A'lichening at Glenmore and Cairngorm

I wrote a long post which somehow got deleted so this one will be a bit briefer!

I spent several days at Glenmore Lodge on a lichen course which I had helped to organise. The weather forecast was dire but we escaped with just one downpour which was fortunately just as we got back to our cars.

The format of each day was to go for a walk in the morning to different habitats and then spend the afternoon with our microscopes, as many lichens can't be identified without finding spores.

Most things about lichens are small so you have to get up close and personal to see them well.

Maybe something interesting on this dead log?

Or this sycamore?

Or these big rocks?

Lichens are quite fussy about where they grow - some like rocks, others like trees, others like dead logs. 

Even a dead stump can attract a host of lichenologists!

My garden is full of flowers and  wildlife at the moment. There was a small (5cm) Common Newt under a log.

It was near the pond - which might explain why my tadpoles disappeared as newts eat tadpoles.

A Bee Beetle was on a Scabious flower.

And a pair of blackbirds have been following me around as I garden, collecting food.  Here is the female in the compost heap.

My bamboo plant has flowered this year for the first time. This might be bad news as they can die after that.  They are a grass, and I have some news about grasses in my next post.

Two nice surprises

 I have been attempting to convert a lawn into a wildflower meadow over the last two years.  I am taking a "slowly, slowly" approach and just seeing what comes up, though I have sown Yellow Rattle and Devil's Bit Scabious which are becoming established.  Of their own accord, Meadow Buttercups, Heath Bedstraw, Germander Speedwell, Fox and Cubs and  Cat's-ear have appeared as well as a multitude of grass species.  But the best appearance so far was a single orchid:

Northern Marsh-orchid (Dactylorhiza purpurella)

I have no idea how it got here.  The lawn had been regularly mowed for many years by the previous owner so had this plant kept trying to grow and been mown down each time? The same species of orchid  grows on the golf course but that is a fair distance away for seed to have travelled. (I  walked around the Golf Course 10 days ago and there were plenty of orchids either blooming or in bud, so now would be a good time to walk round.)

I have been stuck at home since catching Covid after a trip to London. However, before I tested positive, I went for a walk up Glen Banchor and saw an insect I had never seen before. It was on an old fallen tree. Can you spot it?

Spot the insect...

Here's a closer look.

This is a view from the back end - the head is at the top.  I can't help thinking that the two shiny black blobs at the rear end are meant to fool any predators that this is really the head end of a bigger insect.

To get an idea of size, here is a video with my finger for scale.

It is quite hairy so looks a bit like a cross between a bee and a beetle.  In fact, it is a Bee Beetle (Trichius fasciatus) and its larvae develop in old rotten birch logs so it may have either been wanting to lay eggs or had just "hatched."  Or maybe it was just visiting! They are uncommon but are usually found on flowers (which they eat). According to my book, they also make a buzzing sound when they fly.  So keep your ears and eyes open and let me know if you see one.