Eat well, love yourself and those around you, try not to drink yourself into a stupor on too regular a basis, don't do things that you don't want to just because you're too polite to say otherwise. Oh, and treat every field season as though it's your last. And blog about it.
Yep, that about sums up my resolutions for 2020.
I have a brand new blog prepared for 2020, I shall unleash it upon you sometime over the next few days. It will be devoted purely to Coleoptera and Diptera, both of which I'm going to make a concerted effort to get to grips with this coming year. Everything else will continue to be brought to you via this blog.
Whatever you get up to tonight - be safe, have fun and try not to get arrested.
Happy New Year everybody, I'll see you on the other side!!!
If there's one thing you're pretty much guaranteed to find at this time of year, it's a whole bunch of wildlife bloggers churning out their Annual Review posts. Why do we do this? Are we joyfully sharing all of our good times, of the best species seen in the wildest places, of those found during our wackiest adventures? Or are we just bragging about what we achieved during the previous twelve months? Why do we write down anything at all, I wonder.
I blog far too infrequently nowadays (you may disagree...) and often only when I've found something unexpected (bragging), when I get stuck trying to identify something and work my way through the keying process here (hopefully educational) or when I have success in a new field technique, such as leaf litter sifting for hoverfly larvae (inspiring others, maybe).
And then there's the Annual Review itself. The highlights of the year just finished, the best bits, the proper juicy stuff. Well, if you want to see how an Annual Review really should be written up, take a look at Andy Musgrove's website, he certainly does a far better job of it than ever I could. Than most of us could, in fact, and all without a single sniff of a brag to be had, the guy is a legend!
But back to me........
In 2019 I managed 381 lifers, ending the year with a PSL of 5756 species.
In 2018 I managed a huge 518 lifers. 2017 added 354 species and 2016 added 258 species.
The result being that in the last four years I have added a smidge over 1500 lifers (bragging!) though less than two thirds of them were self-found/identified (the simple truth).
2019 was supposed to be my Bugs, Beetles & Flies Year. By concentrating my natural history efforts on these three groups, I planned to develop a greater confidence, skill and understanding of each. Well....
I quickly discovered the truth of what I'd long suspected - that I'm really not at all interested in bugs. In 2019 I managed a paltry 29 hemipteran lifers, twenty nine! Appalling, up from 199 to 228 - that's just crap. If a workable Mirid key ever comes along, I may get into bugs. Maybe (but only once I've exhausted absolutely everything else, ha!)
However, I did manage 95 new beetles in 2019 and gained a greater familiarity with others I have seen before. That may sound quietly impressive, but the truth is that over half of the 95 were seen in a few short days spent in the company of grandmaster coleopterist Mark 'The Tree Tonker' Telfer. In reality all I did was hold on for the ride. But I have made my own slow progress, in fits and starts, leaps and bounds. I'm no longer phased at attempting to card 1.5mm beetles. It's definitely something I've still to master, but I'm improving nonetheless. And yeah, I'm now carding everything, rather than pinning. I've arranged my storeboxes so that the families run in systematic order. They may still resemble the crazed workings of a lunatic mind, but they're not as bad as they once were.
But my biggest surprise was the flies. I really enjoyed keying through selected families - the calliphorids, syrphids, sepsids, bibionids, scatophagids and stratiomyids for starters. Standing beside sunlit logs, tree trunks and walls waiting for sunning flies to gather in the weak spring sunlight was one of my highlights in 2019. Swiping through a dancing cloud of 'winter gnats' on a still, sunny morning will be one of my first highlights in 2020. Trichocera, now there's a genus I plan to explore next year, one of many!
My other success of 2019 were the plants. Of my 20 bryophyte ticks, I think 19 were shown to me by Nick 'Mossman Chronicles' Hodgetts. Definitely acres of room for improvement there! But I had a far higher success rate with the vascular plants. I added 45 higher plants to my PSL in 2019, a fair few being self-found with most of the rest being pointed out by the inexhaustible Stephen 'Indiana Jones of the North' Bungard. I've now seen over 1300 species of vascular plants in Britain. I doubt I'll attain anything approaching 1400 in 2020, not unless I spend the entire summer/autumn touring the south of England, but it will be fun trying to get that little bit closer.
Way back in 2017, I planned a month-by-month blowof the forthcoming year in natural history. I mentioned then that only an injury or a love interest could jeopardise my plans. In the end, those plans failed for many reasons, though injury was not one of them. A little over three months ago now, I find that love has finally re-entered my life. Neither of us are entirely certain where we are heading, Skye could become a fast-disappearing blur in the rearview mirror or it could be our home for years to come, we simply just don't know.
So for now I have several goals in mind for 2020; get into plants properly now that the square-bashing for Atlas 2020 is over - keying, pressing, learning grasses and sedges, seeking out high altitude stuff and twitching selected rares. Continue improving my keying and carding of beetles, try new sampling techniques and become more competent in beetle family recognition. Catch a shedload more flies than I did in 2019, key every single one of them to family, and to species where I have access to a key. And most importantly of all, spend time with the Princess of Armadaleshire. PSL is a huge part of my life, there's no changing that, it always has been and it always will be. But love is stronger, my love for Lisa and her love for me, that will be what defines 2020 for me.
I have one more post left in this year, but if I miss saying it before you next read this - I hope 2019 was a great year for you and that 2020 will surpass it in unexpected and delightful ways.
Yesterday I wandered up through Uig Wood and had a look beneath various bits of bark for signs of life. I found masses of the globular springtail Dicyrtomina saundersi which, after all these years, I still can't say correctly. Barcode bum globbies, easy.
Somehow, I spied the tiniest beetle I've ever self-found, slowly working its way along the underside of a piece of bark I'd just pulled away from a fallen log. Wow - it was proper small, probably about a millimetre or so! I wish I'd have taken a pic in situ, but I was so damned keen to get the thing into a pot that I didn't think of the camera until afterwards. Through my 10x handlens I could see abdominal segments projecting beyond the end of short, squared-off elytra. It had a wide, rounded pronotum and was a very pale orange colour. Looked like a tiny staph to me.
Back indoors I gave it the ethyl acetate treatment, whereupon it became stuck to the glass at the very bottom of a tube. No amount of gentle (and not so gentle) tapping would release it. In the end I floated it out by pipetting water into the tube until it floated out onto tissue paper. Sorted! Right, now to card it....haha!
It didn't go awfully well
Oops - there goes an elytron...
I know what you're thinking - what a bloody amateur, even I could do better than that! Well yeah, you probably could too. But remember this is a very small beetle. In fact, just to show you how small -
My finger pointing at the speck of dust that is my mystery beetle
It was at this point I figured I best ask for help. I emailed a pic to Mark Telfer, who quickly came back with the suggestion that it was a Ptinella and was quite likely to be Ptinella errabunda. Blimey! Ok, happily I have the precise book necessary for the job, so I can do this. Umm.
Mark came back with the helpful suggestion of just checking the genitalia (on a beetle that measures less than a millimetre!!!) rather than trying the keys. SAY WHAT??? But it wasn't quite as crazy a suggestion as I initially thought. These beetles are so darn small that they are essentially transparent, all I had to do was whack it on a slide and use my compound microscope to compare the shape of the spermatheca to those in the book. Oh ok, that sounds easy.
I started off by floating it in a drop of water, which revealed why this family of beetles are colloquially known as the featherwing beetles. How lovely!
A bit crumpled, but definitely very feather-like. I'm glad I saw this!
Alright, so now we know it's definitely a featherwing (not that I would ever doubt Mark's beetle IDs) so now for a peek at the spermatheca. Not sure quite where that lies, somewhere in the abdominal cavity obviously, presumably in the rear half? Rear third? Online searches did not help, neither did my books. All they show are what it looks like removed and floated in liquid, or as drawings. Ho hum, how hard can it be anyway?
I managed to orientate the beetle onto its back and splayed the rear legs apart for a view of the abdominal underside....nope, I honestly don't know what it is I'm meant to be visualising here!
Backlit from below
There's an intriguing 'dark loop' beneath the left hind coxa. Could this be part of what I was looking for?
And it's no better when lit from above - WTF?!?!
I decided, for reasons best not talked about, that I needed to separate the abdomen from the thorax, insert a pin and slide it down the edge of the abdomen, thus allowing me to peel back the underparts and reveal the genitalia sitting there all nice and neat. This may sound like madness, but it's a trick that Roger Booth showed to Mark and apparently it works. You can read about it by clicking here. I first met Roger many years ago and Mark several years ago. They are both scrupulously thorough, careful, methodical chaps. I expect they'd make excellent brain surgeons. Not I.
Abdomen safely detached - so far so good
I now had a bit of beetle roughly half a millimetre long to play around with. Just let that sink in. Half a bloody millimetre! And somewhere inside that half a millimetre was a distinctively shaped bit of a sex organ. Seemingly 'quite large' for the size of the beetle. Oh right, like maybe a TENTH of a millimetre then??? *sigh* I continued onwards....
Surprisingly good pic of the pronotal angles!
But what about the spermatheca, I hear you cry? Ok, hands up - I couldn't find it. Nope, nothing. I fumbled and bumbled and generally made a hash of it all. I had the abdomen down to the final 3 segments, but I was buggered if I could see anything resembling the pictures in the book. I bunged it into hot water to keep it moist. It filled with bubbles, which looked quite pretty, but didn't help.
It seems the spermatheca must be situated higher into the abdominal cavity than I expected, hence would have been torn apart as I smashed my way through the segments with micropins narrower than the width of a human hair. Holy crap, these beetles are tiny!
So, in conclusion, I fluffed what ought to have been a perfectly do-able identification. But I'm not bitter. Look at it this way, I spotted a beetle that measures less than a millimetre in length, potted it and then dissected it. So I bodged it, yeah. But if you'd have told me a year ago that I'd be even attempting such a thing, I would have laughed and told you to piss off. But I am.
I'm happy that I tried, even if (on this occasion) I failed.
Part of my role as maintenance man is to deploy and regularly inspect various pest control devices. My 'pest control arsenal', amongst many other things, includes some sixty or so sticky traps, cleverly and discretely hidden around the premises. I check these on a weekly basis and write up any relevant findings. And no, I've never seen or trapped a roach here, something everyone but me will doubtless be glad to hear. I'd quite like to add it to my 1K square list...but don't tell the bosses that!
I've been especially looking out for the various tiny beetles that may, if left to themselves, get into the flour bins or amongst the bran and undergo a rapid population explosion. Partly because I'm keen to see the kitchen remain essentially pest free, but mostly because I'd really quite like to see one! I've had a run of 'nice' finds in the sticky traps this autumn, culminating in what may be the first Scottish record for one tiny beetle.
In case you aren't sure what a sticky trap actually looks like, this is pretty similar to the type I shove behind headboards and beneath beds, I use about twenty five of these.
The wee beasties crawl in, stick to the glued floor inside and I monitor any unwanted 'guests' within
I use more robust traps in the kitchen areas and it's these traps that turn up the goods. But before we get around to the star of the show, here are a small selection of sticky delights to whet your appetite. All of these pics were taken by holding my camera up to the eyepiece of my microscope, clicking and pretty much hoping for the best, hence the poor quality
Ptinus fur - 3mm of loveliness, unfortunately not allowed in the kitchen area
Tegenaria domestica - by far the largest victim of the sticky traps
Lepinotus patruelis - a very small (2mm) indoors barkfly with reduced wings
A member of the Liposcelididae family of barkflies - well beyond my capabilities!
Chilenocaecilius ornatipennis - 2nd Scottish indoors record of this invading South American barkfly
If nothing else, these traps are great for recording barkflies! But this morning I found a tiny beetle (so tiny I needed a microscope to confirm it was definitely a beetle and not a grain of debris). As soon as I clapped eyes on it, I knew it was something I'd never seen before.
What the heck is that???
I initially wondered if it was some sort of exotic weevil without geniculate antennae, but soon ditched that thought. I was still in work time, so I couldn't spend too long trying to figure out what I had discovered, but I needed to know if it was a potential pest species. I found it close to where the flour bins are located, was this a dried food pest? Would it get into the flour or bran? What about all the dried fruit and cheeses? Heck, what was this thing?
I limited myself to 15 minutes Googling for inspiration and thought I was onto a firm lead with some of the smaller silvanids of the genus Silvanus that sometimes get into grains. But they weren't quite right, though they led me to a thing called Oryzaephilus surinamensis which looks very cool indeed. I really want to see one of those!
Just as my time was up I hit lucky and figured it was a latridiid, and a good visual match seemed to be Adistemia, a small genus of just twelve species, only one of which is on the British list. I managed a short video clip before scurrying back out to work again
After work, I used Mike Hackston's brilliant Key to the family Latriididae and ran my beast through without difficulty to Adistemia watsoni, something I'd never even heard of before. It's rather a small beetle, coming in a little under 2mm fully extended. Not precisely a pest species, it scavenges bits of mouldy organic debris for a living. Not that the head chef will appreciate me telling him that, I think I'll maybe neglect to mention anything to him.
About time I replaced that tape measure...
Unfortunately, due to it being well and truly gummed to the sticky trap, I made a bit of a mess trying to extract it for carding. One elytron came clean off and the back legs were solidly stuck together. I didn't bother trying to set it properly, I just blodged it onto the card as was. Facing left to right, in fact (best I could manage seeing as it was gummed to the forceps and mounting needle as well as glued to the card!) It's fine unless you need to see the hind and middle legs...
I had a look on the NBN Map and was pleased to discover there are no records north of Wales (usual NBN caveats apply). Whacking the pics onto the Beetles of Britain Facebook Group was a popular move with quite a few folks liking it and one expert confirming the ID. I may have to start checking these sticky traps more often, who knows what will be in them next time!
The one thing that bothers me is that it has black eyes (in keeping with most latriids) but Adistemia watsoni is supposed to have pale eyes. See here!
So if it isn't watsoni...what is it???
Edit: consensus between the experts seems to be that dry-mounted specimens are prone to losing the blackness of the eyes, maybe the author of the link above has been fooled by this phenomenon. Images of live animals all seem to show dark eyes.
Incredibly, it would appear that this beetle has not been recorded in Britain this century!!!! Last sightings were in my old stomping ground of Epsom Town in 1999, when John Owen found them in numbers inside accumulated pigeon droppings beneath a nest ledge. I'd heard the story of the 'rare beetle in the Epsom carpark' several times over the years, how incredible that I've blundered into that same species 20 years and 600 miles later - yet when John Owen found it in 1999, I was living within a mile of it. Truly bizarre!
Last week the Skye Nature Group went across to Raasay, ostensibly on an earth tongue hunt but recent frosts seem to have knocked them all on the head. So we instead targeted a monad centred on Loch Eadar dà Bhaile and headed off into a lovely patch of Celtic Rainforest, literally dripping with bryophytes and lichens. I'm not sure I saw a single patch of bare bark anywhere in there, just incredible!
Lots and lots of Wilson's Filmy Fern later, I found a well rotted fallen log partly embedded in the leaflitter. As is my wont, I spun it over and found myself eyeballing a pale Philoscia woodlouse. It was a heart-in-mouth moment as I realised all of my pots were inside a bag, buried somewhere in my rucksack...would it stay still or would it vanish into the leaflitter before I could grab it? Thankfully it remained motionless long enough for me to gently slip a pot over it. Sweet.
Due to some fairly relentless drizzle, my handlens was covered in raindrops, my camera lens was smeared with raindrops and the glass tube was also soon covered in raindrops. I showed my find to Neil, but his glasses were also covered in raindrops....we agreed to check it out indoors!
After the walk, we retired to Stephen's kitchen for teas, coffees and chocolate biscuits (I suspect this was the highlight of the day for some folks attending) and Neil unceremoniously dumped the Philoscia onto the table top for a quick photo session. Knowing how quickly these buggers can run, you could say I was just a little on edge!
Neil's pic of the live animal
Much to my relief, it behaved itself and did not explode across the table, onto the floor and straight out the cat flap never to be seen again. Safely back in its glass tube, I took it home for a closer examination.
There are just two species of Philoscia known from Britain; the very common Philoscia muscorum and the recently discovered (2017 in fact), long-overlooked Philoscia affinis. For a full account of how Philoscia affinis was discovered to be present in Britain (and it's worth reading the convoluted tale) have a look here.
The females of Philoscia affinis are more or less do-able on colour patterning and head mottling, but not with 100% reliability. It requires a male specimen to conclusively confirm that your specimen is an affinis as opposed to a muscorum. Despite being abundant across much of Britain, up here on Skye muscorum is an uncommon beast, pretty much restricted to warm coastal sites. In three years of turning over rocks, logs and general debris, I've only ever seen a single Philoscia muscorum - beneath a sheet of ply in coastal grassland. However, I've collected three female Philoscia from wet deciduous woodland, all with pale mottled heads and all looking to be affinis, a known woodland species. But I needed a male to confirm.
I wasn't holding out much hope of my fourth possible/probable specimen being a male, the ratios seem to be one male for every nine or so females, so I was suitably stunned to discover a sticky-out 'hook-like' projection on the merus of the seventh pereiopod (halfway down the back leg, in easy lingo). It was a male! I knew one species had a projecting hook and the other a laying down hook - stick your thumb out as if thumbing a lift and then lay it down against your hand to see what I mean - but couldn't recall which way around. I really hoped it was affinis that had the sticking out hook.
Here's a very bad pic of the hook in question
So what you are looking at is the side of the hindleg. The arrowed hook is situated near the base of the merus, which is one of the leg sections of a woodlouse. Here's an image I nicked off the internet to give you a better idea of whereabouts the merus (plural meri) is located.
So you can hopefully see that it's quite a small feature on quite a small part of a small leg on a small animal. No wonder I couldn't see it through my rain-splattered hand lens! Luckily it's easy enough through The Telferscope. I blasted off a few images to Steve Gregory, national recorder for woodlice in Britain, who came back with a big thumbs up (pun intended) and these words:
Excellent! This is by far the most northern known confirmed record of P. affinis on the planet. Isle of Lismore just north of Oban held the previous record. Thanks Seth.
So that's nice...
Philoscia affinis has now been added to the Hebridean fauna. I need to find a male in Uig Wood next, one of my females came from there and would hence be the 'new' northernmost record on the planet. Keith Lugg has accepted the unwritten challenge and intends to find it on Orkney if/when he moves up there. Best of luck Keith, not much in the way of ancient deciduous woodland up there buddy!
Apologies for the lack of blogging of late, I shall endeavour not to leave it so long until the next one.
Yesterday was a Skye Botany Group outing into the hills west of Kirkibost. We were searching for a number of plants not recorded this century, though known in the vicinity from earlier. One of those plants was Holly Fern, one I'd not seen before, one I was keen to clap eyes on.
We set off into what can only be described as muggy conditions, I heard several folk mention thunderstorms and the oppressive atmosphere. I was glad to note that I was not the only person sweating freely, especially seeing as I was blabbing about running next year's half marathon. Ha, breaking out in a sweat walking up a small hill indeed...
Spiderman enjoying the view, roughly halfway towards our target area
It was a good wander across and through hilltops with a lovely series of pools and burns to cross. Me, being my usual self, found stones to turn, even midstream stones
Possibly the nymph of Perlodes mortoni, a HUGE endemic stonefly
We finally reached the correct tetrad, kinda guessed the height we were supposed to be targeting and set to finding stuff. To be fair, Stephen Bungard had already amassed a fair plant list even before we hit the main area. I don't yet know how many of the target plants we managed to cross off, and how many entirely new records we made, but Stephen seemed satisfied that we'd pulled our weight.
It was whilst mostways up a steep hill that I discovered a new feature on my camera - the Vivid Mode!!!! Take a look, this was the view across the valley and bothy way below us
Nice enough, I guess. Bit boring though
One push of a button and...
Holy crap! I could sell that for a bloody fortune!!!
Not content with a Vivid pic if the valley, I swung my new-found button upwards
Does my bum look big in this valley?
I was really quite taken by this new button, what could I take pics of next, I wondered? Well, no more pics of Caroline's bum for starters, I'd hate to get myself a bad name! Luckily Nick 'Mossman Chronicles' Hodgetts came to the rescue...
The rather lovely Myurium hochstetteri - a proper oceanic moss
Nick comes out on maybe half of all Skye Botany Group outings, where he can normally be found skirting the edges of wherever we happen to be visiting, relentlessly hounding his long-legged way through undergrowth, willow carr, moorland flushes or across craggy outcroppings. Boundless energy and boundless enthusiasm, but seemingly happy to be the loner on the fringe of it all. I really like Nick, undoubtedly he uses the SBG outings as an excuse to get into remote habbo and to survey the bryological fauna that occurs there, and he does mostly come across as the softly-spoken Lone Wolf with an important mission in mind. I still think he's great, and I try to show enthusiasm for his chosen subject matter, even though it's something I know far too little about. I mean, surely a Sphagnum is a Sphagnum, yeah? Even if it does look very much (to me) to be the ubiquitous Sphagnum squarrosum (though in this instance it was the far less common Sphagnum strictum, more uniformly pale green and with far smaller stem leaves - and a lifer to boot). I aspire to be somebody like Nick, somebody who throws themselves whole-heartedly into a niche slice of biodiversity and who then utterly masters it. To my eternal shame, when he called us upslope to check out a 'beautiful' moss, I was expecting just a bit of green scuzz amongst yet more green scuzz. But what I was shown was, in truth, a pretty darned cool moss! I mean, just look at the overall structure, the neatly overlapping planes, those hair tips, the whole 3D effect. And Nick was proper stoked at finding it, I shared a degree of that, it was properly exciting!
I may not know what I'm looking at half the time, but I can appreciate and share in that sort of a genuine reaction from anybody, especially when that anybody happens to be a national expert! Happily, I think most of us came to check out Nick's 'rare moss' and went away happy that we'd seen it, at least. But I was there at the start, I saw Nick's eyes shining, I heard the excitement in his usually calm voice. Have I been just a little bit bitten by the bryological bug..? I've certainly found good (non-bryological) stuff in the past and it feels good to be able to share those findings with others.
This is the NBN map for Myurium hochstetteri. As you can see it's an incredibly oceanic species, known worldwide fom western Scotland, western Ireland, Madeira and the Azores, that's it!
Another view up the valley above Loch na Creitheach
As Caroline mentioned just once or twice - it's very steep, how will we get down again?
Nick, Stephen and most of Deirdre on a typically steep slope. We were up in the clouds!
One last pic, this too grabbed Nick's attention - a pair of small cushion mosses on a mid-river slab of rock. We just had to go investigate!
A tightly packed cushion of Grimmia funalis, Nick's second highlight moss of the day!
Now my books say you need to study these things under a microscope, yet Nick calls them at two metre range! He explained that I needed to see the rope-like stems hidden amongst the broader stems in this cushion, and I saw actually saw them too! I have no idea how he does it, legend.
No Holly Fern (yet again) - but I'll find it one day. Along with Oysterplant.
In other news...this rates as one of my ALL TIME fave tracks. You know what I'm talking about, Armadale Lass.
Well hello, been a while! Sorry about that, I've been kinda busy of late...
August ended with a rock-pooling session at Broadford Bay with the Skye Nature Group, it was a great day with a decent turn out, 'lucky thirteen' of us as it happened. As previously mentioned, my camera is pretty much ker-nackered, too much damage to the lens has resulted in a dismayingly high number of none too sharp images. I actually do need to replace it, now. Sad times. Anyway, here are a few pics from the rockpools
15-spined Stickleback - a long awaited lifer, get in!!!!
The scaleworm Harmothoe glabra - also a lifer!!!
The sea squirt Ciona intestinalis - yep, yet another lifer!!!!
It was a grand day, we endured a very cold rainstorm which passed through pretty quickly, followed by glorious sunshine, there was a pretty cool rainbow and we all enjoyed wading wellie-top deep in the surprisingly warm sea, watching hermit crabs racing across the seabed with Two-spot Gobies shoaling just a few feet away from our legs. It was a brilliant day, made all the better, in my instance at least, by the presence of a certain rather lovely lass. I say lovely, but in all honesty I think breath-taking is nearer the mark. We all said our goodbyes after the walk and I found myself wondering if/when I would see her next, same as on each of the previous three occasions we've met. Pity she lives miles away and I have no good excuse to hassle her into meeting up again, that would probably creep her right out, in fact. So I stood there and watched her wander off (well, wheelspin away with much horn honking and waving actually!) with a small smile and the feeling I'd missed a once in a lifetime opportunity, one I'd regret for a long time to come.
And then, somehow dear reader, and for reasons not entirely clear to your author, that certain lass began texting my number, which soon developed into a bit of a texting marathon lasting several days. The upshot of all this was that I found myself borrowing a car and heading way down into sunny Armadaleshire for a day exploring the sites and...well, and whatever else might come of it.
Magically, what came of it were kisses. Lots of kisses, then I was scrambling back to Uig hoping to make it back in time to start my nightly sleep-in fire marshall duties. I made it back at 12:30am, phew that was close! I don't think I slept much that night, my brain was way too wide awake for that! But I did manage rather a lot of smiling. I woke up feeling pretty damned good at this unexpected turn in my life.
Spoiler alert - rapid change of direction occurring: It's now been two years since my da died. A month or so back I booked a few days off work in order to visit his headstone and meet his wife with whom I felt the need to settle some bad history. So I hired a car and, with a day to spare before hitting the cemetery, headed east towards Inverness in search of plants
First up was a woodland near Culloden, which held plenty of these
Lots of self-seeding Red-berried Elders all over the place - lifer!!
Very long, narrow leaves and usually 7 per rachis (though only 5 here)
Note the tiny, glandular stipules - Elder doesn't have any at all
That was pretty easy, probably three quarters of the Elder I checked were Red-berried Elder, though sadly the berries themselves were all long gone. It's a nice wood, I may well come back here a bit earlier in the season next year. I drove northwards, across the Black Isle (where a couple of wheeling Red Kites were nice to see) before arriving at Cadboll with its shingle beach. This was, I hoped, going to be the end of a long botanical wait, for Cadboll Beach is a great spot for Oysterplant, a declining shoreline plant that I've wanted to see for many years now. I'd found online images from July this year, so I knew they were still here. Excitement levels were increasing with every passing mile, I spotted quite a few Red-berried Elders in hedgerows, and then - finally - I parked up at the beach and headed north on foot. This was gonna be great!
I walked northwards along this beach for about an hour and a half
Sea Rocket - very nice, but it's not Oysterplant is it?
Would I find Oysterplant at the end of the rainbow?
No, no I bloody wouldn't. Arse. I had no drink, no food, no grid ref, no Oysterplant. Arse. I stared at the sheep in a field. I glared at a Curlew on rocks. I glowered at the skies. I dared anyone or anything to mock me. Robbed. Bloody robbed. Brokenly, I slowly trudged back to the car. Oysterplant remains very high on my Wish List. One day. Someday. Somehow.
I'd lost a lot of time on that beach, I hustled my way south and kipped in the car that night. It was cold, my sleeping bag's zip is broken and wouldn't seal. But I love kipping in cars, it was ok. Next day I was at the headstone, I met the person I needed to talk to. Job done, I'll never see her again now and I don't know if I'll be back at that graveyard ever again. Maybe. Who knows?
I headed north again and managed to find a plant I've driven by countless times, but this time I knew to look out for it. Using Stephen Bungard's gen, I drove the approach road to Fort William at a slow pace and soon spotted my target.
This is Japanese Knotweed, a fairly typically-sized leaf. It's an all too common, invasive weed in Britain.
And THIS...this is Giant Knotweed!!!! Wow - and a lifer!
I have no idea how I've never spotted this monstrosity beforehand, I've certainly driven right past it enough times! Subtle it ain't. And it's spreading too...
Day of The Trifids! I swear they were a edging a little closer every time I turned my back on them
It occurred to me that if I just slammed north I could be back with Armadale Lass by early evening, and hence could potentially spend the night in her company. I'm not sure whether or not I set a new land speed record, but it must've been a bloody near thing if not.
I remember music. I remember an empty bar followed by a not very empty pub. I remember meeting lots of lovely people. I remember a good deal of drinking and feasting followed by much merriment. To be fair, I don't actually remember much of the walk back through the woods, but I do remember the next few hours back at her house. Vividly. But those are memories between Armadale Lass and myself, you're on the wrong website if you're after those kind of details. I did get kicked quite soundly in the face at one point, I'll share that much, at least...
The Skye Nature Group have twice been to Dalavil, I've missed it on both occasions, so when Armadale Lass suggested we go there for a wander I jumped at the chance. It's a pleasant if soggy meander from the roadside down to the loch, we managed to lose the path a couple of times and had to cross a few small burns, but it all added to the adventure. Here's the wee lass herself proving that she's one step ahead of the rest of us - walking on water, no less!
Such elegance, such grace, such beauty. And such a big tongue!
I know exactly what you're thinking; how does someone with the ability to walk on water and exhibiting gazelle-like grace manage to have quite that much mud up her leg. Yup, kinda surprised me too. Well, y'see - there was this tiny hole in the ground. Tiny but really deep. Haha...I think I very almost wet myself I was laughing so hard trying to haul her up again!!!
This is a continuing romance, very much still in its infancy, but it is a romance. I do think she might actually be a bit deranged, fancying an old duffer like me, but I've not felt further from despondency or apathy or confusion or anger for a very long time now. That's gotta be a good thing.
However, my PSL is suffering! So is my blogging, my record keeping, my interest in anything other than this crazy hot lass that has so forcibly hurled herself into my world. I don't care, I'm really happy right now.
Anyone out there want to sell me a car? It's one heck of a walk down into Armadaleshire from up here in the frozen wastes of Trotternish.
Whilst trawling Birdguides this evening, I could hardly help but notice the 7:11pm report of a Blue Whale from Devon. I no longer pay to subscribe to Birdguides. Those days, along with my RBA pager subscription, are long gone I'm afraid, hence I can't readily access the precise details. But fuckaduck, there's a report of a BLUE WHALE from Devon!!! I just so happen to know a handful of Devon naturalists, plus another handful from neighbouring counties both westwards and eastwards. I can only hope that they managed to find time to attempt a sighting of this brute of a beast. Silly buggers to them if they didn't and it was just loafing offshore...
In these days of seemingly perpetual doom and gloom, it's heartening to see increasing reports of larger cetaceans in our waters. Humpback Whale was relegated to near mythological status when I was in my 20s, yet nowadays it's being seen around our coastline every year, in groups of up to 4 or 5 if recent Shetland sightings are to be believed (and the camerawork would certainly imply those numbers are correct). Purely mind-blowing, from this old school naturalist's perspective at least. But these events (which is how I'd class them) are becoming ever more commonplace. In my head, I'd love for this to be attributable to a cessation of whaling in The Atlantic and a robust bounce back in cetacean numbers. In my heart though, I fear otherwise.
Whatever the reason for this current visitation to Devon's coastline, I hope the beast is in rude health, finds plenty of food and continues on its way unmolested. Assuming, of course, that it really is a Blue Whale and not one of Biscay's overly large Bottle-nosed Dolphins popped up to say hello...they are a lot bigger than you'd expect, trust me!
Only one song springs to mind, again from my 20s when the world seemed much simpler and dodgy hairstyles were the norm
This video doubtless goes a long way to explaining my long standing fascination of ladies wearing big boots. Note also the originalUsain Bolt pose at 1:08...
Last week the Skye Nature Group visited Dorothy Jackson's croft at Tokavaig as part of an ongoing survey of the species that occur there. This is the second time Dorothy has hosted SNG, already we are raring for a return visit sometime in the late spring next year. She has over 60 acres of herb-rich grassland interspersed with oak, hazel, rowan and birch woodland, heather and wetland areas. The whole thing has deer-proof fencing around the perimeter and already there is noticeable regrowth of young trees (and less Deer TicksIxodes ricinus than we'd ordinarily encounter in this habitat). So saying, I did have my first Deer KedLipoptena cervi of the year land on me, bloody hateful things. Seeing as this may prove to be the only hippoboscid fly I'll encounter this year, I really should have potted it up and pinned it instead of swiping it away in revulsion. I don't have a single specimen from the superfamily Hippoboscoidea in my collection.
I don't have an image of a deer ked, so here's one I nabbed off the internet of a different hippoboscid
This is a species of bat ked, rather than a deer ked. It's still pretty repulsive though.
But there's nothing else repulsive about Dorothy's croft. Plenty of leaf-mining moth records including this one on Downy Birch
Oval cut out of the moth Heliozela hammoniella
Locally, this is still a damn good find with hardly any recent records. There are a mere handful of serious moth-ers up here on Skye, all of whom record what comes to their light trap rather than from purposeful fieldwork. None are particularly genned-up on microleps (or the associated feeding signs) either. This isn't intended as a slur towards them, I'm just stating how it is up here. I suspect there are a good many microlep species still to be found on Skye, it just needs more folks knowing what to look for in the field. A project for the future, perhaps.
Ridiculous as it may seem to anybody reading this in the south of England, the following pic is of another damn fine find for Skye
You're looking at the tiny spider below its spiky white egg case
This is Paidiscura pallens, the 'sputnik' egg cases are by far the easiest way to find this tiny spider, though they are not always in attendance. I've always found that the underside of oak leaves is by far the best place to look for these spiders. It's really pretty uncommon this far north-west, the Spider Recording Scheme page does show several Skye records, but they are all dated from before 1980! The flying saucer galls in the image are caused by Neuroterus quercusbaccarum, a tiny wasp which is also quite uncommon this far north-west. NBN shows a handful of Skye records, mostly in the south, which nicely mirrors the distribution of oak woodlands on Skye.
I was armed with my net and a beating tray (which I managed to break traversing The Ravine of Death, more later...) and quickly set to tonking various large limbs and dead snags beneath oak. Surprisingly little in the way of beetles, but plenty of Porcellio scaber, the Rough Woodlouse, and one other which got me all excited!
Philoscia sp. and it isn't muscorum!
This, I firmly believe, is a female Philoscia affinis. But, being female, it lacks the spur on its hindleg, the shape of which would distinguish it from Philoscia muscorum. As it stands, Steve Gregory (official British expert on woodlice) agrees that it does look to be affinis but I need to find a male to confirm. So that's two females so far, one from Dorothy's croft and one from my local woods, but no males. Yet. Third time lucky? I've had it suggested that leaf litter sieving may be a better bet for finding the males. However, in known populations of affinis it does appear that males are far less common than females.
Naturally, if I ever do find a male it will be a new species to Skye.
I also beat a couple of leaf beetles from the Hazel understorey, they turned out to be Gonioctena pallida, a lifer for me though I've seen G.viminalis and G.decemnotata before in Surrey, leaving G.olivacea (unknown from NW Scotland, though the Inverness area seems to be a hotspot for it) to complete the genus. Gonioctena pallida would seem to be new for Skye, a 2011 record from Raasay being the first published record for The Hebrides as a whole. Clearly the oak/hazel woods on Dorothy's croft are well worth future investigation!
Adrian Fowles has been in touch with various Skye-based organisations and is after weevil records for the National Recording Scheme for the Coleoptera: Curculionoidea. I, in turn, have been approached by the local records centre asking if I had weevil records that may not have made it onto NBN, and could I make a special effort to find some on this walk. Well, despite much beating and tonking, I didn't actually find that many - but several appear to be 'good' records insofar as there aren't many dots on the maps for them yet.
As if all that wasn't enough, I tapped a moth from Rowan onto the beating tray and boldly proclaimed it as the Honeysuckle MothYpsolopha dentella. To be fair, there was honeysuckle right next to us, low stuff scrambling through the woodland floor.
Ypsolopha dentella - courtesy of Stephen Bungard (coz my pics were absolute rubbish!)
Guess what - it's completely new to Skye too!
Leaving the woods, we entered an open, grassy area where we quickly racked up sightings of various butterflies, moths, dragonflies and hoverflies. We then headed to Ant Hill, site of last year's ant sighting. I know, exciting or what? Well actually it kinda was, in a way. Stephen had collected a single ant from an outcropping of rock when we were here last year. He'd then sent it off to Murdo at HBRG who said it could have been one of two species, ideally he'd need to see several more to confirm which. So we set about trying to find 'several'. I spotted one and that was it for quite a while. Eventually a second was seen. Clearly this could take some time... Thankfully, Neil then found the nest and we filled our boots (well, tubes). I took two which I determined as Formica lemani. Dorothy had several and also thought lemani. Steve had a couple but wasn't sure. Stephen had a barrelful and passed them on to Murdo who then confirmed them as Formica lemani. Phew, job done and we even agreed on the species too!
Pots, tubes and barrels being filled with Formica lemani
We had a look at the map that Dorothy had provided. Stephen, first and foremost here with his plant recording hat on, was keen to explore the ravine. Having been on quite a few of his botany walks now, I understand the attraction. Grassland, woodland and moorland are all fine and well. But if you want to inject a bit of species variety you need gorges, ravines and other dangerous habitats. Dank, gloomy, wet ledges are guaranteed to hold plant species you won't find in sensible places. And everyone loves a ravine anyway, we had to go check it out.
Awful pic, but hell yeah - that's definitely a ravine alright!
I know it appears that the image is tilted, but it isn't. The whole fissure is lopsided, one side is steep and the other one completely impossible without ropes and anchor bolts, which we didn't have. However, we leapt and slipped and stumbled from rock to rock, clung like spiders to the cliff faces where we ran out of rocks and slowly but surely made our way up the river.
On one logjam we found the largest, wettest looking Beefsteak Fungus I have ever seen. Just look at the birch leaf for scale!
A grisly looking hunk of Beefsteak Fungus if ever there was
I was doing pretty well in my not-very-waterproof-after-all hiking boots, but eventually a partly submerged rock tilted and I went in up to my shin. Dammit, that's one squelch that isn't going to dry out anytime soon (four days, as it happened). Pretty soon my other foot was wet too. I noted the others slowly working their way upstream in wellies. Fool boy!
Then I caught my beating tray in a wedge between a vertically fallen tree trunk and the cliff face. I turned the tray and tried again. Nope, still caught. I twisted some more, still caught! What I should have done is backed all the way out, collapsed the tray and carried onwards. Instead, I twisted some more, felt the net pull free and surged forwards. And snapped my tray. Doh! Neil was just looking at me with a look of incredulity on his face, shaking his head and laughing at my stupidity. I think the clever use of some steel rods should soon fix it, I'll have to get back to you on that one.
Eventually we could progress no further on foot. Neil (aka Spiderman) seemed reluctant to accept defeat, but eventually agreed we really could go no further, at least not dressed and equipped as we were.
"Aye, the water is a wee bitty deep, if only I had ma thingme..."
The alternative was to backtrack and zigzag our way up the left side of the ravine. Which we did, making the best of what appeared, potentially, to have been a hedgehog trail. Halfway up Dorothy spotted a dead fly, initially this sounds less than enthralling, but there's more to it than just that!
Note the outspread wings and legs
The fly is Calliphora vicina (pale basicosta, orange anterior spiracle, black hairs on the genae) and it has been controlled and then killed by a fungus known as Entomophthora calliphorae. Because yes, there are fungi out there that infect the brain of various flies, controls their actions and then kills them! And no, I'm not making this up. Nature is, at times, both gruesome and breathtakingly complex. If only nature could come up with a similar fungus that infects MPs and presidents...
Anyway, we made it to the top and found ourselves on the wrong side of Dorothy's deer fence. But the road was just ahead, we had almost completed our loop back to the cars. With the fenceline on our left and maybe ten feet of overgrown verge between us and the edge of the ravine, progress was good. Then the edge came closer and closer, soon we were on a trail no more than a metre wide with the drop getting ever closer. Dorothy had mentioned the fenceline met the edge and that we may need to cling to the wires with our hands whilst we crossed the narrowest part. Well guess what - the fence met the lip of the ravine, actually overhung it, for maybe five feet. Luckily Neil, Stephen and myself are all six footers, but Dorothy is far less tall. Gripping the fenceline in a deathlike grip, I inched to the gap in our trail and stretched across the void until my foot hit the other side. Then, very carefully, shifted my weight onto my arms and clambered the rest of the way across, ignoring the plunge beneath my feet. Spiderman was fine, obviously. Stephen is used to falling off of mountains, nerves of steel that man, so he was fine too. Dorothy, bless her plucky soul, just clawed her way across the fenceline until she was back on terra firma (remember - the firma the ground, the less the terra). I'm well into my forties, slowly closing in on a significant number in fact, but I'm by far the youngster in this group. Hardcore doesn't come close to describing these nutters! I hope I'm still clambering fences and ravines and trees in twenty years time.
Back at the cars, we gave our thanks to Dorothy for hosting us yet again before heading off on our separate ways. Neil and I decided to drop in to Waterloo for rock-pooling shenanigans. I mentioned the all 'round general gung-ho-ness of the folks that attend the Skye Nature Group walks and he laughed. "You mean Gung-ho-itty!" Now I don't know if that's a genuine word, but I do know that there's no way the namby-pamby softy southerner's nature groups I used to tag along on would ever get up to the type of shenanigans we do up here on Skye! All I know is that these walks are simply brilliant, I love 'em!
