A Hairy Situation

Work is pretty full-on at the moment, but I successfully retained my two days off last week and promptly hit the mainland for an overnight adventure. I had gen for a small plant that I've been quietly hoping to encounter someday. Last Tuesday was that day.

There are at least 13 of the plants in question on view here

Those who know me will be aware of my penchant for small things. "Fluff, dust and grit" to quote one well-known 'super-naturalist'. The plant I had travelled here to see was Hairy Whitlowgrass Erophila majuscula; there's one sat at the end of the pen in the piccie above. And for those who enjoy a Where's Wally-type challenge, there are at least another dozen hiding in plain view. It's the sort of plant that is easily overlooked and ordinarily takes a bit of searching for. The fact that I had a ten-figure grid reference was definitely something of a bonus. The fact that the gen was a mere four days old obviously also helped because there's nothing worse than chasing a plant record only to discover that the site was turned into a housing estate twenty years earlier. Well I say that, continuing to futilely search in aforementioned housing estate whilst being circled by the local yoof on bikes is definitely worse. Luckily I've only had that happen to me once (turns out that hunting residential streets for Italian Toadflax in Glasgow can be a bit meh when the school holidays are on. Who knew...) 

I'm now going to bombard you with images of Hairy Whitlowgrass. The forked hairs are pretty cool to look at beneath a microscope, but the plants themselves are a lot cooler so here, enjoy! 

It's a pretty little thing, isn't it? You can see that despite the early season, some are starting to go to seed already. These tiny annuals have a rapid life cycle, appearing and then disappearing once more within a matter of months. I spent quite a while admiring these plants through my handlens and was thankful that nobody spotted me, I must have looked a right weirdo with my face pressed to the ground and my arse in the air! Well ok, guilty as charged.

I didn't count them, but at a very rough guestimate there were several hundreds of Hairy Whitlowgrass plants in an area of several square metres. Maybe even a few thousand. I'm glad I arrived at what may well be their peak flowering period, a very small but spectacular display indeed!

I took a wander and found a couple of colonies of Slave-maker Ants Formica sanguinea alongside their 'slaves' Formica lemani. Lots of Common Wintergreen present too which, despite its name, I don't find very commonly at all. 

Half a mile away sat a patch of forest that I've never explored before. A roadside sign showed an image of a Red Squirrel, a species I haven't seen so far this year. I came away afterwards still needing Red Squirrel for the yearlist, but it was a lovely walk through some very scenic forestry. I'll visit again in warmer weather, I expect there's all sorts of interesting insects just waiting to be found.

On my way back to Skye I took the road down to Fort Augustus rather than through Inverness. It's a slower road and one I rarely take, but on this occasion my choice was a fortuitous one. I rounded a bend and came face to face with a pair of Feral Goats on the verge. I slammed into a nearby layby and walked back up the road. No sign of them, damnit. I soon found them a short way into the trees and managed a couple of pics. 

Some serious sets of horns on these beasts! 

Yesterday I had great fun setting up a scaffold tower. It didn't come with instructions and so it may yet collapse into a big pile of poles, though hopefully not whilst I'm up on top of it! Now that the good weather has arrived I can finally properly tackle the large walls of the hotel. The frontage hasn't been painted since it was built twelve years ago and the moss has really taken a hold on the exposed render. Much scraping, wire brushing and fungicidal application was required, tomorrow will be the turn of the stabilising solution and then I can start throwing paint up the walls. The other apex is in an even worse state of affairs. This was my top floor office this morning, in absolutely stunning weather.

And then a crofter decided to set fire to a nearby hillside. The hotel was engulfed in a hazy smoke that made my eyes sting, forcing me off the scaffold and seeing all windows and doors closed before the smoke alarms went off.

Kinda pretty. In a smelly, eye-watering kind of way....

The view from a mile away. The hotel is inside the circled area. Honestly.

Muirburn season on Skye is over. Traditionally it used to end on 15th April (with exceptions being allowed until 30th April with the landowner's permission and a good reason for lateness) but new legislation says that muirburns have to be held before 31st March in order to protect ground-dwelling animals and ground-nesting birds. I've notified the local RSPB group, who apparently have an app to log such things. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. Hen Harriers nest up here, the week before May is not the time to be setting fire to their breeding areas. 

The other end of the loch yesterday. This muirburn was also reported to the RSPB

By and large, I find Skye crofters to be a friendly bunch of hardworking people. As individuals they are not inherently arseholes. But as a profession they do leave an awful lot to be desired. Nothing will come of these burns, I can almost guarantee that. Hopefully the winged inverts fled the flames, the ground-nesting birds didn't have chicks in the nest and anything else either ran away or found safety underground. My accommodation still smells of smoke, I still smell of smoke, but at least I wasn't burned alive just so domesticated livestock have fresh shoots to eat this summer.