Fame? and Dundreggan

Unusually, I have featured in 2 publications this month.  The BSBI News and a BLS publicity flier.  These are hardly likely to be read by the vast majority of people (just like this blog!) The BSBI mention was for a plant I found on the waste ground between Church Terrace and Clune Terrace.

You might well ask, why bother to record a plant that has probably originated in someone's garden and then grown when they dumped some garden waste.  I suppose the answer is that if it became established or even invasive, it is good to know where it started off.

My other appearance is rather anonymous and I didn't spot it until my husband pointed it out. I'm the one in the turquoise anorak in the bottom left photo.

The pictures have come from a lichen course I went on in Fife last year.  It was called a LEAF course though I can't remember what the acronym stood for - basically it was for people who had done a LABS course to enable them to meet up and improve their skills.  Now I will have to explain what a LABS course is!  Lichens for Absolute Beginners.  This was an online course that got me started on learning about lichens in 2022.  It was really helpful for me so I volunteered to run the course myself for newbies and I am about to start with my third LABS group.  If you want to learn about lichens, you know whom to ask!

Dundreggan Rewilding Centre was the venue for a field meeting for the BLS last week.  This is when lichen enthusiasts get together and visit various sites to record what we find and to learn more, especially as there are usually some professional lichenologists attending who are generous with their expertise. Dundreggan is in Inverness-shire, on the road alongside the North side of Loch Ness.  I really enjoyed the week, though the only wildlife I came back with was  a bad cold and several ticks... all dealt with now.   One of the sites we visited was a graveyard near Glen Urquhart with the appropriate name of Kilmore Cemetery!

You would not believe how long keen lichen hunters can spend looking at one tree! Up high, down low and round the back...

Lichen hunters barking up the (right) tree

We were very fortunate with the weather which was clear and bright and we avoided Storm Ashley which was the next weekend. The good thing about having an interest in any aspect of nature is that it gets you outside into areas you might not normally visit.  As well as looking at trees and rocks, there was a lovely water fall on one of the Dundreggan walks, and the centre has an attractive avenue of limes that were just dripping with lichens.

The avenue of lime trees and a lichen called Pectenia plumbea

A waterfall on the Allt a'Choire Bhuidhe

But you don't have to travel far to see lichens if you live in Newtonmore - there are plenty to see here.

Back to Spey Dam - with friends

My lonely lichen life (!) was enlivened by meeting up with 2 keen lichenologists that I had only previously met on Zoom.  As they were up on holiday locally we arranged a lichening trip together and went to Spey Dam and Laggan Churchyard.  We were blessed with the most glorious of days. Sunny, clear and no wind which made for fantastic reflections in Loch Spey.

Loch Spey

My husband also came along and took the not so flattering pictures of  us looking closely at lichens!

This has led to some discussion as to the collective name for a group of lichenologists - a "peer", a "bottoms-up, a "myopia""... maybe you have some (polite) suggestions that you can leave in the comments!

On the way back, we called in at Laggan Churchyard.

The church is for sale for only £35,000.  A bargain - though you would need funds to do it up and install water.  The graveyard is not included in the sale and I think it belongs to, or is managed by, Highland Council.  I love the graveyard as it is full of a great variety of lichens, mainly on the headstones.  Because the headstones are made of different stones, mainly granite or sandstone, each kind of rock hosts its own community of lichens. The church would make a great Lichen Education Centre!

One new (to me) lichen I found in the church yard was an Umbilicaria,.  These are leaf like lichens which attach to the rock at one point (like an umbilicus). Some of them have black fruiting bodies (apothecia) which look like coiled licorice (the scientific term for this is gyrose).

In close up it reminds me of a biscuit with raisins it it.  It's called Umbilicaria torrefacta.

From further away it looks like something that has been deep fried and left in too long and burnt.

On the way home, I called in at Biallidbeg cemetery and was impressed by the very simple but ingenious gate closer.

Look at the big stone hanging on the left.  It is attached to the centre  of the top rail of the gate.  

When you open the gate it raises the stone so when you let go, the stone  falls and closes the gate. Just genius!