Gung-Ho-itty

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 Ticks Ixodes ricinus than we'd ordinarily encounter in this habitat). So saying, I  did have my first Deer Ked Lipoptena 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 Moth Ypsolopha 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!