A brace of squirrels and 2 lichens

 My squirrel surmises were proved when I went to empty the  kitchen compost, to see 2 squirrels chasing each other in the garden.  In front of my eyes, they ran into the rabbit trap and were both cross at being cooped up with their rival.  Luckily for them, as I had seen it happen, they were soon released.  It was difficult to get a photo as they were very active, but I did get a few seconds of video before I let them go and they both scampered up a nearby birch tree.

The season is feeling increasing spring like, with the Wood Anemones out, Dandelions blooming and Danish Scurvy Grass flowering alongside the road (opposite the Balavil in Newtonmore).  This is the plant that enjoys (or tolerates?) the salt that is spread on the road each winter.

I spent some time in Grantown-on-Spey recently, and while waiting for a friend, had a wander around some of the streets looking for lichens. Many of the large older houses had low stone walls separating the gardens from the pavement, and the old sandstone capping stones were worth a look.  Two distinctive lichens caught my eye.  The first one had huge black apothecia - well, huge for lichens - when you consider that sometimes the fruiting bodies are just fraction of a millimetre across.  These ones were about 3mm across. Its name is Porpidia macrocarpa.  Macrocarpa means big fruits. 

Porpidia means "pore in a ring" but I don't know why,  However, another lichen on the same wall was more deserving of the "in a ring" description.  Here it is, with the black apothecia in concentric rings:

This is Rhizocarpon petraeum.  To check, I had to find some spores by slicing one of the black apothecia and looking at it under the microscope. I was glad I did as they are an amazing shape.

I've made the photo big so that you can see the spore structure.  The spores are the boat shaped things and their insides are broken up into lots of little compartments, a bit like a brick wall, which is why this structure is called "Muriform" - muri means wall (think of mural). This was the first time I was sure I had found this species, but if you look at any stones up Glen Banchor you are likely to see another really common Rhizocarpon lichen: " Map lichen" (Rhizocarpon geographicum).

Teabags and Halophytes

 More on the mystery parcel... it is part of a research project  to investigate halophytes.  Halophytes are plants that can cope with salt so they can grow by the sea or increasingly they have spread to the sides of salted roads.  Some have reached Newtonmore which is 45 miles from the coast, presumably from seeds in car tyres and carried on the wind. Here are the details of the current project:

I will be collecting some of the plants in Newtonmore and further afield if I see them.  If you want to help out, I'm sure Christopher would be pleased to hear from you (email above).  The plants are only just appearing so it is not too late to volunteer.  The parcel he sends you contains the materials for collecting, drying and logging your plant samples.

Another plant that is spreading, probably in car tyre treads is  Mossy Stonecrop (Crassula tilleaea).  It used to classed as scarce, and was missing from much of Britain as shown in the map below.

It appeared in North East Scotland and is making its way inland.  I found it in 2019 in the car park at the Folk Museum in Newtonmore.

Mossy Stonecrop (the red plants)

It is a succulent with fleshy leaves, and can grow from broken off parts.  Given that it is in the car park, it almost certainly arrived in a tyre tread.  It is easy to spot as although it is tiny, it is bright red so if you see it locally, let me know.

Some interesting arrivals!

Frog spawn has appeared in my pond this week. The first batch  arrived on the night of Friday 15th March. Last year (2023) it was 20th March, and 6th April in 2022.  So this is the earliest I have seen it in my pond.

 The post has also brought some interesting arrivals.  One was a book called Mountain Flowers by Alan R Walker.

I am in the process of arranging for a second edition of Wildflower Walks around Newtonmore, and I contacted Alan as I refer to his book in the preface.  He then very kindly posted me a printed copy of his book, which has been completely revised for 2024.  The file of the book is freely available from Alan's website:

https://www.alanrwalker.com/mountain-flowers/

So go and visit and pick up your free copy!

You might wonder why a book on mountain flowers is relevant for Newtonmore... well, as Newtonmore is at 250m above sea level,  many of our flowers appear in Alan's book.  There is a page for each flower with a photo, a drawing, a distribution map and other useful information - more than you get in most flower books that don't have the room to go into each species in depth. Here's an example page.

So do go and visit Alan's website and get yourself a copy.  As a science writer by trade, Alan writes well and you will enjoy reading some of the other material on his site.

There was a reason for picking the page on Scurvygrass as it relates to the second parcel I received.  Here are the contents of the parcel:

Why on earth would someone from the University of Edinburgh send me:

• 5 plastic bags containing approximately 50g orange silica gel beads each
• 1 plastic bag containing:
• 15 empty paper tea bags
• 1 spare tea bag containing 15 paper clips
• 1 spare tea bag containing 15 small index cards
• Postage of £3.49 — enough to cover shipping the package back with second class small parcel service (please reuse the packaging if possible)
• 1 archival ink pen

(Who knew you could buy empty tea bags?) It is a science project about Danish Scurvy Grass and I will explain more in my next blog post.  If you are unsure what Danish Scurvy Grass looks like, check out this previous blog post  See you next time!

Danish Scurvy grass (again), a fern and a lichen

 A large patch of Danish Scurvy Grass (Cochlearia danica) is flowering opposite the Balavil Hotel just now (1 May 2023). It is the biggest patch I have seen in Newtonmore Village.  There was a previous post about this plant here, but I couldn't resist mentioning it again. It is a coastal plant as it tolerates salt, but as the roads are salted in winter, it has found a niche  alongside the roads. Its flowers are white but the buds are an attractive shade of mauve.

Easy to find! Under the bench and to the right.

Last weekend, I went to the Spring Meeting of the Highland Biological Recording Group which was held in Spean Bridge.  There were some interesting talks, including one about Loch Arkaig Pine woods which we were to visit in the afternoon.  However, to get there, you have to cross the  Caledonian Canal at Gairlochy where there is a swing bridge.  Unfortunately, by the time I got there the bridge had broken down, with half the party on the other side and half still on the Spean Bridge side!  So that trip was abandoned and I made my way back home.  Not wanting to waste the drive, I did some lichen hunting on the way back.  First stop was by Pattack Falls. A well as lichens, there was a nice patch of a Polypody fern on a rock, with the sun shining through it. The sun showed up the little brown circles on the underside of the fern.  These are called sori and hold the spores that ferns use to reproduce.

Common Polypody

There was also a lichen on the same rock, that was unfamiliar to me. Round crusty patches, white at the edges and beige in the centre.

There are little circles in the centre which are fruiting bodies (apothecia) and close up they look like mini-volcanoes.

I did some testing - which involves adding a very small drop of two chemicals and seeing if there is any colour change. Bleach went red and Potassium hydroxide went yellow. This helps with ID.  I think this lichen is called Diploschistes scruposus. Unfortunately there's no easy name!

A9-ning

 North of Kingussie is a stretch of the "new" A9 where it has been upgraded into dual carriageway (much to the relief of locals as now you can overtake safely). There is also a cycle path alongside the North bound carriageway so you can safely have a look at the verge and slopes to see what is growing there. I feel some affinity to the A9 as in 1976 we moved up here to work on the "new" A9 between Calvine and Drumochter.

Along with husband and dog, I parked by the Wildlife Park access road and headed North along the bike path. I was on a mission to find Danish Scurvy Grass (Cochlearia danica) as there had been a request to check how far it had spread along the A9.  This is normally a coastal plant as it does not mind salt, but the same conditions arise alongside roads that are salted so it has spread along the A9 from Inverness. The red squares on the map show the places that it has been noticed and recorded  - and you can see that there is a big gap along the A9 from North of Aviemore to Newtonmore. It is very likely that it is growing in many more places, but no one has recorded it. 

Map showing places where Danish Scurvy Grass has been recorded (from BSBI)

I have found it in Newtonmore, and it is flowering at the moment alongside the wall of the Balavil Hotel. There are quite a few small white flowered plants around just now, but the ivy shaped leaf helps to distinguish it from the others.

Danish Scurvy Grass

leaf and buds

In fact , I did not find any on the stretch that I walked, but if you see any, let me know!

 Although I did not find what I went for, I did collect two dandelions to ID, both of which turned out to be new records for East-Inverness-shire, and one (Taraxacum exsertum) was the furthest north record in the UK.

Taraxacum vastisectum

Taraxacum exsertum (it has very pointed ends to the leaves)

Hang on a minute, I hear you say, aren't they both the same? Well, no, but the differences in dandelion microspecies are quite hard to spot which is why every one is verified by a referee who will confirm or correct your ID from a series of photos of the different features. I managed to ID the T. exsertum correctly but had to be put right for the T. vastisectum.

There were a few more interesting things to report from the A9 excursion, but I will save them for another post.