Highlights of the summer

It's a while since I last posted anything here, so this is a brief summary of a few of the highlights of the summer. I'll hope to have some more posts to send out very soon.

We continue to have a selection of wild orchids in our garden, though the numbers of mosts species have dropped off considerably. We counted around 500 Dactylorhiza fuchsii a few years ago, but now we are getting less than 30, and only 3 Platanthera chlorantha made it into flower. In addition, the D. fuchsii have mostly been coming up in our drive, where they shrivelled away in the hot weather.

However, new arrivals were 3 Dactylorhiza fuchsii x purpurella - the hybrid between Common Spotted and Northern Marsh Orchids. Here is just one of them.

D. purpurella has been in the park by our house, so it's not surprising that this hybrid should have appeared.

An exciting discovery last year in the woods near our house was Corallorhiza trifida, Coralroot Orchid. This was not known to be present in the area and we found 2 small groups of them within walking distance of our house.

This year we were pleased to find that the numbers at both sites had increased.

Nearby in the same woods, while searching for more Corallorhiza, I  came across this dragonfly which had just emerged.

I saw this Orange-tip butterfly while out with our natural history society.

I have been monitoring a site in Perthshire which has large numbers of Bog Orchids (Hammarbya paludosa) since finding it a number of years ago. Despite the dry weather, this year I had the best count ever with a total of 141 flowering spikes. I think this is now the largest site in Scotland apart from one in Shetland. Here are just a few of them.

It's rather hard to count them when they are difficult to approach without risking trampling on them. I find the best method is to take numbered plastic plant tags with either a paper clip or a magnetic strip attached. I throw one to land beside each plant, so I know which ones I have already counted. Afterwards I pick up all the tags with a magnet on an extending pole.

The season is now almost at an end so I'm looking forward to having more time for arts and crafts. I'll also hope to create some more posts here.

Scarlet Elf Cups

Scarlet elf cups (Sarcoscypha sp.) are fungi which are occasionally found growing on moss-covered dead wood during the early months of the year and are notable for their brilliant colour. We have only found these twice before
(see http://www.fredandsarah.plus.com/botany/sarcoscypha.html for the first time we found them), but this year they are appearing in large numbers.

There are two species, S. austriaca and S. coccinea, which can only be separated by careful microscopic examination, particularly of the curliness of the hairs on the outer surface of the cup. S. austriaca seems to be the commoner species and we have failed to find any conclusive examples of S. coccinea in our area. For information on the differences between the two species, see
http://www.first-nature.com/fungi/sarcoscypha-austriaca.php
and
http://www.first-nature.com/fungi/sarcoscypha-coccinea.php
 

The ground under a local willow tree is covered with what must be 500 or more individuals, and we have also found several other sites of 50 or more nearby. The largest individual cups measured 7.5cm across, though most are much smaller than this.

We wonder if this is due to the excessive rainfall we have had this winter. At one location they are even growing on deadwood floating on a pond, which certainly suggests that they like it wet.

The first daffodil

The first daffodil opened in our garden today. This probably doesn't seem that unusual if you live in the south of England, but here in central Scotland the crocuses have hardly begun to appear and I haven't seen any other daffodils anywhere near flowering yet this year.

New Year flower count 2016

I've just heard back from the BSBI about their New Year plant hunt. The idea was to count wild plants in flower in a three-hour period over the New Year weekend. They have accepted my list of 21 species (from west central Scotland) found on 2nd January, so I'm rather belatedly listing them here. A few weeks later, after several days of frost and snow, many of these are no longer flowering. Most were either plants that can flower all year round or that normally flower into autumn and had survived the mild winter until New Year.

Unfortunately it was a very dull day and many of the plants were in a patch of waste ground that I could only view at a distance through wire netting, so it was far from ideal for photography.

Arabidopsis thaliana (Thale Cress)

Bellis perennis (Daisy)









Capsella bursa-pastoris (Shepherd's-purse)

Cardamine flexuosa (Wavy Bitter-cress)







Cerastium glomeratum (Sticky Mouse-ear)

Crepis capillaris (Smooth Hawksbeard)

Cymbalaria muralis (Ivy-leaved Toadflax)

Euphorbia peplus (Petty Spurge)











Fumaria officinalis (Common Fumitory)

Geum urbanum (Wood Avens)







Heracleum sphondylium (Hogweed)
Matricaria discoidea (Pineappleweed)

Myosotis arvensis (Field Forget-me-not)

Ornithopus perpusillus (Bird's-foot)

Poa annua (Annual Meadow-grass)

Ranunculus repens (Creeping Buttercup)










Senecio vulgaris (Groundsel)
Taraxacum officinale agg. (Dandelion)

Tripleurospermum inodorum (Scentless Mayweed)










Ulex europaeus (Gorse)
Veronica persica (Common Field-speedwell)


The following day I also found Erophila verna agg. (Common Whitlow Grass), but it didn't count as it wasn't within the three-hour period - a pity as it would have been the only true spring flower although I have found it flowering in almost every month of the year.

A Loch Lomond bestiary

Last Sunday, the one day when it was not raining, I went to Loch Lomond to search for interesting pieces of driftwood. Among my Christmas presents I received some interesting paints for use on wood so I was looking for some suitable pieces to paint, but these ones will remain as they are.

This one looks like a little fox to me, but maybe I should leave it to your imagination to decide.

This is the first one I found and he was rather heavy. I think he is a water horse. I left him hidden under some rocks until I came back. By that time I was so laden with driftwood that I left two heavy pieces with him and made a separate journey afterwards to collect all three.

I think maybe this bird is trying out a pirouette. His dancing looks a bit wooden to me though.

A baby dragon perhaps?

This smooth seal came from a previous trip, but the smiling crocodile-like creature in the picture below from Sunday's visit was perhaps safer left where he was.

Solar eclipse and ducks

This morning our ducks returned, and they came again this evening. We had seen them occasionally during the winter, but this looks like they may be back for the summer. Unusually last year they stayed until December instead of disappearing as normal in July or August.

That was a promising beginning to the day, though we were doubtful of seeing the eclipse since cloud was forecast. Five minutes before the maximum eclipse, the sun appeared through thin cloud and I was lucky enough to get this shot.

I took a sequence of photos at 10 minute intervals - more often around maximum eclipse - all taken at exactly the same settings. This gives an idea as to how much darker it became (though the contrast in the photos is far greater than was actually apparent). The numbers on the pictures are minutes before/after maximum.

I also took some automatic ones, and found that 1/125th sec at F4, ISO 80 at 25 minutes before maximum looked identical to 1/50th sec at F3.5, ISO 200 at maximum. That's equivalent to a difference of 3 stops, or 8 times the exposure.

27 minutes after maximum, the still partially eclipsed sun managed to produce a rainbow.

A few minutes later, the sun began to shine brightly, and I used a colander as recommended to get some rather fuzzy images of the sun by projecting the shadow onto a piece of white paper.

I also took the temperature every 10 minutes, using two thermometers for greater sensitivity, but the eclipse only shows as a minor dip in the generally rising temperature. Maximum eclipse (93.73%) here in Glasgow was at 9:34am.

I felt very pleased to have had such a successful morning, particularly as we had expected nothing but cloud.

Unusual flowers

Last Saturday I went on an outing with the Scottish Orchid Society. I have already covered most of the species which we saw, but we went to one interesting location, which was already known to me, where there are a large numbers of Lesser Twayblades (Neottia cordata) growing on sphagnum in woodland. At the same site Chickweed Wintergreen (Trientalis europaea) and Common Wintergreen (Pyrola minor) are also present. These last two are unrelated despite their names. Chickweed Wintergreen is mostly found in eastern Scotland and is not at all common in the west.

White form of Common Spotted Orchid

Chickweed Wintergreen

Common Wintergreen

Lesser Twayblade

Flowers close to home

For the past month, having trapped a nerve in my arm and being unable to drive, my botanical activities have been restricted to close to home. It's amazing what you can find locally if you set your mind to it. Only a few hundred yards from our house I found two plants which I had never seen before, growing in a grass verge. Both are members of the pea family (Fabaceae), and both are species which thrive on mown grass because they are very short in growth and can survive being mown but cannot stand the competition of taller vegetation.

Birdsfoot (Ornithopus perpusillus) is a widespread but local annual which is scattered throughout Great Britain, though in Scotland it is mostly restricted to the central belt, the south-west and around Inverness. It get its name from the shape of its seed pods.

Slender Trefoil (Trifolium micranthum) is common in south east England, but has hitherto been regarded as absent from Western Scotland north of the Clyde and Scottish records are regarded as alien. This is the first record for the species in Dunbartonshire. In the top picture the plant on the left is Lesser Trefoil (Trifolium dubium) which is abundant throughout Great Britain.

Loch Tinker

Yesterday we went for a walk to the remote Loch Tinker, high in the hills to the south of Loch Katrine. The aim was to look for plants, but we also found a number of interesting insects.

On the heather around the loch were large numbers of Vapourer Moth caterpillars. These must be one of the most exotic-looking among British caterpillars, with their bright colours and tufts of bristles.

In a boggy area crossed by streams, I noticed brightly coloured creatures skimming across the surface of the water. They were such a brilliant red that they looked like little lights.

It was only after looking at my photos later that I realised that these were ordinary pond skaters which were infested with tiny mites. As these were shiny, spherical and bright red, they were acting like little beads in a reflective surface, which gave the effect that they were alight.

We also saw a pair of fritillaries, probably Dark Green Fritillaries...

...but the most frequently seen butterfly was the Scotch Argus. These butterflies seem to have emerged in the last week and can be seen in large numbers on the lower slopes of the hills just now.