors caught to live on were the same that estate owners wanted to shoot for sport. So what's changed! This is the second shot buzzard that I have had to deal with this year. All birds of prey that could have died unnaturally, are sent to the National Veterinary Laboratories to have their cause of death determined. An x-ray shows instantly if a bird has been shot. Quite worryingly, illegal persecution whether by shooting or poisoning, seem to be on the increase. Reported cases are probably just the tip of a very large iceberg. If you ever do find a dead bird of prey do treat it with caution because if the bird has been poisoned, the poison used to kill the bird can, quite often, do the same to humans.

Readers of this diary will probably be glad to see this picture. It's a tooth fungi which is coming to the end of its 2007 life, and, so as not to be wasted, is being consumed by another fungus, in this case - mould! So no more tooth fungi for this year! Maps have been produced showing the distribution of all that was found and who knows, a report might follow and be published.

Late summer is also the best time to go out identifying ferns. But they are all the same I hear you cry! Well yes some are quite similar, that is until you turn the whole frond over, when all will be revealed and help comes to hand with identifying which species you have. On the underside of the leaves of most ferns you will see the plants reproductive mechanism - the sori or capsules enclosing the spores that will drift off in the wind and land somewhere close by so the spore can germinate and start the process all over again. Big, bold ferns like Male Ferns (right) are good to check out, the underside of their leaves covered with rows and rows of sori. Compare them with the leaf-shape and sori distribution of the Common Polypody (left). With time the sori darken and the spores are released, quite an amazing process. The sori usually develop in parallel rows with each growing above a leaf vein from where it gets its nourishment. Each sori is a bit like a small umbrella, a cover, on a stalk, protecting the spores until they are ripe. As each sori ages and dries the spore receptacle called the annulus, shrinks and bends over. Tension is created during the drying process when a wee gas bubble develops helping to jerk the annulus back up, slinging the spores into the air. Fascinating! In the picture right, you can see the sori on the edge of the leaves of Lemon-scented Fern (Oreopteris limbosperma).

For most of the ferns shown, the shape of the fern and distribution of the sori are all you need to identify the fern. However, locally, a more unusual fern has been found in a few locations. In the past it was thought to only occur in sea caves on the Aberdeenshire coast but a few years ago a local botanist found it growing in a river gorge inland, and more recently it was found growing on an ancient bridge crossing the River Avon. Dickie's Bladder-fern left (Cystopteris dickieana), probably grows on the bridge because of the ancient mortar used to hold the bridge together. A couple of weeks ago Andy, a work colleague, found his second 'bridge' site but this time on the River Findhorn. Unlike the ferns mentioned earlier, this one can only be positively identified by using a microscope to check the shape of the spores, this is because the fern to all intents and purposes, looks just like the common Brittle Bladder-fern (Cystopteris fragilis) which I have seen in quite a few places when looking for other ferns. However, I thought Dickie was worth a visit and went armed with camera to see it for myself. The fern was there but looking a little the worse for wear being so late in the season, the leaf and sori though were still worth photographing (right). On the way home I drove past another old bridge - so decided to check it out - you know what's coming, there was the fern, though this had to be confirmed by Andy and his microscope. The 'Highland Naturalist' does it again! This fern is rare enough to be protected by law, ie it's illegal to pick, dig up or damage, however, to check the plants identity a small piece can be removed, and this is what I did. Another bridge checked yesterday and another small pice of fern awaits Andy's help!

The slightly frosty nights of late have given us warm sunny days but cool, misty mornings and a visit to Loch Mallachie, just as the mist was lifting revealed a wonderland of spiders webs, big ones, small ones, tent shaped ones and ones with no shape or logic at all. The web in the tree left, caught my eye standing alone by the shore. Within half an hour the webs had almost disappeared as the dew evaporated. It is only under these conditions that you see just how many spiders there are, one of the most numerous animals in many habitats. How surreal is the one on the right! No Photoshop trickery, that's just how it was.

Laura Taylor from the Cairngorm National Park is overseeing a water vole project where breeding evidence is looked for but also evidence of its main predator, the American mink. We know that within Abernethy Forest, the water voles main refuge is very high up in the hills in the very young streams that flow down towards the River Nethy, the Faesheallach and the Crom Allt. High up in the watershed the mink only has a limited impact on the vole in that mink visits are probably quite infrequent and when they do visit the limited food supply means they don't stay around for too long. However, in the time they are there the mink can cause a severe reduction in the water vole population of one head water before heading off down stream. It is unlikely that they will visit more than one head water before departing, leaving the other populations unscathed. To try and find out how big the mink population is, a series of 'footprint traps' (left) have been installed in many of the water bodies within the Park. To date, only one of the Abernethy 'traps' has recorded mink presence so hopefully, the population is fairly small.

Just look at this lot! The veg patch is only small, but it does provide a fair amount of produce. The best of the leeks looks like it could win prizes and the carrots have never been so big. The broad beans didn't seem to like the cold but the rest of the veg has benefited from the summer rain.

Yummie - again!

That's it - enjoy the read

Stewart & Janet

A shadow of my former self!

All photos © Stewart Taylor

An article written for The Nethy

I've been busy this week putting together an article for the village paper The Nethy, and for this weeks diary I thought you might like to read it. I will try and put together another diary before the end of the week cos we have stags roaring, fungi going mouldy and strange things growing out of caper droppings! So, just the normal sort of diary then.

Enjoy the read
Stewart & Janet

RSPB & The Abernethy Forest Reserve – a short history

When John Kirk asked me to do a piece for The Nethy about the history of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, I was a little unsure about where to start - perhaps with those hardy souls in Didsbury way back in the 1880s protesting about the killing of great crested grebes for their superb head frill feathers to be used in the millinery trade? Then, as now, a rare bird was threatened with extinction in Britain. The Society was formed in 1889 to try and alert people to the problem and argue for legislation to safeguard the grebe, and its habitat, guided by sound conservation principles. Thanks to these early efforts there are now over 1000 great crested grebes in Britain and Ireland. In 1891, the embryonic Society amalgamated with the Fur and Feather group and the Society for the Protection of Birds was officially launched.

Or about the Society’s development? In 1901 the first “watcher” was appointed, to protect breeding pintails at Loch Leven in Fife and in 1904 the Society was incorporated by Royal Charter and became the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. In 1930 the Society bought its first nature reserve at Romney March, followed by Dungeness and East Wood our oldest extant reserves. George Waterston was appointed as the RSPB’s first Scottish representative in 1954, just in time for a pair of migrating ospreys to set up home at Loch Garten. Now there’s a story!

The arrival of a pair of ospreys at Loch Garten became national news. After breeding successfully in 1954 the birds didn’t return to the Loch Garten site until 1958, despite birds being seen in the general area in most of the intervening years. When “watchers” in the Strathspey area realised that the ospreys were back at the Loch Garten nest, George Waterston had to hurriedly arrange for a team of wardens to mount a twenty-four watch on the nest, working from caravans and a few tents pitched in the woodland on the south shore of Loch Garten. Disaster struck however, when the nest was robbed despite the eggs having been three-quarters of the way through their incubation period. The birds were quite resilient however, and returned to nest again in 1959 but to a new site to the east of Loch Garten. George was very bold and, working closely with Seafield Estates the landowners, decided to allow the public access to the site to watch the breeding birds and Operation Osprey, as it became known, was born. 12,000 people visited the temporary viewing hide in 1959 underlining the huge public interest that had been generated following the publicity of the nest being robbed in 1958. A very brave move by all concerned, considering that these were the only breeding ospreys in Britain in 1959, a year in which they reared three young.

The partnership with Seafield Estates continued to work each summer right through to the Estate deciding to sell the land surrounding the osprey site along with Lochs Garten and Mallachie to the Society in November 1975. The Loch Garten Reserve was born and I was appointed as the first full-time Warden in time for the 1976 osprey season. The summer season “Osprey Camp” continued to operate under agreement with Miss Bella Macdonald at Inchdryne, tents being erected each summer to house the nine weekly volunteers with a few static caravans for the five wardening staff. The Boat Hotel and Nethybridge Hotel kindly provided bath and shower facilities for the osprey team until the early 1980s by when a small communal building with loos, kitchen and off duty area was built at Inchdryne.

Having a full-time staff member on site allowed time to look and record more about the wider natural history interests of the reserve. Surveys were started to look at the breeding birds of the woodland, moorland, lochs and farmland, and the reserve signed up to record the annual numbers of butterflies on a fixed summer transect. A moth trap was operated and the different dragonflies were listed like the large red damselfly (right). All in all, the reserve seemed to be quite important for a number of species with caperercaillie, crested tits and Scottish crossbills heading the bird list, Kentish Glory and Cousin German the moth list and Northern Coenagrion and Northern Emerald the dragonfly list. With the help of John Owen from Epsom we started to look at the beetle population and when Peter Orton moved to Nethybridge in the early 1980s we spent a couple of weeks each September looking at fungi like fly agarics (left). I can’t thank these two men enough for the work they carried out over almost twenty years with over 900 beetles and 600 fungi recorded! In between times there was always a welcome chat and cup of tea (or something stronger) with Johnie Cullachie, Miss Mac, Jimuck Rymore and Mrs Smith.

During the 1980s and 90s the reserve also expanded, with the purchases of Garten Wood, Tore Hill, Mondhuie and a part of the Cairngorm plateau adding to an expanding work-load. In Garten Wood some novel management was undertaken with heavy thinning of the commercial plantations to encourage a healthy blaeberry understorey, rich in caterpillars and other insects much loved by caper and the small bird populations. Forest bogs that had been drained and planted up with fast growing conifers were worked on with trees removed and drains blocked. For three years a MSC team helped with this work, getting professional forestry training and practical skills to help with finding long-term employment after their stint on the reserve. Thinning of the planted woodland on Tore Hill and Mondhuie was also undertaken, employing local contractors to do the work. In 1980 the old boatshed on the shore of Loch Garten was bought from the Strathspey Angling Association, dismantled, and re-erected as the main reserve workshop/garage at Grianan. In 1983, the Osprey Centre welcomed its millionth visitor and in 1986 the Society’s land agents were alerted to the possibility of the Forest Lodge Estate, owned by the Naylor family, being sold.

The information was correct and in 1988 the Society became the new owners of the Forest Lodge Estate, including the largest surviving remnant of the Great Wood of Caledon. An appeal to the RSPB’s membership raised £800,000 of the £1.8 million asking price in just over a month! The purchase effectively joined the Loch Garten and Cairngorm Plateau ownerships together, and the Abernethy Forest Reserve was born putting the Society into a different league regarding land management issues. Forest expansion became a major objective. The reserve currently supports 3500 hectares of mainly Scots pine woodland but there is the potential for an additional 3000 hectares. To meet the objective, deer control became a major part of the annual work programme, the annual cull being based on the reserve-wide counts carried out during the previous year. Capercaillie and black grouse monitoring was also undertaken, mainly by lek and brood counting, particularly as the national populations of both species had declined dramatically since the 1970s. With the decline of the capercaillie, the worlds largest grouse, populations throughout Strathspey came under increasing pressure from visitors and birdwatchers wanting to see them. In 2000, Caper-watch was started at the Osprey Centre (left) in an effort to draw visitors away from searching the forests, in spring, early in the morning, allowing good views of lekking males and attendant females, but without disturbing the birds (http://www.greentourism.org.uk/caperwatch.html ). The two-thousand early morning visitors to caper-watch each spring also give a wee boost to the local economy.

With the decline of the capercaillie, Abernethy joined with about 20 other Highland estates in a European funded project aimed at increasing the Scottish population (http://www.capercaillie-life.info/htm/the_project_general_background.php ) On most estates this work comprised removal or marking of forestry fences which the birds fly in to, targeted predator control and woodland management aimed at increasing the forest floor blaeberry vegetation. To date, the population nationally, has shown a healthy increase (http://www.gct.org.uk/text03.asp?PageId=336). Involvement in a second European funded project was also undertaken. Titled the ‘EU Wet Woods Restoration Project’ (http://www.wetwoods.org/). Its aim was to try and repair damage done to the forest bogs by drainage and planting, mainly in the 1960s and 70s. The main part of the Abernethy project was carried out in Mondhuie where over one hundred hectares of lodgepole pine and sitka spruce was removed and the drains dammed or blocked. Additional work was carried out in Garten Wood – adding to the work started in the 1980s – and in North Abernethy. The trees in Mondhuie were of such poor “form” they would probably never have been harvested if it hadn’t have been for this project.

In 1999 plans were drawn up for a permanent Osprey Visitor Centre and the building was completed in 2000 and named the ‘George Waterston Osprey Centre’. 2000 also saw the osprey team base move to the chalets at Mains of Garten, canvas and caravans replaced by buildings with all mod cons and the former “camp” area was restored to Inchdryne. Surveys in 2001 – 2002 showed that 800 hectares of naturally regenerating woodland had become established (right) and work is currently underway to assist tree establishment in areas where little has happened in the last twenty years. Forest Lodge has become the main “hub” for accommodation and office space for the 20 full and part-time staff employed on the reserve each year. Despite the ospreys EJ and Henry’s difficulties of 2007, 32,000 visitors came to see them, with over two-million visitors to date. Supported by the Scottish Forest Alliance, (http://www.scottishforestalliance.org.uk/default.aspa) a Field Teacher is employed to visit local schools to help with environmental projects and to lead school outings to the reserve. In 2001, a pair of ospreys built a nest and bred successfully at Bassenthwaite Lake in the English Lake District the first in England since 1840. Scottish birds trans-located to Rutland Water also bred in 2001.

Abernethy Forest Reserve is currently one of the richest natural history sites in the UK with 3,600 species of plants and animals recorded, 700 of which are rare or scarce in Britain. We have a lot to thank the original ospreys for settling at Loch Garten and for George Waterston’s initiative in setting up such a brilliant conservation success story!

Stewart Taylor. Warden Loch Garten 1976 – 1990, Abernethy Senior Site Manager 1990 – 2002, Abernethy Technical assistant (part-time) to date.

A tranquil Loch Mallachie

All photos © Stewart Taylor

Love making in the forest and the partnership is back

It's over. A month of walking tracks, searching old quarries and seeking out the old tracks that run through the reserve ended yesterday. My survey of tooth fungi is done and just as well it was completed yesterday, Saturday was wet but nothing like as wet as today. My soggy walk along the shore of Loch Garten produced just three more records, all of Hydnellum peckii, the blood oozing Devils's Tooth, which you should all know off by heart now, so no pictures! Mark's survey last year produced nearly 300 tooth fungi locations, and as my survey progressed it looked like 500 might be possible. After my visit to Loch Garten I nipped into Garten Wood and a further four locations pushed my total to 502 - enough! So not many pictures for the diary during this period, that is unless all you want to hear about is tooth fungi! It has been a great few weeks though, and I have learnt a tremendous amount about this group of important fungi, where they like to grow, wee quirks that help with identification and the hot tongue that helps to sort out two closely related species. More importantly, I might have found a species which is new to Britain. So attuned do you get to the normal appearance of what you are seeing that when I bumped into an odd ochre coloured species (right) in the Garten woods, I thought I should seek professional help from Ern, a local mycologist and fellow aspen enthusiast. "I am fairly certain that you have found Hydnellum gracilipes" can the reply, " and it's probably new to Britain". Phew!! A second opinion will be sought and if it turns out to be new, then this would make 2007 one of the best years for "finds" in my natural history career. They do say the older you get the dafter you get, as anyone seeing me crawling around in the forest will confirm.

So, for the first time since 28 August I said hello to the "real" camera again yesterday and went off to try to remember how to use it. The partnership is back. The camera bag with tripod is just too heavy to carry when wandering tracks for hours on end, so some of the pictures in this weeks diary came from my dinky Nikon P5000, which fits neatly into my shirt pocket, and takes some amazing pictures, as you will see. I now never leave the house without it. We will see how long the knees and back cope with carrying the full kit. One thing about walking along looking intently at the ground is that you see many other things of interest. At this time of year, as well as in the spring, the caterpillars of the northern eggar moth are on the go. Many caterpillars feed up just now, hibernate for the winter and continue feeding up in the spring before turning into chrysalises and then moths during May and June. A picture of the moth should have appeared in an earlier diary but didn't make it so is included here to let you see the whole sequence. The chrysalis case is quite a hard shell affair, often found by birds which love to feed on the contents which is what appears to have happened to this one. The caterpillar/chrysalis is often the host for ichneumon flies, interesting insects which lay their eggs inside the host where they hatch into larvae, devouring the host as they grow! Fast food in the forest.

Spending so much time wandering through deep vegetation has its own hazards though and my legs, arms, belly and back have wee red dots to prove it. The midges have been unpleasant on still days when I've been fairly static trying to take pictures of fungi finds. These are easy to deal with with a bit of midge spray though I can't recommend the Avon product 'Skin So Soft',which has become the 'in' repellent of recent years. The bigger problem linked to the red dots is the tick, big ones and little ones but all looking for that all important feed of blood to enable breeding to take place. Removing the half buried tick isn't really a problem and I tend to give them a liberal dose of TCP first - you can actually see them squirming once applied - give them a minute or two to suffer and then pull them out between finger and thumb-nail, and giving the spot another dose of TCP. However, it's the Lyme Disease that some ticks carry that you have to be aware of, particularly if the bite area starts to develop an expanding red dot. A dose of antibiotics usually cures the problem, but some people, like Janet, do seem to take a heck of a while to get over it. More fast food in the forest! Sticking to tracks usually keeps you out of tick range. I visited the dragonfly viewing boardwalk a week ago on a sunny day and was once again amazed by the sight of dragonflies all over the structure. It really is worth a visit if you are in the area during the summer months. On this occasion the hand-rails were full of black darters Sympetrum danae, enjoying the sun and almost oblivious to my presence. As well as single dragons many were "in tandem" i.e. the mating position and rather than trying to explain this strange ritual as in an earlier diary piece, I can actually now show you a picture. The male is black and is the one holding the female, round her 'neck' with his claspers. The female is yellow and black and can be seen curling up under the male to fertilise her eggs from the males 'sperm pad'. The male had charged this 'pad' with sperm before attaching to the female. In the picture you can actually see the eggs at the tip of the females abdomen, something I've never seen before. This picture was taken with the wee digital camera - good isn't it! The pair will eventually fly off and, still in tandem, the female will lay her eggs by flicking her abdomen at the surface of the surrounding pool. Amazing. For noisy love-making though, a pair of hoverflies (left) I came across, take the biscuit. From the loud buzzing noise that I heard I was sure I was going to find fighting insects or something caught in a spiders web. However, once the source was located I found a pair of mating hoverflies, biggish hoverflies about the size of small bees. Some hoverflies are perfect bee mimics and are often responsible for that static buzz, nearby, that you can never locate.

On my fungi wanderings I also visited the memorial which 'Memorial Wood', by the track from Forest Lodge to Ryvoan and Glenmore, is named after. A few local folk maintain the access to the memorial free of tree growth and, to my surprise, the memorial is known to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as the encapsulated notice at the site informed me. The site below gives details. The memorial is at NJ0113 and is shown on the map.

http://www.cwgc.org/search/SearchResults.aspx?surname=maxwell&initials=j+h&war=1&yearfrom=1915&yearto=2000&force=Army&nationality=6&send.x=47&send.y=15

In the diary of 30 June I mentioned the tremendous thunderstorm that pounded Forest Lodge and the surrounding forest on 21 June. I included a picture of a tree that had been struck by lightening. Well, I have had a chance to see more of the devastation that occurred on that day.

I found a second tree that had been struck by lightening, perhaps more impressive devastation than the first one with shards of timber spread over a wide area. The main feature of the day was the sheer quantity of rain that fell, probably several inches in about an hour, causing problems for one farm downstream of the Faesheallach Burn. The bulk of the rain fell in the catchment of the Faesheallach Burn, fed as it is by several small streams flowing from surrounding boggy hill ground.

I visited one of these "small" streams and was astounded by the devastation. Trees, hundreds of years old had been flattened and a bank on the edge of the stream had been scoured out to a depth of several metres. The "wee burn" is shown as it normally is in the picture right, you could hop over it. Boulders that had lain undisturbed since the Ice Age were unearthed and rolled down the stream bed. Nature in all its natural fury and the day certainly created many new habitats along the sides of the streams involved.

In the wider countryside the water flowing off one of the hills caused a huge landslip, again creating new habitats for nature to exploit over the next few years. It is easy to see what happened in Boscastle in 2004.

That's it for this week, happy reading

Stewart & Janet

aspen leaves are starting to fall

penny buns Boletus edulis

All photos © Stewart Taylor

More tooth fungi but what happened to the veg?

A letter did arrive back from the Moray Council 's roads maintenance manager, and Janet asked why, after a couple of days I hadn't opened it. "Because I know what will be in it" was my reply and sure enough, I was right. 'I note all you say about grass cutting operations and am not unsympathetic to your view' - phew, progress I thought. 'However, safety issues, visibility, vehicles AND pedestrians, same cutting spec for 20 years despite your perception otherwise'. The same reply I have had from Highland Region and the roads man on Skye. I could go on. Thankfully Highland Region DON'T cut many verges now, so let's hope Moray Council will follow suit. And the orchids and the Site of Special Scientific Interest? 'We are aware of the SSSI and have been in correspondence with Scottish Natural Heritage in the past.....SNH have never raised any concerns regarding our grass cutting operations'. So there! The reply wasn't copied to SNH so I will let them have a copy and see what their reaction is, and of course, there will have to be a reply to William Ross the roads maintenance manager. I'll bet they have never really considered doing things any differently so perhaps a wee bit of correspondence will set a ball rolling somewhere and save time, expenditure and energy. I never did get a reply from the SNP MSP Richard Lochhead, but then he has had a foot and mouth crisis to deal with.

The last week for me has been dominated by cycling, walking and looking down as the search for the various tooth fungi goes on. So, sorry, not the time out-and-about to bring great variety to the diary this week. It has been good though and at some stage will lead to me needing a powerful microscope to be able to check spores and the like - " lack of clamp connections" is something I regularly read about in the fungi descriptions, microscopic things in the fungus make up and something similar to those funny things you see sometimes in your own eyes, floaters, I think the doctors call them. Lack of a microscope means the top of the central heating boiler has to be used to dry off the "problem" fungi, so that an expert can check them over in the future. Currently, I have probably found as many individuals as anyone here in the past, showing just how good a year this is for this particular group of fungi. I'm not too sure that continual tasting of the Hynellum peckii fungus pictured left (Devil's Tooth!) is good for you and I am currently suffering from bouts of a sore throat and a runny nose, perhaps something to do with the peppery taste! So why are you tasting them I hear you ask, it's the only way, without resorting to the microscope all the time, to tell the commoner peckii fungus from its close relative Hydnellum ferrigeum - Mealy Tooth, a fungus that has only been found in Abernethy on four previous occasions. Great joy therefore on Sunday when, after nibbling at a tiny piece of fungus cap, there was no hot taste and yes, old Mealy Tooth had been found. Devil's Tooth probably referes to the blood oozing state of the fungus after rain when red droplets of water gather on the cap that really do look like blood. A page from my notebook gives some idea of the quantity of fungi being found, all of which have yet to be entered into a spreadsheet so that neat and colourful maps can be produced showing what has been found where. There is so much happening out in the woods that the boss has let me take a couple of days off this week to carry on searching. In an effort to get more staff looking for these wonderful fungi I managed to get most of the section managers out on site for a lunch-time wander to acquaint them with what to look for and show them the more typical growing sites. So the picture left is a very rare sight on the reserve and great to be responsible in dragging everyone away from their desks for a breath of fresh air and who knows, get them looking for Devil's Tooth, Pine Tooth, Black Tooth and the non-electronic version of Blue Tooth! It's working with the first record arriving on my desk of a group of Pine Tooth (Sarcodon squamosus) fungi growing close to Forest Lodge. Well done Desmond.

Some of the days during the last week have had a real feel of autumn about them and with a dramatic drop in temperature one night the mist rolled in and gave one of those typical damp, misty starts to the following day. Cycling in to work I looked like I had developed a slightly hairy coat as the tiny water droplets gathered on my fleece jacket. On this type of morning though, you do realise just how many spiders there are out there, everywhere you look the trees, heather, grass and juniper bushes are covered in mist covered webs, of all shapes and sizes. A typical web-covered pine sapling is shown right but you do need to get out early because as the sun comes up the webs dry out and "disappear". Mist of a different kind however caused real problems for the BBC and the 'live climb' last weekend. After weeks of preparation and the huge debate about whether such an event should take place in the middle of the Cairngorm Mountains and within the Abernethy Nature Reserve, everything was in place for the climbers to attempt some really difficult routes up some of the most difficult rock-faces in Scotland. Despite being roped up, one climber risked death if he came off (see Dave MacLeod's website at http://www.davemacleod.com/home.htm and BBC at http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/07_july/26/climb.shtml) but for this amount of risk, conditions would have to be dry and perfect and, for the whole weekend, they weren't. For the whole of Saturday and Sunday you could hardly see the mountains (pictured left) and on top of this there was steady, heavy rain, not ideal when you have to hang on literally, by your finger tips. So, on Sunday afternoon the plugs were pulled and all the equipment retrieved. Dave MacLeod however, his wife and a small BBC TV crew stayed on site in the hope that something could be filmed, to be shown at a later date, before finally, all the fixed ropes etc. were removed.

There was also great news for the village of Boat of Garten on Saturday, with the opening of the new village hall, five years of hard work by the village hall development committee. At 2.30pm, the new village hall was officially opened, accompanied by the local pipe band and watched by a couple of hundred local residents. So, after twenty years of being involved in giving summer talks in the old hall, yours truly will have to get used to new premises when the new season of village talks kicks of in April 2008. In the early years there was just me, talking every Monday night from April to August about the reserve or the Loch Garten ospreys. In recent years the "burden" has been shared and over the twenty or so weeks, six or seven speakers are involved talking about the natural history of the surrounding area. It has been great to be involved and I wish the new hall management committee all the best for the future. http://www.boatofgarten.com/events.php.

It started with a spade and the traditional emptying of the garden compost bins way back in March. It involved sowing seeds of various vegetable varieties. It also involved pulling out weeds. In 2007 it didn't involve any watering by hosepipe! It involved lots of weeks of waiting. There was a picture in the diary two weeks ago of the first rewards of all our efforts.

It involved eating the produce from our efforts. Yummmmmmmmmy!

It's that time of year where all around fruits, berries, cereals are all there, ripe and ready for picking. The blackbirds have beaten us yet again to the cherries in the garden, lets hope they have a decent aim with their droppings and the seeds they are carrying! There is even a song thrush in the pinewoods close to Forest Lodge mopping up the blaeberries and the cowberries. The local hazel trees have crops of nuts, a bit hard on the teeth to get at them, but the young nut inside is well worth the effort. Despite the weather the corn and barley in the fields seems to be ripening nicely and in the garden we see the remains of the birch seeds as the siskins start to tuck into the crop. All around there is food a-plenty for man and beast and though the fungi I nibble at don't taste too good, there are plenty of Chanterelles and young puffballs to feed on, but take care, be sure you know what you are picking. Make the most of the present because autumn isn't too far away and as our ospreys and swallows start to head south, the scandanavian thrushes will soon start to appear to feed on the ripening rowan berries. At work, my diary for 2008 has arrived on my desk and Christine is asking for orders for Christmas cards. Help! Isn't nature amazing though, such abundance before having a rest and starting all over again in a few months time. Just look at the amazing showiness of the yellow heads of Centaurea macrocephela in the Firwood garden. There were a dozen or so heads a couple of weeks ago when I intended taking a photograph, and was lucky to catch this one before it went over like the others around it.

Insect of the week has to be this wood wasp or horntail Urocerus gigas, almost two inches long and looking like it wants to "sting" everyone in sight. But don't be afraid, the sting is really the insects ovipositor or egg-laying device which it uses like a drill to force its eggs under the bark or into the wood of dying trees. It isn't a wasp either but belongs to the sawfly family, a very impressive insect to see in the forest. Thanks to Richard for capturing the beast for me to photograph.

As the season starts to wind down so will the diary. It should be possible to do a couple a month but let's see what develops, if there is a story to tell, the diary will be done.

Enjoy this weeks read, and the last of the summer holidays.

Best wishes

Stewart & Janet

harebells or Scottish bluebells

All photos © Stewart Taylor