Meall Corranaich

I'm not a great one for going up the hill, not unless I have a very good reason to go. However, on this occasion younger daughter was visiting and no one else was available for transport duties or accompanying, so it fell to me.

The weather was perfect, sunny, but not too warm. And I did need to recce for later in the season when a botanical expedition to Ben Lawers will be required.

This was a pretty gentle wander for me. Younger daughter strode off into the distance to tackle Beinn Ghlas and then Lawers itself whilst I took the left hand path and headed for the col between Beinn Ghlas and Meall Corranaich.

An Stuc in the distance from the col (Ben Lawers is hidden)

 This was very useful in terms of seeing how feasible it was to drag myself up and by Ben Lawers to search for plants in July. Good to find I don't have to hack up Beinn Ghlas, but can by-pass that obstacle.

Anyway, having watched younger daughter disappear into the distance I ambled along the path to the col. There were many, likely hundreds, Ctenicera cuprea flying around.

Ctenicera cuprea

A few carabids scuttled away beside the path as I walked; annoying. But then something caught the eye. Several expletives, as although having only seen this beast once before I knew it immediately...

Carabus nitens - wow!!

This is really not a very common beetle at all. I had it in a pot for a few minutes and showed it to a couple who were heading down the hill, they were suitably impressed.

After a bit of a chat, the folk headed off, I released C. nitens and ambled on. And within a couple of minutes was looking at a second Carabus nitens!!! Now Ben Lawers is a pretty special place and it has an impressive list of rare and wonderful wildlife but that was exceptional.

I had brought the "wrong" cameras with me. I regretted leaving the EM-1 with the 60mm macro at home. I'd brought a longer lens and the wee Olympus Tough TG-4. In the bright light I was struggling a bit. However, the Tough came into its own at the col where there was a very interesting shallow pond (which I failed to photograph).

This was the day I finally decided I could tick Pirata piraticus, with this one hunting on the water's surface. 

Pirata piraticus, the Jack Sparrow of spiders.

An advantage of the TG-4 is that you can stick it underwater. There were lots of interesting things there including two different caddis larvae, several beetles and species of Corixidae which may prove to be identifiable.

Corixidae species

Two very differen caddis larvae

I'm not sure if there is a resource for the identification of caddis larvae by their cases, I presume there probably is. Alternatively the FB Group may be able to help.

Beinn Ghlas, Ben Lawers and distantly An Stuc from the top.

I investigated a snow patch, but there were no accumulations of insects.

Snow

Way off

We then decided to go off via an alternative route. I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing this but I had checked it out on the way up.

There was less to see as we went down.

Red Deer

Red Wasp Vespula rufa near the top surprisingly.

There had been lots of  Bombus monticola Bilberry Bumblebee, but I failed to get an image.

And then, last week I did it all again, not so nice weather, a bit of a brute of a trudge up and fewer things to see, although I did get a couple of lichen ticks on Meall Clachan, the hill behind Killin.

Dactylorhiza purpurella

Ophioparma ventosa

 

Parmelia omphalodes

Louise looking a bit damp as we came off the hill.

Not Goldilocks....

 Somebody ate the tops off my apple trees!

 Somebody made their bed in the grass.... 

It wasn't me!

This time it wasn't me!

 

I'm off!

Onwards: backwards

 I've been adding to my P-SL in the last few days, but also, as I regularly do, removing things. Goodbye Tachina fera, at least for the moment, whilst I investigate whether my photos are good enough to split it from Tachina magicornis. I've also removed my Lehmannia slugs as current thinking is that these cannot be reliably determined except by dissection. However, I've just achieved 2,500 species to my list, despite the subtractions. Onward to 3,000.

This is ok as Tachina fera methinks, colour of front tarsi and breadth of frons. Pic from 30 July 2018.

I've not tried dissecting slugs, messy I expect!

Not much bird news, nothing to match the excitement of  last time's Stock Dove anyway. Spotted Flycatchers are in and calling noisily. Swifts screaming. A Carrion Crow added to the "in the garden list" and a first ever Starling to the bird feeders (feeders are now mostly retired for the summer), I just occasionally put a bit of nijer out or scatter a little bit on the ground.

Squirrel Squad activities are now in full swing. Louise and I completed our arduous training - PH took us around the traps and showed us what to do! And we've had one kitchen ID session checking the hairs on the stickies.

Red Squirrel

How does it work? There's food in the box, yummee corn, peanut and sunflower. Squirrel has learnt to lift the lid and get the food. On the inside of the lid is a sticky which takes a small hair sample from the squirrel. Every fortnight we replenish the food and check the stickies. If the hair is all Red Squirrel, all good! But if a fiendish Grey Squirrel has visited it will leave a hair sample and we will know. PH then deploys traps (live traps). The difference between the hairs is not especially easy to discern, Grey Squirrel hairs have a sharp demarcation of colour whilst with Reds the colours blur into each other more subtly.

Grey Squirrel hairs indicated by the arrows in this sample.

This is the front-line in the battle with the Grey invasion. The Highland Boundary Fault is the divide. Yes there are Reds in the borders and south of us but there are many, many Greys there. I'm yet to see a Grey Squirrel here, Louise found a dead one the other side of the A822, and there are reports of them in the winter up Monument Rd. This is a line that needs to be held as Greys spread disease and compete with Reds. However, the resurgence of Pine Marten is thought to be good for Reds and bad for Greys.

Great fun (ha, ha, yes FUN) with the pheromone traps. and some nice catches.

Epiblema scutullana

 This species just loves the FUN lure. Today I was showing a group round the Community Woodland but because of the rain had not deployed the traps. However, I brought a trap and a FUN lure to show folk. I demonstrated how the trap worked and left the trap armed with lure on the floor of The Hub. Within a few minutes we had Epiblema scutulana males buzzing around the inside of shelter.

At home I've caught both Pammene obscurana but also now a few Pammene albuginana (a rare moth in Scotland, and a single Pammene fasciana. Also added P. obscurana to the Community Woodland list.

Pammene albugiana

Pammene fasciana

The Pammene albugiana came to FUN, JAN and MOL and the P. fasciana to the Large Red Clearwing lure. 

Other new moths have been Nematopogon swammerdamella, netted by a participant on a CCW walk I was leading. And to light in the garden Beautiful Brocade and Scoparia pyralella. New for the garden was Small Elephant Hawk-moth, a species I've not seen for about 20 years.

Small Elephant Hawk-moth

Beautiful Brocade

Scoparia pyralella

 

Scorched Wing, always a treat to see.

Large Longhorn Nematopogon swammerdamella a very nice surprise. Well netted that man!

I was somewhat reluctantly engaged as transport one afternoon to go to Glen Artney Church. Anyway, with some dragging of feet on my part we set off. It's a bit of a drive up a somewhat tortuous road and although a relatively short distance takes a relatively long time. When we got there the other singers (it was a singing event) were nowhere to be seen. I mooched around the churchyard. Right by the path I found this monster, only the second I've ever seen.

Meloe violaceus, a beast with a fascinating biology (give it a google)

 And here's the site - 

The Violet Oil Beetle was right by the path, which is why I picked it up and moved it to safety, as despite its isolation there are regular visitors marching up the steps.

Rhubarb

Rheum x hybridum

We've been given quite a lot of rhubarb and there's only so much rhubarb crumble we can eat, so I experimentally made a batch of jam which has turned out ok. Rhubarb Rheum x hybridum is on my P-SL life list as in Orkney it grew all over the place, here in Perthshire it seems restricted to actual gardens and allotments. However, the plants that have escaped gardens and are wild in the countryside include a huge range of species here, most are, I think, benign, but Japanese Knotweed, Indian Balsam and American Skunk Cabbage are pretty much rampant.

American Skunk Cabbage Lysichiton americanus more info here - https://invasivespecies.scot/invasive-plants/american-skunk-cabbage/

 The most surprising find of the last couple of weeks and an add to the patch list has been Stock Dove. This was heard whilst cycling around fairly early one morning. I've looked repeatedly for this species, scanning Woodpigeon flocks through the seasons and rarely locating even a suspect. The habitat was not surprising, the bird was singing from one of the big old hybrid Lime Trees on the estate in an area of parkland. I would expect this species to be here, the surprise is that it has taken so long to find one. Crossbill continues to be outstanding, but my hearing for overflying finches appears to be an impediment.

The vane traps have added a few species to the P-SL list. Working through the catches is quite hard work, the beetle species I'm catching are not familiar as I've not used this method before. The traps caught a lot of a small (3mm) Epuraea species, these are especially hard to get to species.

I spent about six hours to get this to species. That's with AI giving me a head start of getting to genus, although I probably spent an hour or so checking that was accurate. In the end I'm happy this is Epuraea unicolor due to the shape of the mid and hind tibiae and the genitalia, but I may send some off to be checked.

I seem to be finding quite a number of things that are troublesome to identify at the moment. A sawfly has occupied a fair bit of time, I'll have to key it from the beginning maybe, it is somewhere in the Macrophya area maybe.

 

Macrophya maybe?? Tenthredo (thanks AG), and given that lead I got it to atra (awaiting confirmation).

 I've extracted the genitalia so I guess the next stage is to try and match to an illustration in Lacourt... I think the penis valves match ok to atra. 

Penis valves, Tenthredo atra.

Another awkward beast was this moth which came to FUN pheromone lure in the garden. Obsidentify was 100% that this was Pammene obscurata. I wasn't so sure. But online opinion (thanks NV) was that P. obscurata it was indeed. 

Pammene obscurana

I've not light trapped recently as it has been so cold. However, today there was some warmth and I saw a number of Silver-ground Carpet flying at the fish farm, where there were also five or so Orange-tip and a Green-veined White. Along the way on the estate a first Red Admiral of the year showed briefly. I'd seen Painted Lady on 15th at CCW. Of course now is the season for Pearl-bordered Fritillary, A south facing hill near some birch woodland and Bracken; somewhere in Glen Lednock will be worth searching I think, there are old records from there.

Painted Lady

There were a few interesting things in the light traps and a few more to pheromone, I've at last added Emperor Moth to the garden list. But that's for the next post.

 

 

South and back

I had to travel to London for a few days. Not too much on the agenda whilst there so I managed to go to a couple of my favourite sites,  Nunhead Cemetery and Brockley Cemetery, I also mooched about looking for plants in the streets, and I had a garden I could investigate. I'd not been to London at this time of year for a good many years, and whilst I used to live in southern England I was not much into insects and my botanising was pretty much limited to the chalk Downs and orchid hunting. So the trip added quite a few species to the pan-species list. I only took the wee Olympus Tough with me so the photos may not be quite up to the usual standard, especially since mine is a fairly old TG-4, although it is a surprisingly good macro camera. It is taking quite a while to work through all the photos, more than 700, and things like Andrena bees are a bit of a headache to identify, so this post is somewhat incomplete.

The first evening I managed to find Petty Spurge (everywhere) and Hop on the Brockley streets. Annual Mercury, Euphorbia oblongata and Greater Celandine were also added fairly sharply the next day. But Tuesday afternoon at Nunhead Cemetery was more the business, sunny and warm, not too much wind, and lots of flying insects; why had I not brought a net? 

Hoverflies were everywhere as were a lot bees, Holly Blue were most evident with the occasional Orange Tip and Speckled Wood and I was quickly on to Dock Bug - new. 

Dock Bug Coreus marginatus

Searching through the low hanging branches of a few oak sp I came across the spectacular Black-headed Cardinal Beetle Pyrochra coccinea.

Cardinal Beetle Pyrochra coccinea

I thought I had a Cream-streaked Ladybird, but too small! It was one of the more confusing iterations of 10-Spot. 

10-Spot Ladybird Adalia decapunctata

7-Spot and 14-Spot were also found.

7-Spot Ladybird Coccinella septempunctata

14-Spot Ladybird Propylea quattuordecimpunctata

 Bee-flies turned out to be Dark-edged, and not the hoped for Spotted. But the striking Anthomyia pluvialis was common - and new.

Anthomyia pluvialis

Another dipteran that I think I've only recorded once before was Phasia hemiptera.

An interesting Tachinid fly that is a parasitoid of plant bugs like Birch Shieldbug Elasmostethus intersinctus, laying its eggs on the adult bug, the larvae once hatched eat the host from within until it expires (I think this to be correct).

Most frustrating was a tiny 'picture-winged' fly Euleia heraclei, the Celery Fly. I like these insects but they are not easy to photograph, especially with the TG4, this is where I most missed my EM-1.

Celery Fly Euleia heraclei, tiny, and very active

Equally frustrating were what I think were a species of nomad bee which appeared to be hunting for nests of burrowing bees. These were so active and rarely paused for a moment.  In the end I managed to identify them as Nomada fabriciana and get some very poor images. There were several other bee species, these are always tricky to identify but 'm fairly happy with these identifications, correction welcome!

Andrena scotica Chocolate Mining Bee

Andrena chrysosceles

Andrena haemhorrhoa

 

I collected a few very small beetles on flowers which turned out to be Byturus tomentosus and Meligethes aeneus, both common enough things, but I'd not found them previously. These are the sort of things which are much easier to identify if you have Duff, the investment was worthwhile for sure. 

 The hoverflies were very active with many Myathropa florea. More interesting perhaps were Eupeodes luniger found on the bridge just before the cemetery where there were 100s of aphids (still unidentified) on Prickly Lettuce. Dasysyrphus albostriatus briefly on a gravestone and Epistrophe melanostoma.

Epistrophe melanostoma, female (thanks CS and RM)

Myathropa florea

Syrphus vitripennis (probably) female

Syrphus sp

Xylota segnis

Eupeodes luniger

 Birds were plentiful, Chiffchaff and Blackcap especially, but there was a Whitethroat singing in Brockley Cemetery.

Green Hairstreak was a nice surprise in Brockley Cemetery.

Holly Blue in Nunhead and Brockley Cemeteries.

Large Red Damselfly at Nunhead.

I'm realising this is a long list of species... and let alone what else I recorded round and about and in Brockley Cemetery, although a quick mention for Psallus albicinctus which I found there, and there were many interesting galls, especially on Turkey Oak. 

Psallus albicinctus, keyed through Nau, the fine spots on the head and pronotum, the shape of the hind femur and the extent of the spots on the hind femur led me to this ID, quite an uncommon bug I think (specimen retained and microscopically examined).

However, a quick jump to the garden of where I was staying where on an angelica cultiva there was a Honey Bee that remained very still, remarkably so until under closer observation I discovered why.

Misumena vatia with an unfortunate Apis mellifera Honey Bee

The long task of editing the images complete, now to add everything to iRecord.... I added around 30 species to my P-SL in, effectively, two days. I think I might head south again shortly, maybe.