Too Windy by Far

The forecast had suggested that today would be relatively mild, which to be fair it was. Indoors. Outside it was blowing a hoolie which pretty much scuppered any thoughts of my seeing much in the way of invert action. So saying, I did walk past a dense bed of crocuses in someone's front lawn and was quite surprised to see half a dozen Western Honeybees feeding at the flowers. Presumably domesticated rather than wild.

Yesterday I bemoaned the fact that I'd probably missed Summer Snowflake for the year. This morning I grabbed some food from the bakery and took a walk through Kylintra Park here in Grantown-on-Spey. The Kylintra Burn runs through the park and passes through a concrete-sided channel for a few hundred feet. I glanced down onto the vegetated margins of this channel and couldn't believe what I saw below - a small clump of Summer Snowflake! I was so surprised you could have knocked me over (with a snowflake). Such a jammy bugger! This was my view of the plant in question

Summer Snowflake Leucojum aestivum, brand new to the hectad!

Also in the channel were freshly emerging leaves of two Water Docks and my first Moorhen of the year swam across a nearby pond. Fabulous! Walking the streets back to my car, I spied a few plants of Sagina filicaulis poking out from amongst the Common Whitlowgrasses. Grantown remains the only place I've definitely seen the plant, though I've had a couple of possibles/probables elsewhere. I jumped into my car and headed off to the River Spey in search of a very special insect.

River Spey from the road at Boat-of-Garten. Note the shed in the trees

This is THE search area for the special insect I was hoping to find

The River Spey is home to a sizeable species of stonefly named Brachyptera putata. It's entire global range is the Highlands of Scotland and... and that's it! There are records from one Welsh river and one English river, but these populations are believed to be extinct. As a British endemic with its own Biodiversity Action Plan it 'needed' to be given a cuddly name for the masses (....) and Northern February Red was the winning entry. I'll stick with the scientific name, putata makes me chuckle because it always reminds me of a Spanish cuss word. But did I see it, I hear you cry. Hell yeah, I sure did!

Female Brachyptera putata with long wings

Male Brachyptera putata with short wings

Not sure why this female has yellow beneath the wings. Fresh egg batch that has yet to darken??

This poor bugger was almost blown clean off the fencepost!

I checked the fenceposts between the road and the wooden hut, and I checked the railings around the hut itself. 16 posts and some fencing: 23 Brachyptera putata. I'm happy with that, I think I've only topped twenty once before and that was after putting in a fairly comprehensive search. Today I spent ten minutes checking before I tired of being buffeted by the wind. There's a nice 'species dossier' about the stonefly here.

For some mad reason I thought it would be a great idea to drop in at Cairngorm. This is the approach road to the upper car parking area

I think these snow poles are about 7ft tall

Getting out of the car was a giggle, walking across the car park was an effort. I said hello to the population of Dwarf Birch that grows up here, but that was it. I retreated downhill once more. But only as far as the Sugarbowl car park, I had gen for a lifer that grows here! 

This is the bramble Rubus tuberculatus

Rubus tuberculatus is not a rare plant in Britain, though it is absent from large areas at a time. In the Scottish Highlands it is exclusively coastal. Apart from here where it grows halfway up Britain's highest mountain plateau not far short of the treeline and tens of miles from the sea! Its identity has been confirmed by the BSBI's bramble referee as well as various other proper grown-up botanists. I just dropped in to say hello. I'll need to come back in a few months time when it's in flower and looking a bit less worn and battered. Note how Hazel-like the leaflets are. I'll try to blog about this plant in more detail later in the season.

I needed to lose height and find shelter, I figured woodland would be my best bet. I descended to Coylumbridge, took a minor road northwards and was soon back at a favourite woodland walk of mine. I'm not sure what it's called, Ghostie calls it Tulloch Wood, or maybe that's the next bit, so I'll stick with that for now. Rather annoyingly, the trees seemed to almost funnel the wind rather than offer shelter. The noise in the treetops was really quite something, luckily they seemed to sway with it rather than snap off. 

Many of the Broom bushes that lined the forestry tracks exhibiting silken spinnings between adjacent twigs. These are the workings of moth larvae, but I needed to check the caterpillars to determine the species involved. 

The spinnings and a larva of Agonopterix assimilella

The caterpillars I looked at were all the same, deep olive-brown with a black head and rows of tiny black dots (pinacula) running down the body segments. This confirms the species as Agonopterix assimilella, as suspected. The young larva begins by feeding inside the stem before emerging and living between two stems in the spinning. You can see where the larva emerged from the stem in the middle image above. Further invertebrate interest was largely limited to a couple of spiders and a colony of an ant that I've never knowingly seen before. First, poor smudges of the spiders 

Nuctenea umbratica beneath a bit of loose bark

Amaurobius fenestralis - several of these beneath loose bark

The ants were also found beneath loose bark, but from a fallen tree rather than a vertical trunk. The darkened head and gaster gave them a very distinctive appearance and through a handlens I could see they had short propodeal spines. They didn't look at all familiar to me, and neither did the habit of nesting beneath loose bark. I took some pics then grabbed five workers for later examination.

The ants tending two generations of grubs and the log in question

I'll need to key them through properly once I'm back on Skye, but these appear to be Leptothorax acervorum otherwise known as the Slender Ant. Colony size is typically small, a hundred or so workers with a couple of queens is the norm. The fact that there are two distinct grub sizes could indicate that there are two queens present in this colony. Queens in this species are only a little larger than the workers. The uppermost ant in the second image seems to be a little larger than the other ants and it has a darker thorax, I wonder if this might be a queen? I've never seen Leptothorax acervorum before, despite it being nationally widespread (it even occurs on Skye!)

I tried to book a room at last night's hotel. £32 for a night is a bloody bargain! Sadly they were full, but a hotel just down the road had rooms for £37 per night. No brainer really, Inverness Youth Hostel charges more than that for a bunk in a dorm! So, once again, this blog is brought to you from a hotel room in Grantown-on-Spey. I have it in mind to yeartick Coot tomorrow, which sounds ridiculous but they are the stuff of legends back on Skye. I might even strike lucky and bump into a Mute Swan or a Magpie while I'm at it. I had hoped for a Red squirrel today but lucked out. The wind appears to have dropped significantly, if it's calm tomorrow I may try the local woods again before heading westwards once more. 

I'm up to 855 species for the year now. Ghostie is way (like waaaaay) behind me in our little challenge, but he's never, ever to be underestimated. I'm still a long way from attaining 2500 species, but he's even further away. I take a small degree of comfort in that.