Rust Coloured Green Alga

Nope, I'm not on about seaweeds. On this occasion I'm referring to Trentepohlia algae. Trentepohlia is a genus of filamentous green alga, usually found as tiny clumps of bright orange fluff on tree trunks and on shaded rocks or concrete posts. What on earth am I jabbering on about, I hear you ask. The easy answer is to check out this page which has far better images than I do.

The tiny clumps of orange fluff on rocks and on tree trunks are Trentepohlia aurea and T.abietina. They differ microscopically, though essentially look identical to each other through a handlens. As a guide, but only as a guide, T.abietina generally prefers tree trunks and T.aurea generally prefers rocks. But they do sometimes swap around. There are a total of eight species on the British list, the aforementioned two being by far the most recorded. But there's a third species that I also see quite regularly here on Skye. And here it is in all of its glory!

Trentepohlia iolithus - seen here covering an entire wall

Here's the Google Street View image of the same property in November 2021

Slightly less coverage in the 2021 image, though clearly still very extensive. The only other Street View imagery is from 2009, when the housing estate was still quite new. In that image there's not a hint of Trentepohlia. But look at it now, what an absolutely magnificent display! Which, I imagine, probably echoes the exact same sentiment of the adjoining neighbour...

There is a confusion species which could also occur on Skye, Trentepohlia umbrina. However, that species tends to favour exposed stonework and forms thick, felted mats. The diffuse and widespread infestation shown in my image is across painted render, not exposed stonework, and has not formed crustose felted mats. I feel confident that this is Trentepohlia iolithus. 

There are three records for Trentepohlia iolithus on iRecord, two from 2015 and one from 2019. None of them have been verified yet. I've added my record, but I won't be holding my breath awaiting verification. 

In other news there have been no reports yet of yesterday's Orcas. I've nailed a handful of aquatic hyphomycetes collected from stream foam yesterday. Four species identified, three of them being lifers for me, and there were three December Moths inside the light trap when I checked it this morning. Oh, and there's an Ivory Gull on Faroes. It's heading this way, I just know it.

Chasing Orca

I've been stuck indoors for much of the past week, painting guest rooms and stairwells for the most part. However, the weekends are all mine. Today, being Saturday, I made full use of my free time and promptly slept in until almost 10am. On the dot of eleven, I was out of the house and on the road. First point of call was Loch Suardal where the Whooper Swan family was still in residence, plus a lone immature bird lurking in the nearby reedbed. I'm a bit concerned by this, where are its parents? Why has it chosen to remain? Possibly it is ill or injured, or maybe it became separated in foul weather and isn't sure what to do next. Either way, it's not normal for a young bird to be by itself. Maybe it will be accepted by the family group and tag along southwards? Time, I guess, will tell. 

Twenty minutes of preening and washing and not once did they all look up to pose at the same time

Lonesome George. I do hope it is alright

I popped into a shop for the obligatory Red Bull and sandwich combo, then detoured to a nearby car park for a quick scan of the gulls whilst demolishing my food. Which is when this fella/lass decided to say hello

Some years ago I was high up in a mountain pass on New Zealand's South Island. I left the car to go take some photos and, upon my return, realised there was a Kea inside the car. Sitting on the driver's chair headrest, in fact. Knowing that Kea are wont to destroy hire cars I took my time and, from the safety of the passenger side, gently coaxed it back out through the open window. No harm done, though it spent a long time perched on my wing mirror trying to get back in via the (now closed) window. Since then I have never felt threatened by a bird trying to break into my car. Until today, that is. 

Happily, this Hoodie was more intent on my sandwich than my car's interior. Though I had to chuckle as it remained resolutely glued to the wing mirror whilst I slowly drove around the car park! Eventually it decided I was wasting its time and it flew away. With at least half of my sandwich in its crop. 

Young Barn Door overhead. Poor camera skills, but I'll learn...someday

I checked through a few gull flocks, nothing of much interest that I could see, scanned through a mixed tit flock, noting a lamentable absence of rare Sibes, and then thought about checking the local Whatsapp groups in case I was missing anything.

"Orca Kilmalaug. Heading North" 

Fuckaduck, I was a good hour or so south of Kilmalaug. It would be long gone by the time I got there. Though if it's heading north that would put it at Rubha Hunish. Hmmm, the clifftop there is a ten to fifteen minute yomp from the car park. So I'd probably still miss it. Maybe I could head it off at Duntulm? Assuming, of course, that it followed the coast south after crossing the top end. I checked the messages again. "John Coe AND Aquarius at Rubha Hunish, heading west" Fuuuuuck me...I put pedal to the metal and slammed north.

That "good hour or so" flashed by in about thirty minutes. I took the Idrigill zigzags at well over 50mph, completely unthinkable in tourist season. It seemed that the road truly was mine and mine alone. I hammered it up to the top layby overlooking Camas Mòr and considered scanning from there, realised that the last message (20 minutes ago) mentioned Fladda Island up by Rubha Hunish, decided otherwise and careened ever northwards at full pelt at something approaching rally speed. I've never seen wild Orca, it is possibly the species highest on my wishlist. I most definitely did not spare the horses on that winding coast road!

Having utterly destroyed whatever the previous landspeed record was from Dunvegan to Duntulm, I slammed into a layby and scanned out across the perfectly flat sea. I know that Orca often cruise within a few hundred feet of the coastline, so I alternated my telescope and binocular scans with naked eye scans of the near sea. Within about three minutes of my arrival, a car pulled up and a familiar voice yelled out "Are you after the Killer Whales?" It was Yorkshire Sylvia, a frequent user of the Skye Cetacean Whatsapp group. "Yes, but I've only just got here. No sign yet" I replied. "No, well they swam past here ages ago. I've been watching them for the past 30 minutes from Bornesketaig. They headed out towards North Uist, they are really motoring". 

Fuck my life, Sylvia. So why the hell didn't you put word out on the Whatsapp group??? I'd screamed past Bornesketaig on my way here. In fact, had I have scanned directly out to sea from the Camas Mòr lookout, I would probably have seen them! "Best bet would be Waternish Point I reckon" she joyfully suggested, before driving off on her merry way homeward bound. Waternish Point eh? That just so happens to be the very next headland across from where I live. Fucksakes. I looked at the height of the sun above the horizon and realised there was no way I could make it before darkness fell. Plus I'd be looking directly into the setting sun. There was physically no way I'd catch up with the Orca. 

I floored it westwards...

...

...

...and made it to Waternish just in time to watch the sun set.

The Hardy Boys

I've set up my light trap in the covered doorway of the extension at the side of the hotel (it rains, pretty ferociously at times, most nights lately. Tonight it is hailing...) I've placed the trap on a chair for added height, in an effort to make the light slightly more visible to any insect flying through the darkness. Obviously I ought to have been trapping throughout the summer months, but I've not been keen to set it up whilst the hotel was open with guests and staff wandering around willy-nilly. So far the sheep appear to be largely ignoring it, which is definitely a good thing. Unfortunately, so is everything else.

The rewards thus far have been scant, which is entirely to be expected running a trap this time of year in the far north of Britain. In order, I give you the (very) few hardy moths that I've seen in recent weeks.

Acleris hyemana sat on the wall I was prepping for painting - 27th Oct

 

Feathered Thorn inside the shed that houses my trap - 3rd Nov

A maul of December Moths popped onto a shelf until the rain stopped - 11th Nov

Scarce Umber sat on a black bucket, at night, flash not deployed and hence blurry - 11th Nov

Male Mottled Umber sat beside an external light (females lack wings) - 17th Nov

Absolutely pristine Winter Moth inside the trap - 18th Nov 

Well...it's one of the Epirrita moths. Just outside the trap - 18th Nov

I don't know what this last moth is. It's either November Moth or Pale November Moth. I strongly suspect I'll be seeing more of these Epirrita over the coming weeks. The various crosslines on the wings offer clues as to the specific identity of the moth, as shown in the image below, but I'm finding it tricky to match my moth to any of the drawings.

Image courtesy of Lancashire Moths - see here

What I really need to do is pop one into ethyl acetate fumes long enough for me to render it unconscious and then have a quick peek at its naughty bits, assuming the moth is a male. That should categorically tell me which species I have. As long as I'm quick the moth should recover in a short time. If it's a female moth I'm still stuck and it's back to trying to decipher the precise course of the postmedian fascia relative to a (probably missing) discal spot.

Anyway, there have been several hail showers so far this evening so the trap is not running. And I very much doubt there will be any moths sat on the walls in this wind. Time for me to crack on identifying the female heleomyzid I caught as 'bycatch' last night. Bycatch is such a hateful word, it suggests that anything non-moth in the trap is somehow lesser and unwanted. Not in my book they ain't! Unless of course the moth is a Clifden Nonpareil.

New Moth for the Patch

With the moth tally for the patch standing at a whopping 21 species, it was always a pretty safe bet that I would soon find an additional species or two. However, the one I found yesterday was not entirely expected. 

I was wandering the grounds in a rare bit of glorious sunshine, sticking my face into hitherto unexplored cracks and crevices, when I found myself looking at a small plant of Black Spleenwort hanging out of a rock face. Immediately obvious were the numerous brown patches across the frond. These struck me as being localised feeding signs rather than diseased or damaged areas, so I moved in for a closer examination. Sure enough, I soon spotted a tell-tale 'pile of debris' on the underside of one pinnule. I plucked the frond and popped it into a pot for closer scrutiny once back indoors. 

Note the brown patches, these are the feeding signs of a certain micro-moth

I was fairly confident that this was the work of a Psychoides moth, of which there are two species in Britain. A quick check of the caterpillar itself would tell me which of the two I had here. One has a black head, followed by a black prothoracic plate and has a black plate at the rear end too. The other has a pale brown head, a transparent prothoracic plate and lacks any black at the rear end. Time to haul it out of its silken retreat and have a look...

The middle image shows the silken retreat which I opened up to reveal the larva within

So I see a caterpillar with a pale brown head, a transparent prothoracic plate (the shield that covers the rear half of the head) and no dark mark at the rear end. My moth is Psychoides filicivora, which is the only one of the pair so far known to occur on Skye.

And just to clarify, here's an image of the two species side by side (courtesy of Wikipedia)

I found this species new to Skye several years back, and it's one that I still happen across from time to time although I wouldn't say it's particularly easy to find. However it can be numerous where it does occur, particularly when the hostplant is Hart's-tongue, which has fronds large enough to hold several larvae each. It also occurs on Polypodium, but I think this could be the first time I've found it feeding on Black Spleenwort. 

As far as I can tell, there isn't any Hart's-tongue growing on site. If there is it must be a random plant or two hidden away in the undergrowth. There are two discrete areas with polypodies growing on the rocks, and a mere handful of further Black Spleenwort plants, so I'm actually quite surprised the moth is here at all. Unless it's utilising Dryopteris ferns as the main hostplant? I'll have to investigate that further. I don't tend to check Dryopteris for these moths, which might be something of an oversight on my part. There are certainly plenty growing around the hotel grounds. 

Today I stood in the car park and slowly scanned a hillside just across the loch. One Buzzard, one adult White-tailed Eagle, a Raven and one subadult Golden Eagle. Not too shabby a scan. Oh, and best of all, I found a patch of Sheep's Sorrel at the end of the path. Winner!

Prophetic

Three days ago I wrote a short blogpost describing my Patch and included the following paragraph:

Contentiously (for some), I'm also happy to include species seen from the Patch, encompassing such things as birds flying around the bay or dolphins, ducks and seals seen swimming in the loch. I'm also happy to include heard-only species, examples being the Barn Owls, Whooper Swans and Whimbrel I sometimes hear calling at night.

I feel the need to clarify one small point. At the time of writing the above, I had never actually seen a dolphin in the loch. I've seen them about a mile further around the coast, though only in the open sea, and as such it was written more in hopeful anticipation than of any real expectation. I've seen/heard all the other things mentioned though.

Today my car has been fixed so I took it on a quick test drive, photographing a few things along the way.

Young Highland Coo and a bit of Portree Harbour

Happy with the repair, I returned to the hotel, stepped out of the car and immediately heard a splash. Looking up I saw several fins slowly moving through the water ahead of me. Holy crap, porpoises! Then one jumped. Holy double crap, dolphins!! I grabbed my binoculars and found myself eyeballing a pod of ten or so Common Dolphins, moving slowly up the loch no more than 50 or 60 metres offshore. I was probably 30 metres from the sea, meaning I was within 100 metres of these animals, probably the closest I've ever been to dolphins whilst standing on land. 

A sudden realisation hit me; my new camera was sat on the passenger seat. I quickly grabbed it from its bag, threw off the lens cap and took aim at the sea. The first few images show the top of the carpark hedge, just for context.

At this point they decided to turn around and head back out of the loch towards the open sea. I've cropped the following few images and I've brightened them up a smidge. Which is just about the uppermost limit of my editing capabilities anyway!

Common Dolphins doing precisely what Common Dolphins enjoy doing!

I don't think they were actively hunting fish. Hunting around trying to find fish, yes. Just a quick wander into the loch and back out again by the looks of it. And I was lucky enough to coincide with them as they swam past, jammy bugger that I am. 

Fast departing by now, the dolphins are inside the circled area

A couple of hours earlier, my good friend Mark Telfer messaged me saying that a Pallas's Warbler had just passed through his garden and that he was going to be grinning his head off for the rest of the week. I'd been wishing something exciting would move through my garden too, and now - in a way - it had. Stoked, proper stoked. Then I noticed the gravel underfoot and the dolphins were forgotten in an instant, like so much dross blowing in the wind. Behold..!

Colony of Nostoc commune at my feet

I believe that the only Nostoc to form large conjoined colonies like this is Nostoc commune, all of the others are much smaller. A Treecreeper began to call from the Ash trees behind me, becoming the third addition to my Patchlist whilst I was still stood there in the car park. What a fabulous few minutes that had been. I really do need to start learning how to use my camera though!

New Camera

There's a local birder who has a pretty decent camera and some of his images are sickeningly good. I've kinda had my eye on a similar model for myself. Problem is, the one he owns cost him fifteen hundred quid, and I wasn't hugely keen on that sort of a price tag. However, after a further eighteen months of looking at his images and comparing them with my own dismal digi-binned efforts, I decided enough was enough and bit the bullet. Last week I found myself holding a pre-owned Sony RX10 IV and planned to put it to use just as soon as the rain stopped.

And then my car's exhaust system decided that it was fed up with life and promptly committed harakiri. I know a guy who tinkers with cars and he managed to successfully resuscitate it from death, though a major organ transplant is required later this week. For the moment my car is driveable once more, providing I keep the revs at a painfully low level. Hence the Sony finally got its first outing this afternoon. 

First attempt, totally uncropped and straight off the card

Agreed, it's a very mediocre image but not too bad for first press of the button. Pale birds on a dark background in grey weather was never going to be the easiest of subject matters, I have a lot to learn with this camera!

Crop from above image. Passable as a 'record shot', should I ever need to submit a pic of a rarity

Oh dear, two shots in and he's trying to be all arty n' stuff...

I quite like this pic of a Curlew

Like I said, I have a lot to learn regards using this camera. Fingers crossed my images will start to improve before too much longer. I'm hoping it will work well as a macro lens too, inverts and plants being my other main area of photographic interest. I don't have any kind of post-production editing software, but I think I'd rather just learn to use the camera rather than rely on fixing crap imagery after the event. 

Way out on the shore I spotted what appeared to be a Carrion Crow alongside a Hoodie. Carrion Crow is an absolute Mega here on Skye. I only know of one that has turned up since I moved here in 2016 (and yep, I twitched it!) So to possibly have one in front of me now was rather exciting. Through my 10x bins, I couldn't really be certain if it was a Carrion Crow or a young Rook. The distance was just a bit too far to clinch details. I wondered if the camera could do any better.

I had more magnification at full zoom than I could achieve with my binoculars!

Slightly higher elevation to get above the foreground vegetation 

At this point I was starting to think it was more likely to be a young Rook, though this is the first time I've ever seen a Rook on the foreshore here. I took a few more images and then decided to zoom in, see what, if anything, I could discern.

Clinched

So there you have it. I strongly suspected I was looking at a Carrion Crow, which is an exceptional find on Skye, and the camera proved otherwise. This bird is a young Rook, hanging around with a Hoodie on a beach where I've never before seen a Rook. The camera, on its very first outing, has proven invaluable and saved me from looking like a complete noob in front of Skye's (very small) birding circle. Happy days!

I anticipate pointing the Sony at many more birds over the next few months, seeing as invert and plant action will be taking something of a backseat until the weather warms up again next year. I might even manage images of things like Grey Seals and Otters with luck. Pity I didn't have this camera whilst watching the Sperm Whale earlier this year. 

And just in case Skev stills reads this tosh....

The Patch

Seven months ago I waved farewell to Broadford and began a new job about an hour to the north-west. I am still on Skye, though in an area I am largely unfamiliar with. Skye is a bigger place than many folks realise. Despite my living and working here for the last seven months, I rarely spend much time looking at the nature to be found here. Ordinarily I blast off to other parts of Skye to seek out my natural history fix. But the hotel has now closed down for the winter, no more staff and no more guests. Just me, the owner and a handyman who pops in from time to time. I do have plenty of work ahead of me, but I also have plenty more free time on my hands. Perfect for a wee project, methinks...

The hotel and grounds

This is my new project. I'm currently in the middle of compiling a species list for the hotel grounds, henceforth known as The Patch. There are, of course, a few rules as to what constitutes a countable record. Almost all of the trees here have been planted, as have some of the shrubs, so I won't include those. The stray cat and flock of sheep that constantly break into the property also clearly don't count. But I think everything else is good to include.  

The patch boundaries are easily defined: everything within the perimeter fencing around the west, north and east sides and the sea itself along the southern boundary. I've had to do a little dogleg around the owner's cottage; I'm not sure he'd appreciate my headtorch beaming past his windows as I search for harvestmen on his walls.

I will include the full extent of exposed shoreline during the lowest tides and, if I ever get around to picking up a rod, I'll include anything I haul in from the sea.

Contentiously (for some), I'm also happy to include species seen from The Patch, encompassing such things as birds flying around the bay or dolphins, ducks and seals seen swimming in the loch. I'm also happy to include heard-only species, examples being the Barn Owls, Whooper Swans and Whimbrel I sometimes hear calling at night. 

I do need to take some more habbo shots. A tour of The Patch, if you like. Something for you to look forward to in future posts. For now, here are some pics taken at the shore earlier this afternoon. Note the astonishing lack of rain...

A pair of Otters frequent this stretch of shoreline

This will be my fishing point, I feel

Schistidium maritimum cushions, right down in the splash zone below the level tolerated by vascular plants

Today's foray has bumped the species list to a smidge over 200 species. Well over half of these are from this week, I truly have neglected to look at the hotel grounds all summer! This little project should help me concentrate my efforts far closer to home and will hopefully turn up a few pleasant surprises. I pretty much have the place to myself for the best part of five months, I wonder what the species tally will be come Spring.

Hotel Safari

The hotel in which I work has closed down for the winter season. I am the sole member of staff living here at the moment, and will be until next March. It's only been a few weeks, but so far I'm holding off the madness and alcoholism that befell Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Only time will tell...

Most nights of late have been wet, windy, or wet and windy at the same time. However, I recently decided to start a species list for the hotel grounds and so, between downpours, I set up my light trap in a covered doorway and began my first headtorch safari of the hotel walls. 

Mostly it was all as expected, lots of Amaurobius similis and Zygiella x-notata on the walls and around the windows, plenty of slugs and Tachypodoiulus niger lower down on the walls, a handful of earwigs and woodlice. Plenty of very small flies, I spied a few Sylvicola amongst them. Those I can (and will) identify. Pleasingly, it appears that Tipula pagana is frequent here with several pairs in cop on the walls. 

Note that the female has reduced wings, rendering her incapable of flight. Check your walls of a night-time. If you too have craneflies with reduced wings, particularly this late into the year, it's a pretty safe bet you have Tipula pagana. It appears to be a widespread species throughout most of Britain and Oct/Nov is the time to go looking for them. 

But the biggest surprise was the male Steatoda nobilis hanging in its web in the top corner of a window recess. What the heck is that doing here! I thought Steatoda nobilis was still very much a southern species, restricted to lowland England. I had no idea it occurred further north than about Birmingham. My next surprise was finding a second male a few windows further along the building. Holy crap!

Steatoda nobilis aka the Noble False Widow

At this point in time, I would like to point out that I am not responsible for getting that green paint all over the window frames. That was done before I arrived. I do have an awful lot of painting lined up for this winter, both exterior and interior, but I can assure you it won't be slapped up quite as badly as that. I can also assure you that I will most definitely be keeping my eyes open for any Steatoda whilst painting around window recesses! 

I had a look on iRecord and was surprised to see that there's already a Skye record for Steatoda nobilis (two females photographed) making mine the second record. That's pretty cool, I wonder how widespread they actually are up here.

Female Metellina segmentata 

I checked the light trap in the morning. One Sylvicola which flew off before I could pot it and a lone Tipula pagana, to whom this track is dedicated.