Hothouse Lovelies

Firstly, I have indeed replaced my lost camera with another from the Olympus Tough series. I'm now the proud owner of a brand new TG-7, all the way from New Jersey. It came with an extensive bundle of extra accessories which sadly lacked the only accessory I really needed - the flash diffuser. I forked out once more and, diffuser duly acquired, was soon ready for action.  

For most of the past three weeks I've stayed fairly local, a recent sneak trip into the Inverness Botanic Gardens being my only away day since the last post. This was my third visit to the Gardens where, as per usual, I restricted my wanderings to the heated glasshouse area. At first glance it appears slightly underwhelming, as far as finding exotic invertebrates goes, but given a bit of time and close scrutiny there are plenty of weird and wonderful species to be found. 

I lifted rather a few of the potted plants visible in the lower image, but failed to find a single animal hiding beneath them. The 'wilder' parts of the glasshouse do have a number of rocks that look ideal to check beneath, but almost all of them are concreted into place. However, a few were loose and I collected a small number of millipedes and a tiny ant for further investigation. 

The upstairs level was quite productive, seeing as it effectively places you in the canopy layer of the trees below. I collected two more species of ants, took pics of some mealybugs (I think I'd require specialist literature to get the mealybugs to species, which I don't have, so I didn't collect any) and spotted a small jumping spider which teleported from leaf to leaf. No chance of potting that, so I made do with these poor images instead.

I've yet to reach a definitive identification for this small salticid, and in fact I may never know what it is. However, I did manage to identify the next beast of a spider without too many complications. 

About the size of my thumbnail, stealthily creeping along a gnarly branch above head height

This stunner is an adult male Hasarius adansoni, also known as Adanson's House Jumper. It's originally an African species but has been moved around the world and is now found throughout many warmer regions and, as here, found inside greenhouses and other heated environments in cooler parts of the world. In Britain it is well-known from several large glasshouse environments, though I believe this individual could be the northernmost record for the species in Britain. I popped it on the UK Spiders FB Group for confirmation, just in case there are lookalike species I'm not aware of, and it quickly came back confirmed as H.adansoni, a new species for me and my first new invert of the year. Smart! There's a nice page about it here.

Uloborus plumipes is easily the most noticeable spider inside the hothouse

Unknown species of mealybug

Larval Cryptoleamus montrouzieri  - a ladybird predator of mealybugs

The last thing of note inside the greenhouse was finding a colony of an (as yet) unknown species of moth larvae. I suspect it's a tortricid of some sort of another. Here are a few pics showing the initial grazing patches, then an upperside silken retreat along the midrib followed by an underside leaf fold with larva. The hostplant is Lantana camara, maybe that will help narrow down the options.

Back indoors I keyed the millipedes through as Choneiulus palmatus (x3) which in Scotland is known from heated glasshouses, and Cylindrioiulus britannicus (male) which occurs outdoors but is also known in Scotland from heated glasshouses. So no real surprises there.

Choneiulus palmatus on the underside of one of the very few rocks I could check beneath

Crematogaster scutellaris - an alien ant that occurs in the canopy layer of the hothouse

I have a Hypoponera on a pin, awaiting a proper determination. Ideally I'd like to go back and collect several more, just to get a better feel for the species. PSL whizz-kid Finley Hutchinson wants us to hit the hothouse together sometime soon, he's already seen Crematogaster scutellaris, but not Hasarius adansoni or the millipedes. So that's something to look forward to. 

In other business, my PSL Yearlist is ticking along quite nicely, currently standing at over 400 species. But that's something for another post. Having survived the latest storm relatively unscathed, I'm keen to further extend my yearlist, plus I need to start targeting various species on my PSL Tarts Challenge. Again, that's one for a future post. 

The red dot is where I live - I was in the actual eye of the storm for 30 mins!!!

 

It's Snowtime!

I had the first part of the day to myself, not having to be on shift until the evening. A Little Egret, still a rare bird on Skye, had recently taken up residency halfway down the Sleat Peninsular. Ordinarily it would take me about fifteen minutes to drive to the saltmarsh in question but, thanks to the overnight snow, today it took me nearer half an hour. Happily the roads soon became black again once the snow started to melt. 

You can't see it (though I did), but there's a Little Egret at the far end of that channel.

I pinged the pic to Ghostie, who soon came back with "Ha ha, that'll put a stop to your botany". Such a silly sausage, does he really think a bit of snow is gonna thwart my plans?

Gritters? Pah, we don't bother with those things 'round here! 

 I'm lucky to live in a such a wonderfully scenic part of the world

With the Little Egret safely secured for my Skye Yearlist, I headed to nearby Kyleakin for a couple of plants I knew I could locate despite the snow cover. They fell easily, seeing as the snow was substantially less than 7ft deep.

These are the two Gaultheria that occur on Skye - Shallon and Prickly Heath

Prickly Heath Gaultheria mucronata is widely scattered across much of Skye where it has a worrying habit of forming thickets and invading open areas. Shallon Gaultheria shallon is much more restricted up here, though it too is highly invasive where it does occur. This is the only site where I've seen them growing shoulder to shoulder. Other shrubs of note included a self-sown Darwin's Barberry Berberis darwinii, an entire thicket of Himalayan Honeysuckle Leycesteria formosa and quite a lot of Himalayan Cotoneaster Cotoneaster simonsii. I imagine there were probably some native plants too, hidden away amongst the aliens.

Himalayan Honeysuckle Leycesteria formosa was still in fairly good condition

The huge shaggy lichen Tree Lungwort Lobaria pulmonaria

I briefly popped into Kyleakin itself, just to have a scan across the water in search of waterfowl and gulls. Not too much happening birdwise, though an Otter and a distant Harbour Porpoise swam past me. A pair of Black-throated Divers seemed to be loosely following the Otter around, I wondered if they were using it as a means of spooking panicked fish in their direction. 

Kyleakin is a very reliable spot for White Ramping-fumitory, so obviously I went looking for that. It didn't take long to find, there's quite a lot of it here, but what I didn't expect was to peer over the harbour wall and find myself staring at a small patch of Red Valerian! I've never seen Red Valerian on Skye, in fact the sole site for it anywhere near here is in Kyle, growing on a roadside cliff. After that, I have no idea where else it occurs locally. I took a pic and pinged it to Stephen Bungard, BSBI Recorder for Skye.

Not exactly looking its finest, but this is Red Valerian Centranthus ruber

Looking at the BSBI database, it seems that Red Valerian is long known from the walls of Dunvegan Castle and there's just one other record from the pavement outside of a garden, also in Dunvegan. And that's it for Skye. Nice one!

Pleased with my unexpected bonus plant, I very almost drove right past another significant find. I did a double-take, spun the car around and went to check I wasn't imagining things.

The Hoodie hybrid is back!

We don't have Carrion Crows on Skye, other than the very occasional vagrant bird. I saw the one that arrived at Uig Pier several years back, but I can't think of any others in the eight years that I've been here. We do have a great many Hooded Crows though. And every once in a blue moon a hybrid bird appears. I first found this bird back in March 2024, at least I think it's the same bird. The markings on the lower flank look the same/very similar if not. It stayed for a few weeks and then disappeared. And yet here it is back again! I wonder if it's been here all along, unnoticed amongst the Hoodies, or if it's just here for its winter holidays again. 

Last year I reported it to the bird recorder as a Hoodie hybrid. Eventually I managed to get a decent enough image to submit to his website, whereupon he berated me "That's a Carrion Crow hybrid! You told us it was a Hoodie hybrid!!" Umm..? So this time, rather than be accused of anything untoward, I pinged the pic to the WhatsApp group, calling it a dark hybrid Hoodie. That evening it went onto the website as "Crow hybrid: hybrid Carrion/Hooded Crow at Kyleakin (SG)". 

I'm currently weighing up options regards replacing my lost camera. I'll probably end up with another Olympus TG-series, if only because they can be dunked underwater and I already know how to use them. But, being honest, I think the macro abilities of the TG-5 are better in terms of sharpness than its successors. Anyway, I'll see if I can see one in the sales maybe. Let's see if I can manage not to lose/break/wear out the new one within the space of a year.

New for Scotland?

So I'm a little bit pissed off with myself. Well actually, I'm very bloody annoyed with myself is what I am. I'll tell you why a little later. 

My rota allowed me time off just before New Year's Eve and I had the Big Day itself off work too. Sod it, time for an impromptu roadtrip! I finished work, didn't even take a shower, slung my bag into The Gibstermobile and immediately roared off down to Ayr some 230 miles away (I'd booked a hotel room, so the shower did eventually happen later that night).

As a kid I used to live in Ayr and I know of a few 'birdy spots' that I suddenly fancied revisiting. The very first entry in my very first notebook is from Scaur-o-Doon, dated New Year's Day 1986 (I identified my first ever Curlew, Redshank and Oystercatcher). Scroll forward a mere 39 years and I wondered if I could find the exact spot and see the exact same species again. Long story short, there's a bunch of luxury houses on top of the site. Personalised number plates and an ungodly number of Porsches were hugely apparent, wading birds somewhat less so. Meh.

Undaunted, I figured the beach and river mouth at least would still be largely unaltered. Happily this proved to be the case and I spent a lovely hour or so scanning through the legions of gulls, corvids and Starlings attracted to washed up mountains of wrack. It was bloody cold though, I wished I'd thought to bring some gloves or a hat with me. I then took a wander through a marshy area, half-hoping to flush a Jack Snipe as I once had many moons ago. No luck there, though I did pull apart a couple of Typha heads and found a number of pupae within, presumably belonging to the moth Limnaecia phragmitella. 

The wrack mountain at Scaur-o-Doon

Just check out the number of Mute Swans in that image. There have been just two Mute Swans found on Skye in the eight years I've lived there. Two! And hell yeah, I successfully twitched both of them. And the Moorhen (you probably think I'm joking, right?)

My next pitstop was just a couple of miles away, right next to the cottage that Robbie Burns was born in. I've been inside the cottage a couple of times, it's pretty cool if you like that sort of thing. Across the road are some formal gardens and a large monument to Robbie. Then there's the Auld Brig which, according to the poem, saw a terrified Tam o' Shanter ride his trusty horse Meg across, with a pissed-off witch hot on his heels. If you're at all interested in Burns and his stories, you really should drop into Ayr someday.

Burns' Monument and the Auld Brig o' Doon (yes, it's a real place)

You may (quite rightly) be wondering why I'm shoving mediocre tourist pics down your throat when this is supposed to be a nature blog. Well, it all has to do with why I'm so pissed off with myself. I'll get to the point soon, don't panic.

I should probably mention this right now, I have a plan for 2025. Several plans in fact. One of these plans is to see 2500 living species throughout the course of the year. New Year's Day will always be 'kick off day' for any such endeavour; as such I was, by now, merrily year-ticking away like a complete loon. The Auld Brig proffered such lovelies as Maidenhair Spleenwort, Tutsan (sans rust, sadly), a highly vocal Nuthatch, Wall-rue and Sycamore Tarspot Fungus. By the time I quit the bridge my 2025 Yearlist was well into the seventies. 

I have ancient but fond memories of scanning through hordes of seaduck just north of Stranraer, Long-tailed Duck and scoter all over the place if memory serves. Skye is seemingly lacking any decent seaduck numbers, other than a bunch of Eider between Raasay and Skye. I quite fancied my chances pulling out a rare scoter, or maybe a Harlequin, amongst the bobbing rafts of seaduck. An hour or so later...

"It's a double rainbow..."

This rainbow over Stranraer was unbelievably vivid, the pic does it absolutely no justice whatsoever. I threw the car into the kerb and jumped out to capture the moment before it faded into oblivion. Then I thought sod it, I'll do a video clip. Which clearly was the cue for a random old lady to launch into action and 'soundbomb' my video. "Look, it's a double rainbow" she croaked. Yeah, no shit Sherlock. There's not much gets past your rheumy old eyes, huh?

  

I scanned the bay, lit as it was by the apparently double rainbow, finding several rafts of Scaup amounting to maybe 100 birds, a handful of Common Scoter, Eider and Great Crested Grebes, plus a nice close Slavonian Grebe. Lovely birds, I don't get to see Slavs very often nowadays. Actually, pretty much any grebe on Skye is noteworthy, other than Little. 

I quite like Stranraer. It's a shit tip of a town really, a bit rough around the edges I guess you could say. But the bay is superb, and in fact most of the surrounding fields held good numbers of Curlew, Lapwing or Golden Plover. And, from the road just a few miles north of it, I could see Northern Ireland sat on the horizon. A country yeartick, no less (not that I yearlist countries, you understand. But if I did...)

I was as far south as I was going to get today, Skye was still a good seven hours ahead of me. But I needed to call in to Ballantrae and check the shingle beach for signs of life. Sadly for me, there was not even a sniff of Oysterplant on the beach. I suspect it dies back to the taproot at this time of year. What I didn't expect to find were two Cabbage Palms Cordyline australis growing at the edge of a lake. Conceivably they may have been planted, but I did notice quite a few growing in surrounding gardens. Innocent until proven guilty, I say. As such they're on my PSL yearlist!  

There's a very pleasant riverside walk at Ballantrae. I've been there just once before, I was looking for a plant who's name escapes me for the moment. Anyway, I soon found myself parked up and heading for the river. To be fair, though I did see a few nice things, at this time of year it's always going to be fairly tough going. Which it definitely was.

However! 

I took a path that led back up to the road, whereupon a large Griselinia hedge caught my eye. I spent a week on the Isle of Wight with Mark Telfer last month and he showed me a microfungus that grows on fallen Griselinia leaves. Scouting around beneath the hedge, I soon had a collection of dead and dying fallen leaves. Guess what...

Do you see those tiny pale balls on a narrow stalk...

This, my dear friends, is none other than Physalacria stilboidea, a very tiny fungus that grows on decaying New Zealand Broadleaf leaves. Mark Telfer had heard of the fungus but was unfamiliar with the hostplant. In a truly bizarre quirk of fate, Mark mentioned it to me about 20 seconds after we'd driven past a patch of the hostplant. A quick bit of reversing later and we added the fungus to our PSLs. Now, some 600 miles further north, I'd essentially done the same again - spotted the hostplant and checked the fallen leaves. Bingo! 

As far as I'm aware, this may well represent the first Scottish record for the fungus. Edit: nope, there's an Outer Hebs record from 2015. Meh.

Sometime between finding this fungus and reaching Skye several hours later, I lost my camera. I think I know what happened. A few weeks back I broke the zip on my waterproof jacket and handed it in to be mended here in Broadford village. This being Broadford village, I fully expect it to be repaired by about February. Of next year. In the meantime I've been wearing a different coat, one with fewer pockets. The pocket housing my camera also housed my notebook. My assumption is that, whilst oiking the notebook out of the pocket, I accidentally snagged the camera and oiked that out too. Thanks to the rain, I had my hood up for much of the time and clearly didn't hear the thud as the camera hit the ground by my feet. I strongly suspect that it's currently laying in a ditch somewhere near Ballantrae. I do know that it's not in my car, my bag or my coat. I really do suffer the absolute worst of luck with these Olympus Tough cameras. I now need to buy my fourth Tough camera in somewhat less than ten years. Utterly ridiculous, and it's not as though I can easily afford to throw good money on a replacement. 

Anyway, all of the fabulous nature pics you've been waiting to see were on the Olympus. Hence the mediocre touristy shite above. I'm just glad I took a few phone snaps of the Physalacria! So my next move, I guess, is to try and figure out where to pick up a 'cheap' Olympus TG-7. Wish me luck.