Monday 10 December 2018

A first for me but found in the jaws of a spider!


With warm weather continuing into August conditions were suitable for another monthly butterfly transect to be walked near Grantown on Spey.  Not the best route for good numbers of butterflies due to the lack of flower-rich areas but, covering the same route as the bird survey, the data adds a little more to our knowledge of the ups and downs of the butterfly populations across the UK.  It was a mid-day start, the thermometer hovered around 210C, and the southerly wind was quite kind.  August is the month when, locally, we see good numbers of Scotch argus butterflies (as I did on the Loch Garten transect) and this walk didn’t disappoint with 18 contacts.  Speckled woods appeared on this transect just a few years ago as breeders arrived slowly, probably from the Moray coast, and 2 were seen on this walk.  The only other butterfly seen was a small copper, a butterfly that seems to have done quite well this year with regular contacts on other outings.  So, three species during the hour and a half walk with a record also of an annoying ear moth, possibly large ear (Amphipoea lucens).  
Ear moth agg.
Because of the difficulty in identifying in the field or from a photo, it would have had to be captured, taken home, and its genitalia checked, something I’ve never tackled.  With these ID problems it gets recorded as ear moth agg. (Amphipoea oculea agg) classing it in the aggregate of four possible species (ear, large ear, crinan ear and saltern ear).  The following quote comes from the 2017 report covering the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey.  “Over the past nine years a total of 1,755 WCBS squares have been surveyed, 952 (54%) by Butterfly Conservation (BC) volunteers and 803 (46%) by British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) volunteers.  A total of 14,510 visits have been made by approximately 1,650 recorders who have counted 844,244 butterflies of 51 species.  The top six most widespread butterflies over this period have been Meadow Brown (found in 87% of sampled squares), Large White (84% of squares), Small White (84%), Green-veined White (77%), Small Tortoiseshell (76%) and Red Admiral (74%).”  An amazing set of figures accumulated by volunteers.  Brilliant.

Another of the Cairngorms rare invertebrates project species popped up on the calendar this month, the small scabious mining bee (Andrena marginata).  This is a small bee that excavates holes in firm, sandy ground in sunny locations to create a nest where the next generation of this rare bee will be reared.  As far as is known, the female creates the holes and collects pollen from devil’s-bit scabious flowers (Succisa pratensis) to provision their nests.  Nectar is known to be foraged from a range of other plants and is collected in the bee’s stomach whilst pollen is collected via pollen baskets on the 
Colletes succinctus the heather colletes
bee’s legs.  Pollen is stored in the nest cells ready for the larvae to consume as they grow.  Gabby, the Rare Inverts project leader managed to find (with others) several new locations for this bee during the August/September breeding period in 2017 so the aim this year was to check if the same sites were occupied again and to try and find new ones.  Having looked for this wee bee before I thought it best to go out with Gus and Tessa to a location where they had found it in 2017.  Sadly, half of the length of track where the bee had holes last year had been bulldozed away, in error, but the second half of the track remained suitable and I saw for the first time the ‘volcano’ shaped holes which the bees create to make their underground nest.  However, despite the hot sun we didn’t manage to see the bees either digging or bringing in provisions but did see another mining bee using the same section of track Colletes succinctus, the heather colletes.  As we stood waiting for activity, we became aware of an unusual fly which seemed to have some interest in the bee nesting area so one to try and catch up 
Andrena marginata nest 'volcano'
A crab spider on a devil's-bit scabious flower-head
Small copper butterfly
with on future visits.  Now that I knew what to look for hole-wise, I thought I should visit a site visited last year where I wasn’t aware if the scabious mining bee was present or not.  The location though was covered in devil’s-bit scabious flowers so at least the main food plant was available should the site have the right nesting habitat.  I started by checking the areas where there was minimal vegetation and areas of bare ground, eventually ending up on an old tractor track.  High up the slope the sandy soil was just too loose but further down the slope it looked just right, lightly vegetated with patches of bare, compacted, sandy soil.  Was it too early to shout “bingo” because I was also seeing a couple of volcano shaped holes!  I then spent the next hour or so walking slowly back and forth along the right looking section of track where I noticed a different fly landing on pebbles close to the bee holes.  I spotted a small bee land in the vegetation on the sloping bank of the track and when I managed to get a good look at it, it was the heather colletes, a slightly darker and differently shaped bee to the one I’d never seen.  Kneeling and bending over wasn’t too good for back and knees so after an hour of careful watching I thought it was time to see if I could find the bee visiting scabious flowers.  On the top of the knoll something on the top of a scabious flower-head 
Crab spider with Andrena marginata bee
caught my eye and when I looked closer, I could see it was one of the crab spiders, perhaps the same as last month (possibly Xysticus cristatus).  Once again, this spider was sitting there, legs outstretched, waiting for possible prey insects to land on the flower.  I saw another couple as I continued to search.  A small copper was found again along with dark-green fritillary, Scotch argus, painted lady and small tortoiseshell, but no bee.  Time to go so I made my way slowly back to my bike continuing to check the scabious flowers as I walked.  I spotted another crab spider and it was obvious that it had caught something and, taking a closer look, I could see it was holding a bee with obvious pollen pouches on its legs – surely this wasn’t going to be my first scabious mining bee?  The bee was obviously dead and not struggling so, sorry spider, I detached it from the spider and 
Andrena marginata at nest hole and foraging
popped it into a tube to take home to check.  So, on the 4th August 2018 I had found my first Andrena marginata and in possibly the strangest way possible.  I was back on site the next day complete with a picnic stool to sit on so I could concentrate more on looking than worrying about back and knees.  Straight away I was aware of a bee landing near one of the ‘volcanoes’ with obvious leg pouches filled with pollen and within half a minute it had disappeared into the hole. Over the next hour several scabious mining bees were seen arriving and departing and with a bit of careful marking with short sticks I was able to identify holes bees had gone into and was able to note that most re-emerged after 5-6 minutes.  At one hole I was lucky enough to see a bee leave and return with the time out being 
Kite-tailed robber fly top and; satellite fly bottom
about 30-31 minutes.  A few days later one of the Abernethy Highland Games organisers asked if it was me he had seen sitting on a stool in a field – well, of course!  I re-visited the first site again to see if the odd fly was still active and once located I waited for it to land on a rock or pebble and slowly homed in with camera firing away as I got closer.  This fly turned out to be kite-tailed robber fly (Machimus atricapillus) a biggish fly which preys on other flies and insects so possibly also the mining bee?  The fly at the other site was identified as Leucophora grisella, a satellite fly whose larvae are parasites of solitary bees so again, the concentration of just a few mining bee nests looks attractive to these fly predators. 

Mid-month, Gabby organised a gathering of people involved in checking sites for the scabious mining bee and this led me to Tomintoul for the day.  After a brief introduction to the gathering of about 6 folk we headed out to a field covered in scabious flowers and spread out to carry out our search.  This would be mostly checking the flowers but also keeping an eye open for any suitable open ground that might have been suitable for nests.  The one thing against us was a slightly strong 
The captured Lasioglossum bee before release
wind and patchy sun but with several bumblebees active and occasional hoverflies we pressed on.  I thought I’d found the bee and swung my net to catch it to give Gabby a chance to check, and once in a glass tube to check Gabby thought that it might be a blood bee slightly similarly coloured as Andrena, but a different bee species.  However, checking my poor photo of the bee in my tube expert Murdo pointed me in the direction of Lasioglossum calceatum or albipes.  These small bees are very similar to the one we were looking for, a mining bee that is classed as primitively eusocial, meaning it creates a small social colony though each bee breeds independently.  We also saw the tiger hoverfly (Helophilus pendulus) but in the windy conditions, almost impossible to photograph.  Despite several folk looking, the mining bee wasn’t found.  However, the field looked so promising that I decided to 
Tiger hoverfly top and common blue sow-thistle bottom
return a few days later, but not before giving a filmed interview to an RSPB team about the shining guest ant.  Thankfully, the guest ant was active on a nest where I had seen it previously, so interview finished I left them to see if they could capture the ant on video.  I got to Tomintoul and the weather was calm and with the sun shining.  I started off by seeing several peacock butterflies, a good start.  Next came a big population of field mushrooms (Agaricus campestris) and, as with many other rich flower sites, several antler moths.  But no scabious mining bees!  By the road there were leaves of burnet-saxifrage (Pimpinella saxifrage) and an unusual blue flowered plant turned out to be common blue sow-thistle (Cicerbita macrophylla).  However, several mining bees though were seen at the Flowerfield orchid site a few days later, adding yet another rare species to its status as nationally important.

The hazel stump protection work mentioned last month really got going this month, with light-weight rylock wire bought at the start of the month and the first 5 rylock rings installed on the 6th.  At each ‘stump’ about five metres of rylock was unwound, formed into a circle round the hazel and once the ends were joined together fixed in place with 4 or 5 stakes, donated to the project via spares left over from the aspen sucker tube protection work.  Each hazel stump was a little different, some comprising just a stump with new shoots trying to grow again, to a few stumps where usually just one stem had been left growing from the stump, the rest all having been cut off.  At all the locations, any new growth was being eaten back by visiting roe deer, preventing the trees from re-establishing.  New stems had already been trying for two growing seasons, but none had made it to more than a few inches high and, without protection, many of the once mature hazels would fail to grow again to be 
Staking a rylock ring round hazel
part of the aspen/hazel wood that once made this wood so important.  Each visit saw me unrolling lengths of rylock, cutting it and then forming the ring before bashing in the 30mm square stakes with a lump hammer to hold in place.  I didn’t spend whole days on site but did manage to install between 5 or 6 on each visit and making ten visits in all to complete the protection of 40 stumps.  There was a slight delay late in the month when I ran out of stakes before Dave at the BSW sawmill in Boat of Garten came to the rescue by providing, free of charge, the 30 more that were needed.  One of the last jobs in early September was to attach numbered tags to each ring so that success of otherwise could 
The aspen bolete (Leccinum albostipitatum) found
whilst installing the hazel rings a local/rare species
be monitored.  It would have taken about 10 metres of rylock to put in circles that would keep visiting deer totally away from the re-growth, so we will just have to see what will happen with the slightly smaller rings.  At several sites I also placed fallen aspen branches close to the wire to try and make life difficult for the deer to browse so only time will tell.  A deer height fence around quite a bit of the wood would benefit both the hazels, including those stumps not protected, along with hazel seedlings and aspen suckers to try and ensure a wood for the future was established … watch this space.  Hopefully, the tree tubes protecting about 20 aspens suckers and my 40 hazel rings will be superceded by something better in the future.  I can only thank local fencing contractor Davie McDonald, Hayley Wiswell at the Cairngorm National Park, the estate owner and Factor and Dave at the sawmill for their help with materials, funding and permission to do the work. 

Janet was busy early in the month to ensure she had plenty of stock to adorn her stall at the Abernethy Highland Games on the 11th.  My job is helping with the gazebo, loading and unloading the stock and, with Janet then taking on the role of seller, greeting and chatting with some of the 3,000-folk attending the games.  I sneaked off to carry on looking for the scabious mining bee and finding purple loosestrife growing in the village pond.  Thankfully, the heavy downpours of the day before the games didn’t re-appear until the games had finished and everything was back in the car and safely driven home.  The following day a local site was visited where heath cudweed (Gnaphalium sylvaticum) had appeared in the last few years in big numbers, mainly in areas created to park cars or the tracks they drove along – ideal habitat after the visitor site closed down.  A window of a few years is ideal for the plant which likes open gravelly ground in which to grow, but, over time, the natural vegetation takes over and the plants then will just about disappear.  Tree seedlings and vegetation is starting to have an effect but just over 700 flower-spikes were counted, still an important site for this nationally declining species.  The work on the hazels also produced a few unusual records one being rare in the UK category.  The hazels are growing close to the River Spey and whilst checking river bank populations of devil’s-bit scabious for the wee bee, I noticed one of the aquatic bur-reeds growing out of the water below a steep river-side bank.  Not being able to 
Unbranched bur-reed
Collard parachute fungus and spores x1000 oil
reach the plant without potentially falling into the river, I zoomed in on it with my trusty camera and after letting local expert Andy see the photos, we agreed on unbranched bur-reed (Sparganium emersum), a plant I’d found last year, about a mile up-river growing in a wee burn running through a golf course.  Possibly, an escapee from there because these are the only records from that area.  Whilst walking along the fisherman’s path I also noticed a tiny fungus.  With a little care I managed to dig down with my pocket knife to see what it was growing from as this can often aid identification.  Once home, I made a guess that it might be one of the Marasmius family and checking Collins Complete Guide to Mushroom and Toadstools the one that looked right was Marasmius rotula, the collared parachute, a fungus that grows from buried bits of deciduous wood debris.  It was only once I was guided by the book to look under the cap of the fungus that I could see how the common name had been arrived at – like a parachute from above but with a gap between stem and gills when checking under the cap, hence collared.  Just to be sure, the spores were checked under the microscope.  However, the most unusual find was as I made my way back to the car.  By 
Diplolepis nervosa galls on wild rose bush 
the road I saw wild rose bushes with lots of red galls growing on their leaves.  Assuming these would be something quite common, I took a couple of samples home and, consulting Redfern and Shirley’s British Plant Galls book I was led to a gall called Diplolepis (rose pea gall) but either nervosa or eglanteriae, depending on whether the galls had spikes or not.  The ones collected had spikes which lead me to Diplolepis nervosa the commoner of the two species but with few, well just one, record in Scotland on NBN Atlas.  I contacted Margaret Redfern just to check that I had ended up with the right species and she was happy with my ID but told me to enter my record as “larvae not checked”, because this was something few people in the UK would be able to do.  The last time the gall was found north of the border was by well known insect expert Philip Entwistle from the Spinningdale woodlands near Dornoch and on that occasion he found someone who kept the larvae alive until they emerged as adult gall wasps when they were able to have their identity confirmed 100%.

An advert appeared in the local paper in late July warning of traffic delays between Inverness harbour and a remote area of moorland adjacent to the B9007 road between Carrbridge and Furness.  There would be delays twice a day for five weeks, starting on 20 August, as sections of wind turbines were moved from the harbour to their moorland home 9 km, yes, 9km from the B9007 road.  Okay, we need sustainable, renewable power but once again the Scottish Government overturned objections from over 500 people, SNH, Highland Council, despite the location being in a designated area the Drynachan, Lochindorb and Dava Moors Special Landscape Area.  “Well, not much of it will be seen!” said the reporter - unless that is you are in the Cairngorms National Park looking down from many of the hills and mountains.  The John Muir Trust’s objection said that despite this application not being on land within the CNP, they found that “the Park is being circled by a potential total of 880 turbines.  These would need roughly 3,315,840 metric tonnes of reinforced concrete for the bases of the turbines alone which will only ever be grassed over when the wind farms are decommissioned.  
The base of one wind turbine - before the concrete
This calculation is based on an estimated average of a round foundation 20m in diameter by 5m deep with 1m3 in volume weighing 2.4 metric tonnes”.  That doesn’t include all the steel mesh which is buried in the concrete.  See Firwood Blog in 2011 for the scale of one wind-turbine base.  Whilst picking up the grandchildren from school one day a police car whizzed by lights flashing, followed by a second and a couple of police on motor-bikes to zoom ahead to stop approaching traffic at any dodgy bits of the A95.  I grabbed a couple of photos but then thought it would be useful to photograph the convoy creeping along the B9007 over the moor.  So, a couple of days later I headed off to be ready for the mid-afternoon convoy on a very visual section of the B9007.  The police car with flashing lights told me it was arriving and there, in the distance the three very long lorries, each 
with its accompanying escort vehicle, were heading towards me.  Camera at the ready I took a series of photos as the convoy approached and a couple after it had passed.  As I packed up the camera I thought it would be interesting to see the convoy trundle across the moor so I headed in the same direction catching up with it just as it was turning off the road.  Over the next half an hour or so the convoy disappeared further onto the moor as it covered the last nine kilometres on a new moorland road to a boggy hollow at about 500m asl called Tom nan Clach (NH8634), the name of the windfarm, and soon to become home to thirteen 125m high turbines.  Obviously, nothing is sacred anymore and no doubt there will be more applications to add to the ring of turbines on other remote areas of moorland around the Cairngorms National Park.  I will refrain from naming the person I’m sure is behind this loss of this remote, special Highland landscape.

At the end of the month we decided to test out our map-reading skills once again with an outing along the west side of the Moray Firth setting off from under the A9 and the Kessock Bridge.  All very simple to begin with, just follow the wee road then track and then the actual shore.  It was nice to see plants not often encountered with big patches of sea aster and sea campion, a plant in put down in my notebook as a sedge to check but turned out to be sea club-rush (Bolboschoenus maritimus
Greater sea-spurrey top and hedge bindweed bottom
occupying a nice boggy.  Negotiating a few rock out-crops we approached a group of houses in Kilmuir and there found a small blue plant we couldn’t remember seeing before, greater sea-spurrey (Spergularia media).  With the sun shining we found a seat by an ex-telephone box and enjoyed our sandwiches filled with Janet’s delicious homemade plum jam.  From here we made our way uphill to a scatter of houses in the hope of finding a track into the Forestry Commission’s Ord Hill plantation which would take us back towards our car.  A lady from one of the houses could see we were hunting around for the track and guided us past her house and into an area of bracken where a family member had cut a path, assuring us that it would take us to the track.  However, the ‘path’ petered out and we 
Kilmuir and the Kessock Bridge
were left searching along a deer fence battling through head-high bracken.  Eventually we gave up and headed back down towards the shore negotiating a deer fence along the way!  After about a wasted hour we were back where we started in Kilmuir, stopping to admire a big patch of hedge bindweed (Calystegia sepium) before heading back along the much simpler seashore.  It was nice to see a red admiral, a painted lady and a few speckled woods but very few birds of note.

I also had a few interesting outings along the Dava Way, a long-distance footpath linking Grantown on Spey with Forres using the ex-railway line.  I had been asked to keep an eye open for a gall growing on seed-heads of the common hawkweed (Hieracium vulgatum), a gall which had only been recorded once before in the UK.  That find was made along the same railway line but at Dunphail some 20km from the Grantown area I would be visiting.  The hawkweed grows from walls and stony
Common hawkweed but without the gall
Common hawkweed seed-head where the Aulacidea nibletti gall would appear
habitats with the original galled plant growing from the ‘cinder’ trackside back in 1966.  The BSBI 
website gave me a few locations where the plant had been recorded in recent times along the Grantown end of the Dava Way, so these would be the sites to visit.  However, I was dealing with a none too easy to identify plant, so a bit of a learning curve.  However, the plant was growing from the stonework near Castle Grant but without the gall and via the four outings, including the ex-railway line at Dunphail, few plants were found, and none had the Aulacidea nibletti gall.  However, other items of interest were found one of the best being a rarely recorded fly Eriozona syrphoides and several robin’s pincushion
Robin's pincushion galls

Eriozona syrphoides
The unusual finds
galls caused by the bedeguar gall wasp (Diplolepis rosae), a rare gall in this part of the world.  Further out on Dava Moor grazing sheep had access to the footpath so most plants had been nibbled well back but a wander off the path into an area of conifer wood produced a nice patch of interrupted clubmoss (Lycopodium annotinum) and, the best surprise of the outings a discarded sea eagle primary wing feather, and, back on the path, a fifty-pence piece!  It also became apparent that to find the gall an outing much later in the year would be needed, once the plants had finished flowering and the seed-heads were developing.

On 10th August I attended the launch of a book by RSPB Research Scientist Dr Ron Summers, a book 3 years in the making and with a little help from me via commenting on three drafts and 
providing several photographs.  This book covers the history and natural history of Abernethy Forest and gives an amazing picture of the forest, its people, natural history and RSPB ownership.  However, it certainly puts you off ever trying to write a book of your own!  Well done Ron.

That’s it for another month, enjoy the read.

Stewart and Janet

Ear moths
The Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey (WCBS) 2017 report
Tom nan Clach windfarm
Tom nan Clach windfarm developer’s website
Firwood blog 2011
Abernethy Forest - The History and Ecology of an Old Scottish Pinewood
NBN Atlas
Strathspey Weather
Parkswatch
Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group
Mapmate recording database
Fungal Records Database of Britain and Ireland (FRDBI)
BSBI – Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland

Painted lady butterfly
August down-pour
Janet's pride and joy - best onion crop ever!
Photos © Stewart Taylor


Thursday 15 November 2018

Quite a different month


As daughter Laura returned from holiday on the 1st July, we were preparing for our own holiday in Yorkshire, so we had a drive over to see her and Douglas and to return the cat from its own ‘summer holiday’.  It was nice to record a 10-spot ladybird in their garden and to catch up with good numbers 
of tree sparrows that breed and feed around their garden.  I had been having problems with my wee Lumix TZ60 camera, a faithful companion over many years, but, with various electrical faults developing it was time for a new one.  The first replacement came via Amazon (John Lewis ordering procedure too confusing) and, after a few days of use I realised that the function that allowed the camera to switch from image on screen to built-in viewfinder was causing the camera to not provide an image on either, so it was returned.  The arrival packaging also left something to be desired with the camera, in its box, sliding around inside.  However, arriving just 3 days before the holiday there wasn’t time to send back so I just had to put up with the fault.  When working the camera was just as good as the earlier model though one of the iA options had changed to something much poorer when adjusting to allow for colour enhancement.  The camera went straight into use and on the evening 
Lesser butterfly orchid and large emerald moth
when it arrived accompanied me to an orchid count on the local golf course with half a dozen BSBI members.  Lesser butterfly orchids appear in small numbers each year in the areas of un-cut rough between some of the holes, and places where the course was extended many years ago into an area where the orchid was known to be present.  The green-keepers are aware of the orchids presence and manage the sites sensitively.  In this dry summer a couple of dozen flowering spikes were found along with a few greater butterfly and fragrant orchids.  Bonuses were a new location for the six-spot burnet moth and a nicely resting large emerald moth (Geometra papilionaria). 

The following evening saw me carrying out my last count of one of our local lochs, a great evening just sitting, watching and recording.  Nothing too unusual but another useful bit of information to add to the BTO database from a slightly remote loch.  On the way quite a few heather beetles were seen (Lochmaea suturalis) along with a wee moth I hadn’t seen for a number of years: the Rannoch looper (Macaria brunneata).  A white ‘spot’ on the side of a plant when checked turned out to be a crab 
Rannoch looper moth
Crab spider with chimney sweeper moth evening meal
spider (possibly Xysticus cristatus) holding its evening meal, a chimney sweeper moth (Odezia atrata).  These spiders are often seen on the tops of flower-heads with legs outstretched, waiting for unsuspecting prey items to land.  This spider was to make another catch in August which turned out to be very special!  At the loch mallard and teal were feeding and agitated calling close by suggested there was a water rail with young.  A little grebe also was seen with a youngster demanding food and, without seeing or scenting me, a roe buck wandered out to the edge of the loch to feed.  All told, 13 
bird species were recorded and, once again, I was treated to a brilliant sunset as I was making my way home.  As mentioned last month, permission had been given for me to protect the stumps of hazel trees which had suffered quite a heavy bit of felling.  Some trees were left as just stumps whilst others had a single stem and all were trying to regrow but were suffering from heavy grazing by roe deer.  Sheep were excluded from this important aspen/hazel wood over a decade ago so installing a rylock fence circle round the hazels could give them a chance to re-grow.  Unlike hazels in the south of England, coppicing wasn’t a practice carried out very often in the Highlands and the north and west of Scotland and the mature trees in some areas are home to common and rare lichens.  Davie, a local fencing contractor, had given me several end of rolls of rylock, but several whole rolls would also be needed to protect most of the hazel stumps, along with suitable wooden stakes to hold the ‘rings’ in place.  David Mills at the local BSW sawmill in Boat of Garten was also very helpful and provided the last 30 stakes I needed to complete the job.  In the few days available before heading south, there was just time to add additional stakes to the trial ‘circle’ and to order the wire and stakes with most of the installation work taking place next month.  The visit to add the extra stakes was 
Twayblade top and wild basil
Small nettle
beneficial in another way allowing me a chance to check on the population of twayblades growing, but hidden away, in the deep bracken and grasses next to the River Spey.  After a bit of searching 22 flowering spikes were found and, on the way back to the car I popped over the roadside barriers to find that a population of wild basil was still present and flowering really well, along with a tiny population of small nettle (Urtica urens).  With the sun shining the next day there was just time to walk the monthly butterfly transect near Grantown on Spey (same route as the breeding bird survey) before finally packing up for our holiday.  Four species were seen, green-veined white (5), small tortoiseshell (1), small heath (1) and ringlet (30) with the temperature averaging 220C.

Our recent trips south have benefitted from having an early start to make reasonable progress down the A9 whilst keeping a careful eye on the first 100 miles being watched over by ‘big-brother’ average speed cameras.  Good progress was made until we turned onto the dreaded A66 from the M6 at Penrith where, in front of us, we could see the traffic starting to queue.  After sitting in the queue for over 20 minutes Janet got out the map and suggested we turn around, head just a few miles back along the A66 before turning off towards Appleby, stopping for our lunch in Colby, just on the edge of Appleby.  Brilliant.  A quiet road (though quite a few folk were using it to avoid the problem on the A66) and a first chance to record a few flowers whilst sitting on the village green enjoying our 
Lunchtime knapweed (Centaurea nigra var radiata)
butties.  We spent about an hour in Appleby to stretch our legs and, with map on my navigator’s lap, we enjoyed a leisurely drive along country lanes via Kirby Stephen, over the tops of Birkdale Common where we stopped to admire the views and find round-leaved crowfoot (Ranunclulus omiophyllus) in a pool next to the road.  Keld, Gunnerside and on into Reeth where we were to spend the next couple of weeks.  The 
Round-leaved crowfoot
Reeth
rented house where we were staying was up a wee ginnel running between two pubs, and, having managed to get the car close to the house front door, we off-loaded all our gear before parking up on the village green in front of the two pubs.  This would be the last time car and house would meet again until it was time to depart.  Just time for a walk around the village to do a bit of shopping before heading to one of the pubs (a real pub!) for drinks and an evening meal.

8 July
We explored Reeth a bit more and then headed off to Richmond.  Janet spotted a craft fair in the town hall so we popped in to check out the competition and enjoyed tea and cakes before following the paths around the castle.  High above the River Swale and on the path right below the castle ramparts 
Small tortoiseshells top and pollen beetles below
were lots of ragwort flowers several of which were covered in small tortoiseshell butterflies along with the occasional green-veined white and ringlet.  On many other flowers there were masses of tiny black beetles and it was only after a few days that we realised these were pollen beetles (Meligethes aeneus).  The path options eventually took us down to the river and, being a hot, sunny Sunday, the river was full of folk either on the river bank or floating about in the water with the maddest sets of inflatable buoyancy rings some of which must have taken most of the day to blow up!  We thought a visit to the castle would get us out of the sun for a while, so we paid the entrance fee and made our way into the castle and up to the top to admire the views.  Looking down, we could see the outline of 
Richmond Castle and the drought-exposed foundations
the foundations of some old buildings caused by the sun as the dryness killed off the grass growing on the shallow soil above the remains of the foundations.  One of the guides told us that this was the location of an army barracks, built around the 1850s and knocked down in 1931.  A cell block though has been retained and inside there are walls of graffiti from prisoners, mainly conscientious objectors from the 1st World War.  Sadly, the cell block was closed to visitors due to work being undertaken to repair and preserve the graffiti, so we were only able to see a selection of photos showing some sections of it.  Back at the house we had a couple of flies which kept annoying us and, yes, these were the annoying house flies (Musca domestica)!

9 July
A none car day and a walk along the River Swale.  A footpath by the river took almost into the village of Healaugh where a set of stepping stones allowed us to cross the river and return along the other bank.  Early on, a fairly natural field produced big populations of betony (Betonica officinalis), salad burnet (Poterium sanguisorba), red campion, and the choke fungus (Epichloë baconii) on an Agrostis species of grass.  By the river a kingfisher was heard but not seen and a tall yellow plant turned out to be yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia vulgaris) something I can’t remember seeing before.  
Yellow loosestrife
Almost back at Reeth and just below the bridge taking us back across the river was an enormous bank of river shingle which was covered in flowers so as Janet sat on the riverbank enjoying the sun and a passing family of goosanders, I visited the shingle.  The shingle bank was quite amazing, a big mix of native plants but also a mix of garden escapees.  Most of the latter would have been washed down from riverside gardens during river spates and perhaps the most unusual ones were early pampas-
Early pampas grass top and giant scabious
grass (Cortaderia richardii) and a new vice-county record) and giant scabious (Cephalaria gigantea ) just the second VC record).  The plant species were so diverse that as England played Croatia in the World Cup on the TV in the following evening, I made a second visit to the site to try and list as many species that I could identify and ended up with 65, with a 7-spot ladybird and alder tongue fungus adding to the total.

10 July
Listed in my notebook as ‘up’t thill day’.  From the village green in Reeth you can see an imposing hillside called Fremington Edge to the north-east.  Lots of the disturbed hillside is visible where Chert quarries were worked in the past, and the road/track from the village headed up through several of these.  It was a hot day and in full sun, so wide brimmed hats and sun-cream were the order of the 
Looking down on Reeth and Janet descending
day.  We passed a couple coming down the track as we made our way up and, to avoid the heat, they had set off hours earlier and were on their way back down!  Highlights of the day were seeing lots of carline thistles (Carlina vulgaris) and field after field with nests of the yellow meadow ant (Lasius flava).  However, despite checking many nests, once again no active ants were seen.  Small copper and red admiral butterflies were also seen.  A pint in the Buck Hotel was most welcome once back in Reeth.

12 July
On arrival in Reeth I typed “nature reserves in Richmond area” which produced an interesting site, Foxglove Covert Nature Reserve located in the Catterick Army Garrison.  Working out the way in on the map was fun and as we got to the garrison we had to stop at a sentry point and explain where we were going.  Once in the garrison we met another soldier who unlocked the gate to let us drive into the reserve.  Despite being just 100 acres in size the mix of species rich habitats is pretty amazing, natural and plantation woodland, moorland edge, flower-rich meadows, small streams and a small lake.  The reserve is also used regularly as a mist-netting site to catch, ring and monitor breeding and 
Small skipper on betony flowers
Alder tongue on alder cone
migrant birds.  23 species of butterflies have been recorded from the 2680 species of plants, birds, butterflies and other animals so far recorded, so it was nice to see small skippers, small tortoiseshell, large white, ringlet, speckled wood and meadow brown.  Lunch in one of the hides overlooking a reed-bed produced a brief sighting of a stoat and on a small lake there were families of little grebe and tufted duck.  Conversion of farm fields to wildflower meadows was very impressive and though at an early stage, the populations of the grass-suppressing yellow rattle were immense.  In the alder wood the seeds were developing the red, alder tongue fungus (Taphrina alni) and something growing in the small stream had us scratching our heads until we realised it was the greater spearwort (Ranunculus lingua) and the “odd aquatic” listed in my notebook turned out to be an introduced species Canadian waterweed (Elodia canadensis), a submerged aquatic originally native to North America.  Close by we could hear members of the army practicing on the shooting range or possibly on an active exercise.

13 July
We spent the morning inside due to RAIN, quite heavy between 12 and 2pm.  As it eased, we headed to Barnard Castle just a few miles up the road.  We parked up and explored the main street through the town before heading towards a wood by the River Tees popping into a garden allotment along the way.  However, with a hosepipe ban, the vegetables looked to be struggling a little.  An information 
The 'burdock fly' Terellia tussilaginis
board told us we were entering Flatts Wood and by the sign I noticed a few flies visiting flowers on a burdock plant and just out of interest took a photo.  Probably less than a hundred metres into the wood Janet was pointing at something growing from the masses of enchanter's-nightshade (Circaea lutetiana), a helleborine, a rare plant on this holiday.  Checking the plants features we had found a single broad-leaved helleborine though sadly the flowers hadn’t yet opened.  A wall by the small 
Enchanter's-nightshade top and broad-leaved helliborine
Percy Beck stream was well-off for ferns with brittle bladder, hart’s-tongue and maidenhair spleenwort with the find of the day close by, remote sedge (Carex remota) and with an orange ladybird (Halyzia sedecimguttata) thrown in for good-luck.  Back at the house a laptop search for ‘flies on burdock plant’ turned up the name Terellia tussilaginis, a gall fly, with few records this far north (Yorkshire).  By the end of our holiday we had probably tripled the number of locations for the fly in this area, so obviously not rare!

14 July
The day’s outing to Marske Beck and Clints Wood proved to be one of the best days out for species seen and recorded.  The wee burdock fly was seen again and during the walk six species of butterfly were recorded the best being comma and as we left the woodland to walk between farm meadows lots of yellow meadow ant nest mounds could be seen many actually along the track verge.  As we 

Yellow meadow ant  and nests top and Janet with  fungus
Musk mallow
stopped for lunch Janet took shade under and ancient, hollow ash tree whilst I hopped over the fence to explore an old quarry area.  With the very dry weather a patch of rockrose was hardly identifiable being so small, but a blue cranesbill type flower had me puzzled and turned out to be musk mallow (Malva moschata).  As I approached Janet, she appeared to be wearing a very strange ‘hat’ which turned out to be an enormous bracket fungus having fallen from the ash tree, Dryas saddle (Polyporus squamosus).  The meadows had good populations of carline thistle and a few small skipper butterflies were seen.  At Orgate Farm we turned to walk back along a minor road where goat’s beard (Tragopogon pratensis) was found, similar in appearance to a tall, stately dandelion but usually quite difficult to see amongst the roadside grasses.  Close by was a yellow shell moth (Camptogramma bilineata) and a fast flying red admiral.  The find of the day though was found as we left the road to 
Small-leaved lime leaf and galls
cut-back across fields and woodland where a lime tree caught my eye, and, remembering finding an unusual gall on the leaves of a lime near Grantown, I started to check the leaves on this tree.  Amazingly, there were the galls but, with the lime leaves looking rather small I wondered if I was dealing with small-leaved lime and therefore a different gall (Tilia cordata and the gall Aceria lateannulatus).  I found out later that there were just 5 previous records in the UK, only 3 of which have been confirmed as ‘correct’.  Phew!

17 – 19 July
The last three days saw us continue to enjoy the hot dry weather with a visit to the River Swale at Keld, with my map-reading seeing us both almost requiring ropes to get up the steep hillside and 
back to the track we should have been on.  The river by this walk is famous for it three waterfalls, one of which requires a bit of a scramble to see the best of the waterfall.  Though nothing too unusual was found over 70 species were recorded just as we walked along and it would have been good though if time had allowed to spend half a day right up by the limestone cliffs just to see what we might find there. 

The next day we headed to the edge of Richmond and, convincing Janet that there wouldn’t be steep hills to climb (again) we head off towards Whitcliffe Wood and Scar.  The first half an hour was a steady plod up a track(!) towards the wood where we saw several comma butterflies along with 8 
Small teasel
Peacock butterfly
other species of butterfly, several red admirals and a peacock.  The burdock fly was recorded again and, in the wood, small teasel (Dipsacus pilosus), a new species for us.  Exiting the wood, we were back into yellow meadow ant territory with lots of nest mound and, at last, nests were the ants were seen.  In the distance we could hear the thud, thud, thud of the rotor of a big helicopter and sure enough a chinook appeared almost overhead and appearing to land/hover on a hillside on the other side of the River Swale, well into the military exclusion area.  A few minutes later it reappeared and 
hanging below it was a landrover and trailer!  There was obviously an exercise taking place and half an hour later two ‘normal’ helicopters passed overhead and spent the rest of the time we were on our walk popping up and disappearing in the same area as the chinook.  As we walked it was becoming obvious that we had another hill to climb (up to 1000’) to get to the path that would take us back along the top of Whitcliffe Scar before dropping us down to our starting point.

For our last day out we really should have had a good look at our map, again.  The woodland on the map (Hudswell Wood and Calfhall Wood) probably disguised the contours and once again we climbed steadily through the National Trust woodland until we reached the road into Hudswell 
village and the George and Dragon pub where we had an enjoyable lunch.  However, we had seen a footpath sign which said there were a couple of hundred steps to follow to get back to the river – and they weren’t joking.  Along the way we saw the biggest individuals and populations of hart’s-tongue ferns ever and another patch of musk mallow.  Oh, and don’t forget the wee fly on the burdock plants!

The next day we packed up and headed north driving across country to Brough and the dreaded A66 and yes, it happened again, a long tailback of vehicles so we turned off and followed a minor road running parallel to the A66.  Then it was Penrith, M6 and heading north arriving home at 6.30pm.  Janet then sorted everything out for a craft fair in Aviemore on the Sunday ensuring we dropped back into the run of the mill tasks as though we hadn’t been away.

Three days later and we were back on the A9 at 7am heading back to Lancashire for a family wedding (niece Abbie marrying Mike) on the 28th.  Early in July Janet’s mum had been in hospital to try and cure a serious foot infection the outcome of which meant she would be moving into care just 
Janet's mum and the family visit
before we arrived for the wedding.  A couple of days were spent helping to sort out her flat along with daily visits to the care-home and then it was time to dust off the best clothes and drive off to Immanuel Church to join all the family members awaiting, with Mike, the arrival of the bride.  What 
The brilliant wedding and a happy grandson Harry at the wedding feast
a day, an amazing church service complete with a live orchestral quartet and wedding bells and then off to Waddington for the wedding meal, speeches, celebrations and toasts to the bride and groom.  A day later and we were all heading back north again to be greeted by four pine martens on the house deck in the evening.  A replacement Lumix camera had also arrived via Amazon whilst we were away, the package having been left on the back-door step where it had got damp before a neighbour rescued it.  Once again, the box was open and there was no packing inside.  It was returned to Amazon the next day without being unpacked!

That’s it for another month, and still trying to catch up!

Stewart and Janet

Richmond Castle including the cell block
Foxglove Covert Nature Reserve
NBN Atlas
Strathspey Weather
Parkswatch
Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group
Mapmate recording database
Fungal Records Database of Britain and Ireland (FRDBI)
BSBI – Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland

Town crier in Richmond
Speckled wood
Aspen watering has ended!
Photos © Stewart Taylor