A Feet Up Kind of Day

I've had a very relaxing day today. I wandered around the garden for a while, found a few more bits n' bobs for my yearlist, several of which were full on Patch Ticks, then I sat upstairs and did a spot of sea-watching from the sofa. With a coffee. I haven't seen a single person today, it's been lovely.

This is the life!

Yesterday's gull-fest has disappeared, a mere 20-30 Kittiwakes sheltering in the loch, plus singletons of Razorbill, Red-throated Diver, Black-throated Diver and the first Little Grebe that I've seen here. The grebe was diving just offshore and came up with a small, elongated fish. I'm tempted to guess at 15-spined Stickleback but sadly the images on my camera just aren't good enough to say. Maybe I'll catch one in a net instead. 

Impossible to say. I only know it was a fish by the way it was wriggling!

The garden wander turned up very little; a handful more plants, some bryophytes from a rotten log, a couple of millipedes and a snail from under logs, two lichens and a couple of expected bird species. I'm very much looking forward to the snow disappearing and the ground thawing out so that I can look for a few more plants and inverts. The light trap has stayed off lately, pointless even thinking about it until the air temperature is above zero and the winds drop off.

I found a Chordeuma millipede under a stone yesterday. It was a female, which means it's not possible to distinguish which of the two British species it belongs to (unless you barcode it, I suppose). Barcoding aside, an examination of a male's gonopods is required to see which species you have. Today I found some more, two were male and so were duly popped into a pot, as was a smaller species which turned out to be the very common Proteroiulus fuscus. I had to despatch the two Chordeuma millipedes in order to check the precise shape and ornamentation of various appendages of the gonopods. Here's an image of the relevant part, which is smoothly curved and not pointed and triangular

My image above and the feature marked on the key's illustration below

The key is quite a few years old now, Chordeuma proximum is known from various parts of western Scotland, including the Inner Hebrides where I am. I've yet to find a centipede for the year, but I'm slowly working my way through the millipedes with this being the 6th species found so far. Nationally, there are many species of myriapod that I've yet to see, so it's definitely worth my while taking the time to key more of these through until I become more familiar with them. 

Right, back to having fun-times with the bryophytes... Several of the larger trees here have mats of Hypnum cascading down them. The likely options are Hypnum cupressiforme and Hypnum andoi. I couldn't see any capsules, meaning I had to have a look at the shape of the cells both mid-leaf and at the basal angles. Technically, the shape of the leaf is also useful but potentially a bit ambiguous. So I stuck to checking cell shape. 

Ignore the black circle - it's an air bubble

The darker, squared-off section is the basal corner of a leaf. Behind it are the long mid-leaf cells of a second leaf. As you can see, the cells in the basal angle are blocky-looking, a bit irregularly shaped and almost touch each other. And the very narrow mid-leaf cells are sinuous and run close to each other. Comparing to the illustrations in my keys, these conform to Hypnum cupressiforme and not H.andoi. It's an incredibly common moss on tree trunks, so it's no surprise at all to have it confirmed as cupressiforme. 

Riccardia palmata - wave your hands in the air like you just don't care

I've been very casually noting any plants I find in flower this month. I didn't do a New Year's Plant Hunt as run by the BSBI, though I have done so before. Thus far I've seen Gorse, Daisy, Groundsel and a single Lesser Celandine in flower. All yellow flowers. I've noticed this preponderance for yellow before, maybe because the earliest pollinators to fly in the year are typically the Diptera, and they are strongly attracted to yellow. As are bumblebees, which also fly earlier than most other pollinators. Anyway, pics of each below.

I've just noticed what appears to be a patch of Aphanes next to the Daisy, I didn't see that at the time. That's a yeartick, whichever one it is! My yearlist stands at 268 species, 127 of these being on Patch. I'll try to make time each day this week to get out for at least an hour or so, even if it's only headtorch safaris around the hotel grounds. I'm half-expecting and half-dreading flushing a Woodcock beneath the trees. Woodcock would be a full on Patch tick as well as a yeartick, but I don't want to blunder around accidentally flushing birds while the weather is so crap for them. They've enough issues to deal with at the moment without me booting them up. 

Tomorrow I'll finally have to crack on and do some painting. It's been great taking the last four days off (though I normally have the weekends off anyway), but if I want to earn some money I'll need to put the hours in. Hey ho, it was good while it lasted!