Cliffs of Dalgety Bay

Not exactly famous, but I finally wandered along them when I noticed that, unbelievably, I hadn't ever walked along the bottom of them before. They were pretty bare, as quite exposed I suppose, and not covered in stuff, but what was there was interesting. Not really the best time of year to assess either, really though. Plenty of seepages, and a definite calcareous flavour means they might actually turn up something peculiar.

As it was, they did turn up a new moss and a new fern on this visit in Sea Spleenwort. As far as I know there are no prior Dalgety Bay records.

Sea Spleenwort

There was a small shelf of Wild Garlic, which I've only ever seen a couple of bits of in other locations.

Allium vineale

The calcareous nature of the cliff face was revealed in frequent tufts of the moss Eucladium verticillatum, with its characteristic white lower portions. It has toothed and hyaline lower "wings". Sadly, I don't think I captured any of the tufts.

Eucladium

To make up the plant additions of the day I found a half dozen rosettes of Bristly Oxtongue, which isn't particularly frequent around here.

This is definitely a stretch that will see some grilling in the coming year.

(Comparitive Plant Ecology lists pH for A.vineale, Weld and Bristly Oxtongue as 6.5,7.0,7.0 respecitvely, so maybe it's more neutral)

Sand sedge - 390th flowering plant for Dalgety Bay

 Though I may also have forgotten Sweet Chestnut, in which case 391st!

Conomelus anceps, with or without wings, now also available in Fife

From the same damp meadow as yesterday's Blue Shieldbug. today's new Fife species is from the admirably alien-looking Delphacidae.

Blue Shieldbug, Zicrona caerulea , first for Fife.

A bug I wanted to see for a long time, I didn't expect to sweep one during a lunchtime walk. But that's how it often happens. Happy days!

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.