Quite a pig’s ear of a month!

The number of dead buzzards and kites continues to increase with the totals now at 14 red kites and 6 buzzards; the reward for information now stands at £26,000 reflecting the horror of the event and the public support in trying to apprehend the killer.  The protest rally mentioned in the last blog was held on the 12 April in Inverness, with the walk starting at the Highland Council offices making its way through the main shopping area to a rally in the pedestrian area next to

On the way, Inverness Town House
 in the background

M&S.  About 50 folk were on the walk, including two members of Friends of Red Kites – North of England (Tim Watson and June Atkinson), who had travelled to Inverness from Gateshead to show solidarity with those in the Black Isle Raptor Protest.  Around 200 attended the rally.  Jess from RSPB’s Highland Office had put a lot of thought into how the message about bird of prey persecution could be highlighted and the idea of “ghost birds” was formed.  Life sized birds were cut from plywood and painted white, 14 red kite ghosts and 5 (correct at the time) ghost buzzards.  These replicated the white bikes that have become a feature on some of our roads where cyclists have been killed.  Short presentations were given by Peter Mayhew (RSPB), Alan Bantick (SWT), Sir John Lister Kaye (Vice President RSPB Scotland) and Councillor Carolyn Caddick, Highland Council’s red kite champion.  Following

Councillor Carolyn Caddick

the presentations the “ghost birds” were placed on the ground, each bird being given a chalk outline to indicate a murder scene before many of those attending the protest left their signatures or messages on the birds before departing for home.  To date (late May) no one has been charged over the killings despite much searching of the area where the birds were found and at least one farm has being searched.  As all this was ongoing the first sea eagle to be hatched and fledged in the east of Scotland in 200 years went missing on the North Glenbuchat Estate in Strathdon, the last location registered by its satellite tracking device.  “Not guilty mi-lord” shout the estate owners and staff and “it’s just a coincidence” that a golden eagle was found poisoned in the same area in 2011.  However, read on and make you own conclusions.  The piece that follows was produced by Raptor Persecution Scotland:

“North Glenbuchat Estate has been at the centre of a series of wildlife crime investigations over a number of years. These have included the prosecution and conviction of the then head gamekeeper (in 2006) for poisoning offences; the discovery of a poisoned golden eagle in 2011

Marking out the crime scene

(killed by Carbofuran – no prosecution); the discovery of a poisoned buzzard in 2011 (killed by Carbofuran – no prosecution); the discovery of a poisoned bait in 2011 (no prosecution), and the discovery of a dead short-eared owl in 2011, that had been shot and stuffed under a rock (no prosecution).”  So, if you are planning a holiday in the Strath Don area and happen to visit the North Glenbuchat Estate which was bought by the Marquess of Milford Haven in 2008 – take great care.  Better still, go for a walk on the estate with as many friends as you can find on the “Glorious 12^th” because this estate is owned and managed with the sole purpose of farming red grouse.  Sorry, rant over.

Early in April I received a phone call to say that an injured crossbill had been found near Carrbridge and could I have a look at it to see if there was a possibility of it being returned to full health.  The day before I had been asked if I could identify a lichen found by Gus under a bridge

Male crossbill

over the A9 where the road crosses the River Nairn.  It was one of two species of Peltigera so the only way to be sure which one was to visit the site and with Carrbridge being over halfway to the bridge I thought I could sort the two problems in the one trip.  The bridge site didn’t disappoint and the tiny patch of lichen turned out to be Peltigera leucophlebia a species which I found has the wonderful common name of Ruffled Freckled Pelt!  The rocks above the river on the other side of the old road bridge, now below the A9, also looked interesting and after a bit of a scramble down to them I was amazed to find a huge population of the same lichen but this time I could see the leafy lobes had fertile bits (apothecia) a feature classed as rare in Britain.  On the rocks, just above the river level, was another local lichen, Dermatocarpon luridum, a species I had also found on rocks near

Fertile Peltigera leucophlebia

Logie on the River Findhorn whilst out with Janet a few days earlier.  As I made my way back up to the old bridge I noticed an odd looking metal plaque fixed to the bridge parapet and the letters OS and BM caught my eye.  I had seen the upward pointing arrow carved into rocks before but this was the first time I had seen a “wall bracket” complete with an identification number, so time for a photograph.  BM stands for bench mark and the symbols carved into rocks and metal brackets like this one date back to a time around the 1930s when the Ordnance Survey people set about accurately mapping the UK.  Many years before (late 1700s), triangulation (Trig) points or pillars became established to allow the size and the shape of the UK to be determined and despite the early measuring relying on rods and chains and the use of trigonometry a very accurate picture was developed.  The later 1930s work established a very accurate set of triangulation pillars, mostly on the highest bits of ground (you will probably have seen these concrete pillars on tops of the hills you visit) to which

Old road bridge over River Nairn

a theodolite measuring device could be attached.  By this method heights of hills could be measured very accurately as could the distance between them but to allow a series of height contours to be developed from the tops of the hills down to sea level, a series of bench marks were installed.  These “marks”, numbering over 750,000, were scratched into walls and rocks and at some sites metal plaques like the one in front of me were installed.  Using the trig points and the bench marks the National Grid was developed and the excellent OS Maps that we have today were born.  Today we have sat-navs and hand held global positioning system (GPS) devices and probably hardly ever think about the work that went into producing the maps we now take so much for granted.  Back home I wondered what would happen if I typed OS BM G4249 into Google and was pretty astounded when a table appeared and by working down the list of entries, found that G4249 was listed as “Daviot” and that there was another on the wall of the nearby church also in Daviot.  Amazing. 

Bench Mark 

On the way home I picked up the male crossbill which despite showing some improvement with overnight food and water died the following day due to a deep wound under a wing.  Work is still being carried out on crossbill genetics so the bird was popped into the freezer for researcher Ron Summers to collect at a later date in order to see exactly which crossbill we were dealing with.  The bird was a small-billed crossbill but I await details from Ron as to exactly which species had been found.

The 8^th and 9^th of April will be remembered as “pig’s ears” days!  April is the time of year for the strange looking morel fungi to pop up from the ground, and prior to the 8^th quite a few false morels (Gyromitra esculenta) had been seen along some tracks.  However, on that day I was walking along the track to Forest Lodge when I

False morel -
Gyromitra esculenta

noticed an odd, flat, circular fungus growing in a patch of disturbed ground on the edge of the track.  Stumped as to a name I took several photos plus one fruiting body as a sample just in case spores needed to be checked.  Once home the fungus guide lead me to Gyromitra ancilis, the pig’s ear fungus, a fungus I had found just once before.  The next day saw me heading off over the hills to NTS Mar Lodge Estate for a meet up with warden Shaila and ecologist John.  Shaila had arranged for a green shield-moss search as a follow up to her visit to Abernethy the previous month.  On returning home Shaila had found a few capsules in the woodlands close to Mar Lodge itself and it was in this area she had arrange for the search to take place.  The drive over was pleasant as always taking in as it does the Lecht and the drive over the two high moorland areas with their many red grouse as you descent to the Deeside road by Crathie Church.  The drive up the track to Mar Lodge is also very impressive with the pinky coloured

Pig's ear - Gyromitra ancilis

stonework of the building looking pristine on the approach.  The last time I was in the Lodge was way back in 2001 when RSPB and NTS had to work closely with the RAF, Police and mountain rescue teams during the recovery phase following the loss of two F15 US fighter aircraft on the plateau close to Ben Macdui.  A much pleasanter reason for the gathering this time.  In all 8 folk were involved in the search, the first time such a concerted effort had taken place to find the moss.  We first visited the log where Shaila had already found the moss just to allow everyone present to see what it looked like and the sort of deadwood habitat it like to grow on, though two-thirds of those present had been involved in searches in other woods in the past.  Then off we went and literally within the first five minutes the shout went up “I’ve found some!”  The woodland we

The successful green shield-moss search

were searching is classed as policy woodland, a mixture of mainly old conifers which originally would have been the recreational woodland close to the Lodge itself.  Amazingly, trees of a good age had, over the years, fallen over, and many had been left where they had fallen, ideal green shield-moss habitat – purely by accident.  As the morning search continued there were quite regular shout of “I’ve found some” with those found on what appeared to be a well decayed Grand Fir adding a new host tree species to the list.  The afternoon outing covered more policy type woodland, but with a good number of native tree species also in the mix, and though not as

One of the green shield-moss finds

productive as the morning session, the finds kept mounting up.  The end point of the afternoon session for me was arriving at a known patch of twinflower (Linnaea borealis) to see if the wee spotty fungus from 2013 was present on the leaves, being confirmed after a few minutes searching.  Fungus expert Liz, who had been with us throughout the days search had recorded the Metacoleroa dickii rust fungus on this patch of twinflower previously, so it was nice to know it was still present.  On the way back to the Lodge the search of one last large, fallen conifer, produced a nice surprise with a good number of fruiting bodies of the pig’s ear fungus, growing in its more

The amazing Mar Lodge

typical fallen deadwood habitat.  With so few records of this fungus nationally it was nice to have managed to record it two days running, provided a fitting end to what had been an amazing day.  A couple of days later Shaila emailed to say that the total number of green shield-moss capsules found on the day was 179, which far out-striped any previous single days count.  This brought the total for the estate to 200 capsules when adding in Shaila’s earlier finds.

Brother John started me off on a botanising trip by sending through a photograph of a flower he had found whilst on an outing in Lancashire.  By a footpath and in an area of hazel trees he had spotted a number of toothwort flowers (Latheraea squamaria).  This plant is parasitic, dependent

Toothwort

on a range of shrubs and trees for its existence, particularly hazel, ash and elm, in John’s case it was growing with hazel.  This was a plant I had never seen but had been aware that it regularly appeared in an elm/hazel wood near Dingwall and also thought it might possibly grow in a brilliant aspen/hazel/elm wood near Grantown on Spey.  There was only one thing to do therefore and that was pay a visit to the Dingwall wood to see its preferred habitat and then follow this up with a visit to my Grantown wood.  The Dingwall wood didn’t disappoint, massive ancient elms and a good scattering of hazels, and on leaving the road I was greeted by a big patch of ramsons (wild garlic - Allium ursinum) a scarce plant in my local woods.  Bluebells were just pushing up their flower spikes and the presence of woodruff and sanicle flowers indicated the soil had a reasonably high pH.  A rust fungus growing on some sanicle leaves turned out to be Puccinia saniculae something new to the Highland recording area.  A good start.  The toothwort didn’t disappoint either, though a recent frost might have been responsible for some of the flowers looking a bit brown and past their best.  Overall there were quite a few good patches of

Good population of toothwort

toothwort, particularly at the top of a steep slope comprising most of the wood, just where a footpath wound its way through the trees.  Big elms always tempt me to stop and check their bark for the rapidly declining Gyalecta ulmi lichen but without luck on this occasion. Once again a couple of tiny snails were encountered which expert Richard named as Balea heydeni, the left-handed spirals of its shell helping with its identification.  Would the Grantown wood provide the

Balea heydeni snail

goods?  Five days passed before I managed to visit this wood and as I looked across at the elms and hazels the general ground vegetation looked quite a bit different to the wood at Dingwall.  There was lots of woodruff, the white flowers of wood anemone and the yellows of celandine but the dominant plant was nettle, which, thankfully at the time of my visit, was only a few inches tall.  Wandering up and down the steep slope frequent patches of townhall clock or moschatel (Adoxa moschatellina) flowers were seen along with catkins on a couple of aspens (a rare event and covered later in this blog) but the temptation to check the occasional elm for lichens was too strong to resist – thankfully!  After a couple of hours of wandering the slope I was beginning to feel the site was not quite right; the scale of the search might be better with a few more folk.  I stopped for a biscuit and whilst munching checked the bark of one of the elms and there, once again, were a couple of tiny snails!  Sadly on this occasion they were not able to be identified from the photos but likely to be two reasonably common species.  This huge elm had lots of nooks and crannies

Moschatel and celandine

and as I worked my way around the tree one particular hole looked quite interesting.  Okay, so holes in trees might not appeal to everybody, but when I made my trip to Inverfarigaig a couple of years ago I remembered from an earlier survey report that a rare pinhead lichen had been found in just this sort of place.  As I peered into the hole I could see that there were lots of pinhead present.  Over time I have seen quite a lot of pinheads usually in areas of decay and in hollows but something about this one looked different, so very carefully a small sample was extracted initially to photograph but then to pack carefully into my tube to take home to look at under the microscope.  I then managed to wiggle my camera into the hole and with quite a bit of

The extracted sample of Chaenotheca gracilenta lichen

difficulty with focus and section of lichen to photograph, I fired away with fingers crossed.  I was reasonably happy that I knew what I had found and with growing excitement headed for home.  The photos in Nordic Lichen Flora looked just about right but I was a bit lost when that book and the Lichen Handbook said that the spore bearing asci appeared in “chains” under the microscope.  I could make something like that out but just wasn’t sure what I was seeing.  At about the same time lots of emails had been doing the rounds about another pinhead lichen having just been found on twigs of a balsam poplar in Wales and though there were few British

Chaenotheca gracilenta in elm hole

records, it had turned up on every balsam poplar checked.  In replying to the Welsh find I added photos of my elm lichen find along with the microscope details asking if anyone could provide a name.  A reply from Brian the following day said “You have just added another gem to your portfolio!  What you have is Chaenotheca gracilenta - the 5th Scottish record, and 7th British. Your observation of its asci in chains is also spot on, and is a unique character for this species”.  Phew, I had settled on the right name and I must thank John for setting me off in its direction.

The other news a few days later wasn’t so good.  Having a bath one night my right arm-pit felt a bit tender and on checking in the mirror I could see quite a bit of redness – perhaps I had developed a sweat rash so a bit of cream was applied.  With little improvement over the next few

Female aspen catkins

days and with a red ring making itself very obvious I began to think seriously about a tick bite, though I couldn’t remember pulling one out from this area.  Janet said there was a tiny black speck in the centre but couldn’t really see anything that resembled a tick.  The doctor couldn’t see a tick either but did confirm, once again, that the dreaded Lyme Disease was back and a two week course of tablets was supplied.  Back home I got Janet to use my hand lens to re-check the tiny black dot and sure enough, probably one of the tiniest ticks ever to sink its fang’s into my flesh was the black dot and had passed on the disease.  Not sure if linked to the mild winter but there have been plenty of tick encounters already this year, some of which have been picked up as I wander the local area ground-truthing aspen distribution maps for John Parrott of Coille Alba as part of

Female seed producing aspen catkin

the Highland Aspen project.  The project this year has added significance that by systematically checking the stands of trees the aspens could also be checked for catkins/flowering.  Taking on this type of survey work always has additional benefits in the recording world by taking you to areas you might never visit.  The maps allocated to me covered an area either side of the River Spey between Grantown on Spey and Advie and the first wood visited provided records of a few plants, a couple of lichens and a brilliant sand martin colony in an impressively high, stream eroded sand-bank.  The next one, close to the Spey, produced some huge aspens mixed in with a stand of ancient oaks and a yaffling green woodpecker, my third this year.  The stands detailed on the maps were derived from aerial photography flights of several years ago, flown just at the time the birches were just coming into leaf allowing the bare crowns of the aspens (the last tree to produce its leaves locally) to be visible on the photos.  Identification is almost 100% correct were you have a large stand of aspens, but where half a dozen are hidden away up a small burn then you have to

Bombus monticola

physically check because the trees could be ash, late flowering alder and even, as I have found from some maps, dead Scots pines and birches.  The next site to check involved knocking on the doors at the Tormore Distillery so that I could park in their carpark and then follow the very precious crystal clear waters of the burn supplying the distillery with its most vital ingredient up the hill to where the map showed there might be aspen trees.  What a place.  Fairly boring at the start but an amazing wooded gully the further up the burn I walked, eventually finding five very mature aspens growing from a rocky crag, the loose rock looking like it would fall away if touched!  A few more good plants and aspen/birch lichens and visiting a moss covered rock outcrop with a constant trickle of water I came across one of the bonniest wee fungi seen so far this year.  It was very small with a mix of a dark stem and bright orange cap, and it was growing from a tiny twig, hanging from the moss, and with a constant trickle of water running over it.  Checking the books and internet once home identified it as Vibrissea truncorum, probably a new fungus for

Vibrissea truncorum in wet moss

Morayshire and about the 100^th record of it to be added to the Fungal Record Database.  The second site to be checked involved exiting the gully and wandering across moorland to check if there were trees hidden away in an area of conifer plantation.  The blaeberry dominated bit of moor was buzzing with the blaeberry bumblebee (Bombus monticola) and quite a few green hairstreak butterflies, but there the excitement ended as the wander through the plantation failed to find any aspens, the map interpretation having picked up on a group of rowans and birches. 

Mossy waterfall

The last site for the day involved visiting the strange detour the Speyside Way takes (access along the old railway line being opposed by one of the landowners) to the south of the A95 at Dalvey.  This scatter of old trees occur in an area of quite old birch woodland, a site worthy of another visit in the future.  The woodland is grazed by cattle and it was the passage of their hooves that provided the last find of the day, the wee cup fungus Dumontinia tuberosa, found last year near Loch Ericht, a fungus growing from the underground corms of the wood anemone flowers.  An angry buzzard wasn’t happy by me disturbing it from its incubation duties so time for a quick exit.  Keeping a check on my local aspens is progressing well with a good chance a Taphrina fungus linked to flowering aspen my re-appear after an absence of 13 years.  Watch this space.

  

That’s it for another month, sorry about the delay but enjoy the read.

Stewart and Janet

Raptor Persecution Scotland

http://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/about/

Ordnance Survey Bench Marks

http://www.trigtools.co.uk/osbm-msn-index.pl

Fungal Records Database of the British Isles

http://www.fieldmycology.net/FRDBI/FRDBI.asp

Highland Biological Recording Group

http://www.hbrg.org.uk/Latest.html

and how to join HBRG

http://www.hbrg.org.uk/MainPages/joinHBRG.htm

Phaeocalicium populneum pinhead on balsam poplar

 

The ancient Chaenotheca gracilenta elm

 

Long-tailed tit with nest material

Bearberry in flower

Photos © Stewart Taylor

Conon Bridge, Highland Region, Scotland, the bird of prey killing capital of Britain!

I write this blog having just returned from a rally in Inverness, organised by the RSPB, in protest at the recent killing of 5 buzzards and 14, yes FOURTEEN, red kites near Conon Bridge at the northern end of the Black Isle.  There could be more.  The news of this killing spree broke on 25 March when 5 red kites and a buzzard were found dead but it was only after wider searches of the area by RSPB staff and the police that the full scale of the tragedy emerged.  I have to remind readers at this point that this is 2014 and not 1914, a date when just a few red kites were clinging

Piper Davy & "ghost" kites & buzzards at rally

on as UK breeders in a tiny area in Wales, the once widespread population having succumbed to persecution during the 18^th and 19^th centuries.  All the dead birds were found in a two square mile area to the south-east of Conon Bridge, toxicology tests have shown that 9 of the kites and 3 of the buzzards were poisoned.  This is the largest single find of dead birds of prey in many decades.  To date, there has been no arrests of those responsible but hopefully there will be something more positive to report in the next blog.

The first week of March was spent in Lancashire visiting Janet’s mum and catching up with family.  Pub lunches were to the fore with mystery tours along quiet country lanes extending the outing until late afternoon as mum recalled “cycling along here” and “if you follow that footpath

Young cuckoo pint leaves

down there it will take you to Grindleton”.  Her memory for walking and cycling routes hasn’t diminished despite her 90+ years and it was a great joy to be guided along the narrow, wooded lanes.  An hour at the end of each afternoon allowed a little time to add locations for knopper galls, beechmast candlesnuff, witches butter and shining cranesbill.  The young leaves of bluebells and cuckoo pint (lords-and-ladies) were everywhere showing the first flowers of spring were not that far away.

Over the last couple of months I have been helping the local community team with text and photos for displays along the new village pond and birchwood walk and as we arrived home a request had landed in the “inbox” for a few more photos to complete the woodland display.  A search through the photo files and a bit of time at the garden feeders managed to fulfil the

Encalypta moss to be identified

request and by mid-March both displays were at the final draft stage.  Hopefully visitors to the village will find them interesting.  Having driven around the limestone areas of the Ribble Valley without visiting any whilst in Lancashire, I was in need of a “limestone” fix so an afternoon was spent in the old quarry near Tomintoul.  The outing provided more queries than answers in the form of Collema and Leptogium lichens with some requiring expert help (the heap is growing!) but a bonny wee moss on some rock ledges was identified as being of the Encalypta group and when the expert couldn’t identify from my photos a specimen was sent.  Possibly “Encalypta

Encalypta moss leaf x40

rhaptocarpa but it doesn’t look right” and because the moss capsules were fairly immature full identification will need to await the moss growing on for another month or two when the capsules should be mature.  However, the email ended with the words “that it could be something unusual” ensuring that I don’t forget to make a return visit.  Encalypta rhaptocarpa has the wonderful common name of Ribbed Extinguisher-moss.

Jonathan & Shaila with their find

As we were just about to leave Lancashire brother John informed us that Brent would be heading north again the following week to complete work at RAF Lossiemouth and he was hoping to get a lift with him.  So, three days after we arrived home John headed north once again wondering

no doubt if it would be possible to add a few “new finds” as on his first trip back In January.  As he arrived though, I had already arranged to meet Shaila and Jonathan from the Ranger staff at NTS Mar Lodge, keen to see my local sites for the green shield-moss.  By seeing the moss and a variety of locations where it grew, they were hoping to carry out some searches on the Mar

Green shield-moss

reserve in the hope of adding the moss to the reserve list of bryophytes.  The first site was a birch log followed by an ant nest where brown shield-moss was growing in the hope that both mosses

might be found on their reserve.  Next we dropped into a Norway spruce site where, to date, the most capsules at one multi-log site had been found.  It didn’t disappoint and as well as me showing them capsules on logs they managed to find their own, adding a couple of new logs to those previously found with the moss.  A wood ant nest with the moss was visited where a third capsule was found (extra pairs of eyes) before we headed down to the River Nethy to see a fallen goat willow with 60+ capsules.  To end their visit I took them to see some alder tree sites where the moss had been recorded previously but where currently no capsules had been seen.  Shaila

Welcome back!

soon cured that by finding a capsule on an ancient lump of alder which I had hoped in the past would one day be a site.  As we wandered a little further Jonathan was walking towards us saying he had just found a knife stuck in a tree!  Well, would you believe it, the Swiss army knife I thought had dropped out of my pocket last month had actually been left stuck in an alder tree, marking the location of an old green shield-moss capsule.  Well done and thank you Jonathan! 

Next day to Tulloch with brother John parking near the old telephone box before heading off to do a circuit of the Tulloch farms.  The hazels near Easter Tulloch were hanging thick with catkins and we spent about half an hour trying to get good backlit photos as well as pictures of early bees visiting the catkins.  Fieldfares were feeding in one field as were a pair of mistle thrushes –

Female hazel flowers

the breeding season was almost upon us.  A distant calling green woodpecker was unusual, a rare bird locally.  The sun was out, it was warm and we had lunch near the Mains of Tulloch watching pied wagtails leaping about trying to catch flies.  The next surprise occurred by the outbuildings at the farm – house sparrows!  Were they always here or were they just visiting?  Having lived in Tulloch in the past I thought that all the local house sparrows had long disappeared but here we had six birds behaving as though they lived here.  One to re-check in a month or two’s time.  Flowering dove’s-foot cranesbill was photographed by a bridge and I showed John the mass of scale insects found a year earlier on an aspen whilst checking lichens.  The tarmac road lead us back along one of the sections of my annual butterfly transect before

Grianan 1977, just built

reaching Grianan, the house Janet and myself first lived in when we came to Loch Garten in 1976.  We discussed the photo of my mum with Janet and my uncle standing at the end of the

Grianan 2014. It's there somewhere!

track installed by yours truly to allow the new house to be built.  Having sorted through many of dad’s slides, added to by some I sent to him, John remembered the photo, so we did a re-take with me standing where my mum had been in the original just to show how the woodland around the house had developed in the last thirty-odd years.  What a change, with the house hardly visible now from the tarred road.  We cut back along a track from Tigh Ban towards the car when I spotted a small wood ant nest that looked interesting and providing the final find for

Brown shield-moss Buxbaumia aphylla

the day a new location for the brown shield-moss (Buxbaumia aphylla), just two capsules, but as last time, outings with John seem to turn up something new.  Something unwelcome also turned up – the first tick of the year.  Next day we headed for Abernethy Forest planning to walk the Rynettin circuit.  Heading up to Rynettin an old birch tree with a dark stain caught my eye, the stain being caused by an old sap-run.  These stains are always worth checking and as I examined the edges of the brown stain I could just make out the shape of pin-head lichens which I pointed

John & his Sclerophora find

out to John.  As I took a GPS reading and photo John said “there’s more round this side” and sure enough the whole side of the tree was covered in Sclerophora peronella pinheads.  Well done John.  I thought it would be worth photographing the big population also and as I went about this task John pointed down to something growing on a fallen birch branch buried a little in the ground vegetation that I had disturbed.  A small white fungus was growing out of the slightly rotten branch and when I checked it with my hand-lens I could see what looked like tiny blobs of

The dewdrop bonnet

liquid all along the stem of the fungus.  “This looks like something I’ve seen in the fungus book, possibly dew-drop fungus?” I suggested.  So, very carefully a sample was taken and packed in moss in my collecting box, trying to retain the drops of water in the stems in situ.  One for later.  Lunch was taken at Rynettin watching a few mistle thrushes feeding in the field and having a good look at the drying kiln section of the old farm building, now an archeologically important

Hemimycena tortuosa stipe hair

link with our past.  A quick scan of the mountain tops produced a distant golden eagle as we headed off down the track back to the car.  Back home a check of the fungi guide showed that I was in the right area re a name for the fungus – the dewdrop bonnet (Hemimycena tortuosa) but only fully confirmed once the spores had been checked along with spending some time finding the cork-screw hairs on the stem (stipe) of the fungus.  Another interesting link re this fungus is that the late Peter D. Orton, long-term Abernethy fungi recorder, was the first person to describe it.

This month saw the loss of support for the excellent Windows XP operating system on my laptop, and though I gather it will still work, there are likely to be problems with security.  So a new laptop arrived, complete with Windows 7 so it was goodbye to the very simple and functional XP to the most complicated set of symbols, boxes etc in Word and Excel – this, we are told, is progress.  Much faster processing yes, but why so much clutter and searching for how to carry out a simple operation like “print selection” in Excel.  One good bit of help from Microsoft was free access to PC Mover Express which, when downloaded onto old and new laptops, moved

Young aspen catkins

all the files in an operation that took 5 hours!  Having typed this blog I just hope that it will be visible on your screens once launched.  Data entering was also caught up with later in the month with a slight muscle strain after gate lifting ensuring I stayed put for a few days.  Gentle walking helped so the perfect excuse for visits to the nearby stands of aspen to see if any catkins had started to appear in what was predicted to be a good flowering year.  Scanning the trees by the play-park and football field failed to find anything and the mature trees by the village river walk were bare.  However, the old faithfuls on Dell Road by the church were showing signs of catkins  bursting forth and another couple of older trees nearer the village hall also looked promising, though all the young catkins were quite high up.  As mentioned in earlier blogs most aspens regenerate from underground suckers so are genetically the same as the mature, surrounding trees.  These stands of identical trees are then described as “clones” and by studying the clones

Older aspen catkins (female)

over the years it has been possible, at catkin/flowering time, to determine whether the clones are male trees or female trees (dioecious) and whether stands of male and female trees are close enough together to allow fertile seed to be produced.  Trees actually flowering is a rare event and, with many stands of male and female trees often far apart, the production of seed is even rarer so checking the trees through this growing season can only continue to add to our knowledge of where the two sexes are, allowing for a little bit of infill planting of males or females to help with seed production in the future. 

The statement “we have to feed a growing world population” continues to destroy habitats locally for our farmland waders and driving back from Grantown one day I could see lots of rough grassland being burnt off removing typical curlew breeding habitat and the invertebrate populations it supported.  As I crossed the Spey by Broomhill Bridge I also witnessed the final

Wader habitat goes under the plough

area of damp, rush dominated grassland being put under the plough completing the removal of all the areas at Coulnakyle Farm favoured by our “nationally” (now becoming a joke) important Strathspey wader population.  Puzzled lapwings, oystercatchers and curlews watched on.  Re-visiting a few days later a lapwing had decided to “go for it” and was preparing a nest site in amongst the plough-lines (a good nest site) unaware that within days the ploughed ground would be revisited to convert the nest site into a finer tilth ready for sowing the seeds probably for a crop of barley to continue to “feed the world”.  I thought that birds, their nests and eggs

Hey, you've missed a bit!

were protected by law, and no doubt if the farmer saw me pinching the lapwing’s eggs I would end up in court.  Should the lapwings persist with their nesting attempt, which they are likely to do, then they will need to watch out for the heavy roller that will arrive to ensure a flat field, squashed eggs but a good crop.  Am I missing something?  This will be followed by applications of fertiliser, herbicides and pesticides ensuring a nice, clean crop.  The conservation organisations continue to deliver fine words and “initiatives” whilst the annual loss of wader habitat continues apace.  Sorry… rant over!

Red and roe deer poo continued to test and puzzle me as more of the tiny urchin like fungi were found growing on dung deposited in the slightly damper areas.  The new finds didn’t look like the orange Lasiobolus macrotrichus fungus found last month.  One of the new ones was faintly orange whilst the other was white and under the microscope whilst the spores looked similar, the pointed hairs didn’t.  Guidance from expert Liz put me in the right direction suggesting I should also check for the species Cheilymenia as well as Lasiobolus and then everything fell into place. 

Lasiobolus ciliates (white) low left & x2 Cheilymenia fimicola right

The whitish one turned out to be Lasiobolus ciliates and the pale orange one Cheilymenia fimicola.  Sorry to go a little further along the dung line but it’s quite amazing what happens when you keep a few animal dung pellets in a wee tub with a bit of water to keep them damp.  Slowly the “bigger” species mentioned earlier (if you can class something 2mm diameter big) started to decline and I was just about to throw them out when I noticed the ideal growing conditions had brought out another tiny fungus, and unlike the other species with round discs

Coprinopsis cordispora - an inkcap about x40

with no stems (these are ascomycetes) the new fungus had a stem and a cap, a genuine Agaric-type fungus, but in miniature form.  Could I do anything with this?  Unsure, the wee tub was put to one side and forgotten about for a few days.  Eventually I remembered about the tub and contents and on removing the lid I found lots of tiny fungi some a few millimetres high just emerging and other about 2 cm tall and bent over with a few stuck to the side of the tub.  It was the latter that provided the clue that would lead to their identification, the stems of the bent

Coprinopsis cordispora spores x600

fungus and the side of the tub were covered in tiny black dots that looked a bit ink-like.  Could this be an inkcap?  So small?  The Collins photographic guide to mushrooms and toadstools didn’t help but the other Collins Fungi Guide with hand drawings but very detailed text did.  The spores also helped, and before going near the internet I had already seen that they were slightly angular (I’d thought 5 sided) and had what I called a “pip” (germ pore) and book and internet lead me to Coprinopsis cordisporus, an inkcap found on herbivore dung.  Phew!

The month ended with a trip north to the Highland Biological Recording Group’s Spring Gathering in Strathpeffer where, along with the normal business side of the meeting there were two brilliant presentations.  The first, given by Stephen Moran (a brilliant invertebrate specialist) covered the life of a past member of the group the late Philip Entwistle.  This fascinating talk covered Philips life as a leader in the field of insect pathology, working for the Government body Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), before retiring to live in the Highlands near the

The harvestman Megabunus diadema identified by Hayley

Spinningdale oakwoods in Sutherland.  Here, his passion for insects and insect breeding and recording lead to hundreds of new records, a species new to science and many papers on the species he studied.  Stephen is currently working his way through Philips insect collections, sorting and cataloguing before the whole collection is deposited with the national collections in Edinburgh.  The second talk was by Hayley Wiswell on spiders and the recently formed Highland Spider Group.  With few people recording spiders in our area Hayley was hoping that by covering some of the common and not so common species and by having a “try to find” list a few more folk might be tempted into the field of spider identification.  An inspirational talk with an outing planned for later in the year to seek out a few species.

The last big outing of the month sent me off trying to re-find a bonny wee plant called shining cranesbill (Geranium lucidum) as well as trying to get a photo of the aptly named golf club moss (Catoscopium nigritum).  The area, close to the A939 Tomintoul road has been visited by myself a few times in the past undertaking moss and lichen hunts.  As well as trying to photograph the moss I was checking to ensure I hadn’t missed a couple of other lichens found recently in other

Unidentified snails on £1 coin

lime-rich areas.  The rapid drop of 220m from road to the small burn starting point was the easy bit, with the ascent on the opposite side of the burn a climb back to the starting height.  Nothing new was found by the old lime kiln or on the surrounding rocks so I made my way to a small seepage running from the hillside where very lime-rich water runs down the hill.  The remains of tiny snails were found in the small runnels so a few were photographed to see if expert Richard could identify any.  Treading very carefully I started to look for the moss eventually finding it on the slightly drier parts of the flush.  The next tricky bit was getting a photo without getting too wet achieved by kneeling on my orange survival bag.  One target species found, one to go, though the second would be much trickier, the grid reference for the flower was pre-GPS and gave an approximate 100m square to work in.  This flower can be found in quite a few sites but

The golf club moss Catoscopium nigritum

not many are classed as “natural” many plants having become established from garden stock.  At this reasonably remote site and with a genuinely lime loving flora all around, the plant was classed as truly native so it would be good to know if it was still present.  Having seen the plant at its other natural site near Huntly’s Cave I had a rough idea of where to look, but after about an hour of wandering up and down rocks and scree I was thinking of making my way back to the car.  Faced with a dense stand of juniper I had to decide whether to go left by the rocks or right by the burn, I chose left.  A good decision and as I skirted the junipers I spotted the tell-tale

Shining cranesbill re-found

leaves of the cranesbill, not a lot, but enough plant leaves to know that this must by the location recorded as “in small quantity” by the late, great Mary McCallum Webster in 1974.  There was frog spawn in some of the small pools by the burn and after thanking the site for a good day out I turned for the half hour climb back to the road.  It was easier climbing through an area of birches but the route produced another small burn to cross with a moss and lichen covered rock in its middle.  Always worth a glance and as I checked the side of the rock I couldn’t believe my

Peltigera venosa lichen

eyes when the tell-tale signs of small round growths on the edge of greenish “leaves” suggested Peltigera venosa (fan lichen) something I had only seen twice before.  A very strange place to be growing on a rock in a burn, and with evidence that the rock became inundated after heavy rain, but that’s what I was looking at and, for a change, there was quite a good population rather than the tiny scraps of the lichen found previously.  A nice find and the climb back to the road didn’t seem so bad buoyed with this last find of the day.

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

Stewart and Janet

Bird of prey killings

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-26990764 more news at bottom of the BBC webpage:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/rspb-increase-reward-to-26000-after-13-red-kites-and-four-buzzards-found-dead.1397040147?utm_source=www.heraldscotland.com&utm_medium=RSS%20Feed&utm_campaign=Scottish%20News :

http://news.stv.tv/highlands-islands/269352-birds-including-a-buzzard-and-five-red-kites-found-dead-in-the-highlands/ for the start of the tragedy:

Highland Biological Recording Group

http://www.hbrg.org.uk/Latest.html

and how to join HBRG

http://www.hbrg.org.uk/MainPages/joinHBRG.htm

Hayley Wiswell Spider ID chart via HBRG

http://www.hbrg.org.uk/MainPages/OrbWebSpiders.pdf

 

Robin in garden

A micro-moth Amblyptilia acanthadactyla

Grandson Harry on a roll

Photos © Stewart Taylor