The Missing Month - Part I

Ok, so clearly I've been bad again. Keeping this blog bang up to date was one of my resolutions for 2018 and yet somehow a whole month has passed since my last post. I did ask that you give me a nudge if ever I went quiet for more than a week or so.

I'll break the 'missing month' into bite-sized posts. This first post will concern the week that Tony came to stay. Naturally, we had a fantastic week (hence this post won't be particularly 'bite-sized' after all), I saw eighteen species new for my PSL, I'm guessing Tony probably had just a few more...

Day 1 - July 29th seemed an awfully long time coming, the preceding week positively dragged by and felt more like a month. One unexpected highlight was finding this beauty inside the bathroom window on the 25th

Small Tortioseshell - I gave it a prod and in return it revealed the underside of the (usually hidden) forewing

but then finally the day dawned when Tony was due to arrive. And arrive he did, exactly as promised - what a legend! The weather forecast wasn't looking especially great for the duration of Tony's stay (in fact I've nicknamed him Rain Man), so whilst it was still modestly pleasant we braved a quick dash into the evening sunlight and headed for the Sphagnum bog at the top of the hill. Tony had forwarded me a Hit List of plants he wanted to see, two of them occur in the bog and both were eminently gettable...

Drosera x obovata - the hybrid between Great and Round-leaved Sundews, both of which occur here

Lesser Clubmoss - we saw this fairly frequently throughout the week

Both of these plants were quite high on Tony's Hit List, so it was nice to start off well. En route up to the boggy area we'd stopped to examine a few leafmines on a roadside Grey Willow. In the good old days this would be a simple identification to make; Stigmella on Salix = Stigmella salicis, sorted.

Stigmella salicis - importantly, the egg was located on the under surface of the leaf

However, micro-lep guru and old friend John Langmaid is currently in the throes of splitting Stigmella salicis into two species, one that lays the egg on the topside of the leaf and one that lays the egg on the underside. Every mine we checked had the egg on the underside, which may conform to Stigmella salicis or it may conform to the 'new' species, I'm not sure yet, but we'll be able to properly assign it to one or other when the paper is published. We soon had Tony's MVL trap blazing away in the garden and hatched our plans for tomorrow. Well, I had to work, but Tony hatched his plans...

Day 2 - July 30th dawned just a smidge too early for my liking (I'd forsaken my bed for the living room floor, Tony having use of my room for his stay) but there was the MVL trap to go through so I hauled myself up off the floor and donned boots, ready for action. 26 moths of 18 species wasn't exactly spectacular, but Eudonia truncicolella and Acleris laterana (gen detted) were new for the square and a Mompha propinquella was good to see, it being my third for the garden and just the fourth record for Skye!

Eudonia truncicolella - note the chequered fringes to the forewing, plenty of white between the black

Tony wandered down to Uig Wood whilst I was working. I pointed him in the direction of several plants that he needed, none of which he managed to locate. I think mostly because my directions are famously crap rather than Tony's lack of plant finding abilities. So, after work, we returned to Uig Wood where we found the necessary species, namely Globeflower (basal leaves only), Marsh Hawk's-beard (gone over already) and Upland Enchanter's Nightshade (no excuses, he'd walked straight by it!) We then clambered up a hill where Melancholy Thistle and Invisible Spider were new for Tony. Back down on lower levels we called in to say hello to the Lesser Knotweed patch and spotted plenty of Dasineura pustulans galls on Meadowsweet leaves. Ticksville for Tony!

Day 3 - 31st July and the moth trap had improved on yesterday's numbers, 90 moths of 29 species including a Manchester Treble Bar (a good moth on Skye), 2 Gold Spangles, the first of a great run of Dark Marbled Carpets, 2 Eana osseana (lifer for me!), Agriphila tristella and a Dotted Carpet (also a lifer for me!)

Dotted Carpet - the first of several that we trapped during the week

Today we intended to join a Skye Nature Group outing to Rubha Hunnish, the very northernmost point of Skye and acknowledged as a great spot for cetacean watching. Peggy Semler volunteers for the cetacean watch programme up here and she was running the show today. Unfortunately she had no control over what the weather was doing, it had turned decidedly shitty. Strong winds and sideways rain greeted us as we began our slog across the open moorland towards the high cliffs that overlook the sea far below. Very far below, in fact. The rain swept in and we lost sight of everything further than half a mile out. Peggy and I glimpsed a subliminal Minke Whale as it did a high roll and dived deep, never to be seen again. Tony needed Northern Minke Whale (though he's seen their Antarctic cousin), so was a bit gutted to have missed the 'action', such as it was. A couple of Bonxies were the only other things of interest.

Rubha Hunnish towering over an empty sea

After an hour or so, Tony declared that he was 'off to find a tree'. Peggy remarked that he'd be lucky (I think they all blew away many, many years back) and so, when he hadn't returned after about twenty minutes, I figured I better go check he hadn't fallen into a hole or become stuck in the bog. Turns out he was busily finding inverts on the leeward side of an outcropping, which certainly seemed far more appealing than staring at a blank sea. Without further ado I joined him searching the rocks for insects.

Tony working his magic

We kicked up several moths from the rocks, they all seemed to be Twin-spot Carpets apart from a couple of Dark Marbled Carpets. I noticed a strong population of Star Sedge in the bog and soon found several plants that were infected by a smut, something Tony had never seen before

Anthracoidea karii - a smut fungus restricted to Star Sedges growing in the Highlands and Outer Hebrides

A tiny leafhopper launched itself out of the Wild Thyme carpeting the rocks and landed on my arm - never a wise thing for an insect to do. It was quickly in a pot and later keyed through to Eupteryx notata, a common hopper but new for me. It's associated with Wild Thyme and already known from Scotland, so no worries there. Completely new to Skye though - obviously. By now we'd successfully lost sight of the rest of the party so cut our way across the moor and back towards the car, being severely buffeted by the near gale force wind. Here's Tony trying his best not to be blown off his feet

Words fail me - other than "haha!"

Day 4 - 1st August no major surprises or upsets in the moth trap, though yet another Manchester Treble Bar helped confirm my back garden as Skye's premier site for the species. Today we had yet more plant-bothering plans in mind.

We began by heading down to Penifiler on a plant twitch. Skye is recognised as being a great place for Equisetums (just ask anyone...) and there was one horsetail that neither of us had seen before. Armed with a suitably specific grid reference and after a bit of genning-up beforehand we felt confident that we'd skore

Dutch Rush aka Rough Horsetail (Equisetum hyemale) - sweet!!!

We found a whole clump of Dutch Rush in the verge, then decided to wander into an adjacent field and found a whole heapload more of the stuff in ditches. A lone Scotch Argus was Tony's first for several years. We also found Field and Wood Horsetails as well as both Common Wasp and Red Wasp on Hogweed heads. Tony ticked the Red Wasp, low-listing scummer that he is :)

Further along the road we noted a hedgerow full of Confused Bridewort Spiraea x pseudosalicifolia with a large Geranium flowering below

It keyed out nearest to Pencilled Crane's-bill, though the petals weren't right for starters. Turns out it's the hybrid between French and Pencilled Crane's-bill, a garden plant known as Druce's Crane's-bill Geranium x oxonianum which I think was new for Tony. Recently, Tony and I have had a small, though potentially significant, disagreement regards hybrid plants and their eligibility towards our PSLs. More to follow in due course...

Happy with finding Rough Horsetail at it's only known Skye site, we sped onwards towards the hills above Sligachan in search of Bog Orchids and Brown-beak Sedge. I hadn't seen either before, Tony needed the sedge. We set off along a track that led inland from Sligachan, sploshing through standing water on the path and wading through the small torrents flowing across the lower sections. We were soon forced to cross the river, thankfully there's a decent bridge!

View from the bridge. Note the lack of sideways rain...well that sure didn't last for much longer!

The weather forecast, combined with my own infamous abilities to accurately foretell the coming conditions, led us to believe that we'd mostly dodge the incoming showers. However, just as we cleverly managed to place ourselves into probably the most exposed part of the glen possible, the rain came crashing down. Hard. Ha, but we are fearless intrepid pan-species listers and we laugh in the face of rain! Or, to word it slightly more accurately, I pull my coat sleeves over my fingers, hunker up inside my hood, man up and splash woodenly through the torrents. Tony, on the other hand, figures if he's wet already then what's the point of even bothering to zip up a non-waterproof jacket, raise a hood, pull on a hat or bother with waterproof trousers. Hence his enthusiasm for Brown Beak Sedge suddenly waned quite considerably. I bravely foolishly suggested we carry on just a bit further, but even I, at the sight of a raging river cutting across our path, agreed that it was probably safer and wiser to turn back. Dammit.

However, all was not lost (other than Tony's will to live) for I soon spied a small lochan that looked promising. And sure enough, bingo!

Pipewort - a crushingly localised plant in Britain and a lifer for both of us! 

The heads of these plants were submerged at a depth of maybe six inches below the surface. Looking at the Heather and Bog Myrtle, which was also submerged, I reckoned the water levels were maybe a foot or so higher than they should be, which meant that the Pipewort should have been emergent and glorious to behold. So too the drowned Water Lobelia flowerheads, currently several inches underwater. Pipewort and Water Lobelia were both lifers for Tony. He celebrated by looking at me with blank, hollow eyes whilst the rain dripped off his nose and ears and doubtless ran down his back too. I quickly figured we needed to get him dry again - and pronto.

Some time later we arrived back at the car, the rain by now having temporarily stopped. As if by magic, Tony suddenly burst back into life and suggested we stay indoors for the rest of the day. To be fair, we both had a bit of microscopy to be getting on with. However, judging by the snores emanating from my room, I think Tony chose to spend his time away from the microscope. My housemates were heavily involved in a noisy PS3 game on the bigscreen (Call of Duty - Ghosts, it's pretty sweet). Tony slept through it all, bless him. The good news was that he awoke feeling much better and microscopy did indeed happen. Yay!

Day 5 - 2nd August started with us peering into a wet light trap. Wet, but full of moths! By my reckoning there were about 140 moths of 30 species including a single Pyrausta despicata - a new moth for me. A Chevron was new for the square this year, as was Opostega salaciella with its crazy big ear flaps.

However, today's main event was to be the ascent of The Storr, one of the most spectacular lumps of rock to be found in all of Britain. Stephen Bungard, BSBI Recorder for Skye, had kindly agreed to lead us by the nose to a suite of rare plants that occur up there. It's taken me over 20 months of living on Skye to visit The Storr, but bloody hell it was worth it! I now need to get back up there ASAP to see some of the stuff we missed on the day. As for the stuff we did see...

First up was Needle Rock itself where it took a matter of seconds to find Rock Lady's-mantle Alchemilla wichurae, with it's broad leaf shape, strong hair-tipped teeth and the veins running at 45° from each other. Confusingly, it also grows happily in the mountain turf.

Rock Lady's-mantle. You'll notice that the leaves are wet...I sense a theme developing

Just a few feet away was the first of an awful lot of Northern Rock-cress. So much of it, in fact, that I utterly failed to manage a single decent image. Need to go back!

Northern Rock-cress - really quite common on ledges/outcroppings pretty much everywhere up here

Also rather nice to reacquaint myself with this, last seen up Ben Lawers a few years back

Mountain Sorrel - seen fairly infrequently on ledges

The other plant that was very noticeable on bare rocky ledges was this rare beast, Glaucous Meadow-grass Poa glauca. I wish all grasses were as obvious as this one!

Poa glauca - a real botanist's plant and a bit of a Mega!

We were soon to be ascending into the cloud base, but not before we had a bit of a hands-and-knees search for Sibbaldia on a hillside where a huge landslip had previously occurred. I strung an odd-looking Alpine Lady's-mantle, which was as close as we managed, but Stephen then came up trumps with a whole flippin' colony of Moonwort! Fantastic, this is a bizarre looking fern and one I've been keenly searching for these past couple of months, hence I was especially pleased to encounter it in numbers and in such an amazing landscape too. Happy days! Though I did stand up a bit quickly and nearly fell off...

Moonwort - it's a very sexy fern 

It's a bizarre landscape up here!

We headed up into the wind-lashed clouds and got soaked. Tony was keen to point out that my prediction that it wouldn't rain today was rubbish. I was just as keen to point out that getting smacked in the face by a fast moving cloud was NOT the same as being rained upon. Honest guv... Anyway, we all got thoroughly soaked, despite it definitely not raining. Happily, we had some very good plants to keep us suitably enthralled

Cyphel - another one I've always longed to see, hence I was just a tryphel excited!!!!

Stephen was on a mission to take us to the sole known Three-leaved Rush plant in the entire Trotternish (!), so onwards and ever upwards we slogged. Eventually we stood at the base of a cliff and began working our way through the scree. Rounding a corner, we stopped and stared upwards to see this

See that scraggy mess on the right? That's a Three-leaved Rush, so it is! 

There may be others up here, but Stephen knows these crags very well. If there are others here, they must be very well hidden, is all I'll say.

We endured a very wet walk (whilst not being rained upon) around the top of a corrie but, thanks to the poor visibility, we managed to miss the correct route to a Holly Fern site. The Iceland Purslane still lay far above us up on the summit plateau. We had a team huddle and all agreed that it would be a fairly miserable scramble to get to it, one for another time when the weather was bearable. We descended and headed back into drier conditions. For one mad moment the sun came out and it became uncomfortably warm!

Back at the car we noticed an area of dumped manure and wool shoddy, complete with several jumbo cereal grasses. Stephen took some away to key through, bless him.

This turned out to be Bread Wheat Triticum aestivum - tick! 

Tony was keen to see Equisetum x font-queri, the hybrid of Giant x Marsh Horsetail that occurs up here. This was colloquially known as Skye Horsetail for a while, though it occurs elsewhere too. It's abundant along much of the roadside just north of The Storr carpark and we had no difficulty finding loads. More pleasingly, for me at least, were the many flowering Grass-of-Parnassus, one of which had a Broom Moth larva chomping the anthers. This is the first time I've seen the caterpillar, though I've had plenty of the adults in my light trap.

Marvellous!

Our adventure over, we headed back to Portree. But not before Tony spied a clump of "big yellow daisy stuff" in a roadside ditch.

The heck is that then?

Stephen slammed the car into a handy layby whilst I dodged death on the busy road and ran back to grab a sample plant. I thought it looked like Elecampane but with smaller leaves, Tony suggested Leopard's Bane, but the leaves were wrong for that too. Hmmm.

Back in Portree Stephen pointed out the only known Yellow Corydalis in VC104 (!!!) and headed off to a nearby garden centre to see if they could name the "big yellow daisy stuff"

Yellow Corydalis growing above the church windows. But why is it so rare on Skye???

Tony and I returned homewards a bit shattered but full of exciting memories of the high slopes and brilliant plants we'd seen today. Stephen came back with "Inula hookeri" for the yellow daisy, another lifer for everyone - what a stupidly brilliant day we'd had!

Day 6 - 3rd August was Tony's last day on Skye. We started by going through the previous night's haul of moths in the trap. I was sad to see the back of Tony's Robinson trap with it's powerful 125W MVL bulb. Makes my own small actinic trap look like a toy. Anyway, there was a bumper haul of some 250 moths of over 40 species including my first Bee Moth on Skye, Square-spot Rustic, Lesser Swallow Prominent were both new for year and - best of all - a V-Pug which was only the second for Skye!!!! And, to top it all, Tony decided that I could borrow his trap until I next see him, what a complete flippin' legend!

Some of the frenetic scribblings in my notebook from that morning :) 

So, our last outing of the trip. Tony was keen to see Shady Horsetail, I knew a site. We headed off to Storr Lochs, parked up by the dam and spent a short while gathering various pondweeds for Tony to key through once back home again.

From the dam, we walked a short distance to the steep steps that lead down to the shore at Berreraig Bay. Thankfully, the Shady Horsetail gave itself up less than a third of the way down, it was becoming uncomfortably humid and the midges were biting! We stopped to examine some Sallow leaves that had some sort of a tar spot fungus growing on them

Turns out this is Willow Tar Spot Rhytisma salicinum and a lifer for both of us! 

I found a patch of Heath-rush with several Coleophora cases attached to the seedheads. The only Coleophora recorded from Heath-rush in Britain is Coleophora alticolella, a very common species  here on Skye.

Coleophora alticolella on Heath-rush seedheads

Tony had a very long drive ahead of him, so we headed back. But not before he did the usual trick of spotting something interesting from a moving car - this time it was a patch of Lesser Knotweed in the verge. I'd spotted lots of pink and white-flowered bindweed a bit further along the same verge, so we checked it out. Initially we thought this was Large Bindweed, but Stephen later corrected us and told us it was actually Hairy Bindweed and known from the roadside verges in Portree. Sweet, that's a lifer for me!

Most boring pic ever of Hairy Bindweed? Probably!

And so endeth an amazing week. Stephen earns our eternal gratitude for dragging us kicking and screaming up that mountain and showing us so many great plants, and also just for being such an all 'round great guy. Tony is simply beyond words, what an outstanding fella! I'm heading saaarf again in a few weeks time and we're meeting up again. Doubtless we'll be immersing ourselves in yet more fast and furious PSL'ing mayhem and madness. Coupla bloomin' nutters that we are :)