Long overdue updates 1 - Skye in June

Two feature posts from outside the county which have been delayed and delayed due to eyeballs-out pursuit of the ever-bigger list. Actually it'll be one more because I just decided this needs split into botanical and non-botanical.

First up is a fantastic, and fantastically productive, weekend on the Isle of Skye from June.

In short, this was mostly spent bothering the montane flora of the Trotternish Ridge with the expert guidance of locals Neil and Stephen, the also expert but more neophyte Seth and the far-more-expert-than-me-but-displaced-from-botanical-comfort-zone southern Pete.

It's been a long time coming and lacks narrative, but these are at least finally the pictures!

Alpine Clubmoss

Flowering Sibbaldia

Alpine Meadow-rue

Moonwort

Moss Campion

A precipitous bum-shuffle to see Cyphel that I was already sat beside

The Cyphel

Juncus triglumis

Dwarf Cudweed

Pete and Seth searching for pipewort

A different category - Bronze Pirri-pirri Bur

Lesser Knotweed

Light up the Sky

Two hours of MV lighting up Dalgety Bay last night produced a nice three Small Yellow Wave, new to me and without many records in the county. There were other records last night too though so maybe it's on the up.

This is the third outing for the new genny and the second for my new MV setup from Paul Batty. With a funnel from the brewing shop and a light shop bits it worked a treat  in my heath trap box and the chopped off bit of the funnel proved enough for a Poplar Hawk to slide in - no vanes? no problem.

£2 funnel from online brewing shop (exactly as used in WatDon heath traps but no rain shield brackets), white ceiling spider to hold in place in funnel, and an 8" shade holder to protect the bulb. May later hold vanes, though it works without

 

Inevitably ....

New leafhopper at Moss Morran.

This should have been posted before. A sweeping session on some Hare's-tail Cottongrass (Eriophorum virgatum) at Moss Morran revealed the scarce leafhopper Nothodelphax distincta. It's like a Javesella, but dressed for church/court. The female's on the left and the male on the right. There were plenty in the cottongrass.

I really had in mind doing an NVC survey, for which I am not remotely qualified. I think this bit of ground's basically an M20 Calluna-Eriophorum mire, but it probably could fall between M18 and M20 somewhere. It varies over the terrain. From time to time I like to take things a bit more seriously and I would actually love to be able to produce reliable NVC classifications. In the meantime, though, I'm just going to busk it. It's an area of quite limited vegetative "latitude", with a couple of sphagnum species under quite leggy Calluna vulgaris (heather) and Eriophorum virgatum (Hare's-tail Cottongrass). A few other peaty mosses are around too, varying by degree of wetness on the ground. Other vasculars are very limited, with a tiny patch of Cranberry in evidence in one spot.

I'm going to keep banging away at this all year (and more) to build up a picture of what's there. Such a specific habitat does lend itself to habitat-specific animalia (Lochmaea suturalis, Heather shieldbug...). I'm also hoping the decent fringe of Betula will turn up a few species you'd normally have to travel for. If I get even one or two I'll be well chuffed.

Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Pipefish

Braefoot Point with Inchcolm Island behind

 With the tide low yesterday morning I headed for the rocks and rummaged around for an hour or so. I didn't see as much as I was expecting, to be honest, but I did find some very nice Worm Pipefish. At first I found only one, and I wsa excited enough about that. Then under another rock I found 5 all wrapped around each other. Maybe it's mating season.

Worm Pipefish: short upturned nose, no caudal fin

That would have been a result enough , despite the lack of other interesting things, but it also turned out that a very nice paddle-worm was new, too. Earthworms are probably the group I find most boring to deal with (it's mostly counting), but marine worms are spectacular things with their scales, tendrils, etc. Amazingly at 40cm this wasn't the biggest worm of the day! These paddle-worms definitely have a Chinese New Year feel about them, and the body colour on this one was spectacular. Not sure what's the benefit of growing so long. 

Dragon worm

At the end of the day I went to drop this worm back into the water (yes, too long but it was OK), only to discover that there was a mass of exposed seaweed. As the light faded I practically ran around like a maniac. If I was going to find a sea spider in Dalgety Bay surely this was the day?

It wasn't. But I did find another three nice additions - bootlace worm, which is an absurdly long nemertean. I have no idea how long because it was basically in a pile. And the yellow-ringed tunicate Ciona inestinalis. So intent was I on looking for things that  it seems I only took one photo. This is it, and you can see the result of fading light. You can just about see the yellow tips that would be rings when it was fully open.

The third addition was an actual living sea urchin, although since I managed to crush it with the rock before I found it "living" was a temporary situation, sadly. Of course there were many other common things, including 1000s of brittlestars, starfish, crabs (green shore, edible, long-clawed porcelain, great spider) and butterfish, though strangely no other fish was knowingly encountered. I also checked a good few Cuvie holdfasts to see if I could locate a blue-rayed limpet. That also was not to be. I'll definitely be keeping my eye better on the tide tables in future, though.

Bootlace worm

Aellurilus v-insignitus at Pettycur

I was alerted to the presence of a particularly rare spider in Scotland which is more -or-less on my doorstop, and only there. I made the pilgrimage a few miles east, fully thinking that I would spend an hour staring at rocks with no luck. However, it wasn't to be and I was able to quite easily locate a few specimens (1m 2ff) of said spider. A later search by someone more conscientious turned up a good many more.

I was lucky enough to get one in the binoculars just as it began to display to a female, waving its palps in the air like a Mexican wave before shaking up and down at the "knees". I guess that process was successful as they ran off up the hill together. Or maybe that's what failure looks like. I tried to make a video, but because the sun was on the screen all I managed was a video of a nearby stone.

Happy Mondays

With a day off and a chance to visit two sites that I like, but don't spend much time on, I went both to the bog and the coast. Where it snowed! At least it snowed in between bouts of decent sunshine, allowing me to pick up my 4,000th species - this rather fetching Nomada fabriciana. 

The supporting cast were Viola hirta, Agonopterix assimilella (micromoth larva in spun broom, bog edge) and Pine Cone Bug, from a Scots Pine also on the bog.

And that was that. Only 999 species to go until 5k, since I also picked up the dung beetle Aegialia arenaria, which was crawling around in numbers around the dunes. If I make it even close to half way there this year that will have been a very good year.

Sunny Beach, about 6 degrees!

Nomada fabriciana

Reptile in the bag - Common Lizard

Came across this little chap on my wanderings today. After allowing me to take some nice snapshots it then graciously popped into the delicately-placed sweep net for a closer look. When I set it back down it didn't ever wander off. Seemed happy enough, though.