Catch up

It has been a while since my last post as life has been very busy, so this months post is a round up of photos.

 April saw a trip down to Perth to the Scottish Rock Garden Club show and a walk along the Tay. I came back from the show with 20 packets of seed.  Some are in the fridge as most alpines need a cold spell before germinating, so the fridge mimics the winter. I love the excitement of watching a pot of seeds awaiting little green shoots.

The walk along the Tay introduced me to a new plant with white flowers, which I thought was rather attractive. On looking it up, it was Few-flowered Garlic (Allium paradoxum). It is not native, but an introduced species which becomes invasive and it is an offence to plant it in the wild.  

My photos are rather poor but there are some much better ones here where there is a blog post all about this plant.

I am helping to organise a lichen course in June, in Glenmore, so there have been a few trips to find suitable rocks to study.

Plenty of unknown crustose species here!

 A walk near Loch Morlich found more lichens on old stumps, mainly Cladonias,

 and the surprise find of a dead bat at the base of a pine tree.

On a walk up Cairngorm, on the Coire an t-Sneachda path, a hairy caterpillar crossed our path:

I also saw some lichens that were new to me, including Allantoparmelia alpicola which looked like a blob of magma. To see it you need to be on high ground, over 600m. It is the black lumpy lichen in the middle of the photo.

The fibrous looking lichen at the top left is Pseudephebe pubescens:

There is a great variety of forms of lichens from lumpy crusts to these spiky strands. All beautiful in their own way.

A Post about a Post

 As promised, this post is all about a Newtonmore lamppost.  If you want to see it for yourself, it is opposite the entrance of the Folk Museum, on the  opposite side of the main road from the entrance.  It is metal and has been painted blue.  That does not sound like the most promising home for lichens but you may be surprised...

The lamppost

Each of those circles is a little world of lichens.

Lichens are sensitive to pollution, and the circles near the bottom of the lamppost probably get more pollution from the road which would inhibit growth so the lichens are smaller scraps. The yellow lichen is Xanthoria parietina which is tolerant of pollution.

At the top, the lichens are more abundant with green leafy lichens filling the circle.  There is also a bright pink blob in the right hand picture.  This is  a fungus that grows on lichens! Everything has its niche.  This one is easy to spot but its name is more complicated: Illiosporiopsis christiansenii.

There is an explanation for why the lichens are growing in circular patches. In the past, there was an admission charge to enter the Folk Museum, and you were given a round sticker with the day of the week printed on it which showed you had paid. As people left the museum and walked to Newtonmore village, they stuck their sticker on the first lamppost they passed. At some point, someone removed this litter from the post but it left a layer of glue which provided a settling place for lichen spores and produced these little islands of biodiversity. As there is a Scots Pine next to the lamppost, there would be a "rain" of lichens fragments falling down just waiting for a place to settle.

Heading South

At the beginning of February I headed down South to Carlisle to attend  the British Lichen Society AGM and a field trip to Carlisle cemetery. I found it more interesting than it sounds!  I was right out of my comfort zone though as many of the lichens were not ones I knew as it is a limestone area (and up here is mainly granite). Individual lichen species have preferences for the pH (acidity/alkalinity) of the surfaces they grow on and I am more familiar with the acid loving ones that like granite, pine and birch.

Carlisle cemetery was enormous and keen lichenologists can spend hours on one gravestone as there is so much to see. Here is a fairly typical sight!

I also managed to fit in a visit to Carlisle Cathedral - a wonderful place- both outside with intricate carvings:

 and inside with a star studded ceiling:

After the weekend, I headed further South to North Cheshire which was where I was brought up.  I did some casual lichen recording but it was mainly in car parks as I was there to see family.

Lichens on a car park sign

The area is too polluted for there to be many lichens. There are only two species on this sign, and they both seem to like the white paint more than the blue. Maybe it has a rougher more reflective surface? 

In contrast, here is a Newtonmore lamppost which has lots more species which I will talk about in another post.  Does that make it a post about a post?

I visited one of the areas I used to play out in as a child.  These were fields next to Brookfield House  (history link). Here is a portion of a (redrawn) 1844 tithe map of Cheadle which covers the area where I was brought up and which I have hanging on my wall. Some of the names are wonderful.  I lived near  Juny Greaves and Great Horse Stones which is a bit more romantic than the later name of Oak Road!

The fields (Mare Croft) and the house were owned by a series of wealthy manufacturers but in 1945 it was gifted to the council. The fields used to be like parkland but most of the edges were now covered in brambles and scrub, so not as I remember them. The green shaded area (messuage, orchard etc) was  a well kept garden with aviaries which we would regularly go and visit. ( I had to look up the meaning of  messuage and it is "a house together with its land and outbuildings.")

Now part of this is used by the council to store building materials and the rest is a bit of a jungle. I walked through it and found a plant that I did not recognise, now growing wild but presumably once part of the garden.  It turned out to be Viburnum rhtidophyllum, Leatherleaf, and it did indeed have leathery leaves and a furry underside. I sent the record to the BSBI county Vice - recorder who told me it was only the third record for Cheshire. 

Viburnum rhytidophyllum

Next time - the lamppost!

The Smooth and the Prickly

 I am a member of the HBRG (Highland Biological Recording Group)and an item in their latest newsletter caught my interest so I will quote it in full.

Recording Slow-worms in the Highlands and Islands

Cally Ullman-Smith, a researcher from Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) Trust, will be presenting an online talk on the findings of the 2024 Slow-worm Survey. Despite being a relatively common sight in many Highland areas, slow-worms remain under-recorded in the UK. This survey, spearheaded by Cally, aimed to fill gaps in data by engaging volunteers and citizen scientists to report sightings and habitat details. The talk will explore the patterns revealed by this unique approach, highlighting the value of community contributions to understanding slow-worm distribution and the habitats they rely on. As well as looking at the lives of these amazing creatures. Donations to the High Life Highland Countryside Ranger Service.

Thursday, February 27, 2025 · 7:30 – 9:00pm GMT

Book your tickets here.

It reminded me of the one time I have seen a Slow Worm, which was back in 2019 on the Speyside W near Loch Bogach which is opposite Loch Alvie on the other side of the railway.

A Slow Worm

It isn't a worm or a snake, but a legless lizard and you can see its scales in the photos. It obligingly was slow enough to let me video it. 

Very unprofessional videos (just my phone), but I was thrilled. So that deals with the smooth part of the heading.

The prickly part was the reason I was out there - to see a Welted Thistle (Carduus crispum) which had been seen near Alvie Church.  I had never heard of this thistle, let alone seen one, so I went to take a look.  It likes less acid soil so is not common up here.  It basically just looks like a very prickly thistle. So I won't be offended if you find it less interesting than the Slow Worm!

Welted Thistle