Water

Water is an issue in the community we've moved to. Much of the village, more than 180 homes and businesses, are susceptible to flooding from the combined force of three rivers, River Earn, Water of Ruchill and the River Lednock. Next month work will begin on a £27 million scheme to build barriers to protect the village. We are fortunate in that where we are we have a very small risk from standing water. In Scotland you can see the risk from the excellent SEPA flood maps. Whilst the scheme is not ideally what you would want, and perhaps a more natural environment for these rivers in their upland sources would mitigate the issues somewhat, the climate emergency appears to have brought a change in rainfall patterns, sudden very heavy inundations have become not infrequent at any time of year. When the Romans built their camp on the site, not far from where the majority of the houses in the village now stand, flooding would most likely have been a most unlikely event, now, for many houses in the village it is a 10% risk annually.

Much of the area to the south of the River Earn is at risk, that's most of the housing.

Anyway, online I found the EIA report and it makes quite interesting reading. Confirming my three bat identifications and indicating that there is certainly one other species present, as I've suspected, but most likely two.

I'm still exploring the patch, the small lochan behind the house, in the woods, is a bit tricky/sensitive to access apparently. It does rather feel as if you are in a neighbour's garden. However, recently, I found some more water. There's an abandoned fish farm and I've slowly realised there are a number of pools. Access is not especially easy, it's all rather over-grown. Anyway, I've added two species, Little Grebe and Mute Swan, and found Moorhen and Reed Bunting, species seen once and infrequently respectively elsewhere on the patch.

Mute Swan. The day I saw this I also added Pink-footed Goose to the patch list, over-flying migrants.

A bit of a poke around in the sunshine and I found four species of Odonata, there's potential for several more. Indeed, the occasional predatory beast has hurtled through the garden, but not stopped long enough for an ID.

Black Darter, above. Also present, Common Blue Damsel, Emerald Damsel, Common Darter.

I think the site will be most interesting in the spring, it has the potential for a decent inland find or two. Grasshopper Warbler, and Sedge and Reed Warblers will be on my watch list, but it is the most likely spot for something a tad more exciting. A Great Reed Warbler would be nice, a Marsh Warbler would be appreciated.

I went to a meeting about the flood protection scheme, a sort of roaming discussion. This occurred at the Community Woodland and we wandered about and talked water. We ended up just off the site at a Beaver dam. It was too dark to see by then but the this afternoon Louise and I went back. No Beaver seen but the dam is quite impressive.

The dam.

Leaves from a partly felled Aspen on the water.

The moth trapping went through a dead patch, warm days but clear nights with a large Moon. There were very few moths, both in numbers and species, however, I did continue to add at least one lifer a time. two of the new moths have been long sort and imagined; Frosted Orange and Merveille du Jour.

Frosted Orange.

Merveille du Jour

I've caught three Copper Underwing agg. The first one escaped before I could look at it properly and foolishly I took photos and let the next two go. I'd not really grasped the criteria for separating the two species and whilst I thought the photos would be good enough I suspect they will be inadequate. To be certain of the ID I need to dissect one I think. I've caught Copper Underwing before in Yorkshire, I dissected it. However, here in Perthshire I suspect these will be Svensson's Copper Underwing, however, I need to prove that. The next one is for the chop!

Copper Underwing agg, probably Svensson's, but not certainly.

And here's my attempt to differentiate... I can't see any orange in the underwing, let alone the extent of it.

Copper Underwing agg.

The colour of the palps is supposed to be an ok criteria on fresh specimens, unfortunately I didn't know that this morning.

I've been finding various other bits and bats of stuff. A fair number of larvae, particularly of sawflies, but the occasional caterpillar as well.

I thought this was Nematinus fuscipennis, but the thinking now is that it may be a Rhogogaster species. (thanks AG).

And here's a nice caterpillar, Scalloped Hazel.

Scalloped Hazel.

I've also been trying to identify fungi, but I'll save them for another post.

Vismig/CCW

I casually asked about vismig during an online chat with an old friend (I mean a friend for a long time... oh, but actually we are "getting on"! Sorry NC.) This led to some coincidences, the national co-ordinator for Trekellen used to live here, viewed this house to buy (I'm glad they didn't), and it seems I'm now taking over their vismig patch, which apparently can be rather good. Being a bit of a patch watcher, I'm keen to incorporate the vismig into patch activity, but this might mean not using the best vismig place in the glen. A couple of attempts, one from a walk up the road produced a good few hirundines, and from Comrie Community Woodland (my other patch), in rubbish conditions, indicated its potential. I will go and inspect the "best" place though as well, although I'm more keen to watch from the CCW and add to that patch totals. It produced some House Martins, Meadow Pipits and Grey Wagtail, it also has useful seating. Whilst not birding that much anymore, I'm surprisingly keen to do the vismig, not very good at early starts nowadays! However, I'm quite excited, and waiting for decent conditions to give it a go. Interesting really, as I didn't even go to look for waders at Tentsmuir the other day.

During the investigative vismig visit to CCW I did a bit of hunting around as well, my focus was on willow, Salix this time (Betula, last time). I found a few things.

It was a bit early and cool for most insects on a misty still morning but I found two nice caterpillars and the beating tray added a few things.

Drinker.

Iron Prominent.

Melanapion minimum, if correct will be the most northerly record in the UK. Actually, Perapion curtirostre (thanks MG and CW). No tooth on the claws, and some differences with the stria and it looks more hairy. As the beast is 2mm long, seeing a tooth on the claw was "challenging", but I really believe there is not one.

Dicyrtomina minuta.

 

Dicyrtomina saundersi

Tomocerus longicornis.

The day out.

 

 Photos to be added tomorrow....

I've been to Tentsmuir NNR just once before, in a February 18 months or so ago (see the blog post). At the time I was struck by what an interesting place it is. There was an opportunity this week to head back there, I didn't take much persuading.

As this is a National Nature Reserve I couldn't take specimens so this is all down to hunting with the camera. I was thinking that the plantations would be pretty good for fungi, and my previous experience suggested that the dunes would be good for all sorts of things. In the end I barely visited the trees as the dune system took up all my time.

I'd borrowed an extra powerpack to keep the phone charged, as Obsidentify can gobble the juice, I'm not capable of identifying fungi without the AI giving me a lead, at least, as I don't understand fungal taxonomy, except in the most basic sense.

When visiting a site of this quality I'm always struck by just how quickly interesting and varied things can be found. So a small willow, Salix sp gained my attention and within a few minutes I'd found a sawfly larva, some interesting looking craneflies and some leafmines.

Of course a few hours in the field always results in many hours back at the ranch sorting and processing the photographs and trying to get identifications for everything I'd photographed. Obsidentify is a great help with fungi, at least it gets me heading in the correct direction, and there were plenty of fungi in the dunes. However, the AI isn't always much good with larvae, identifying the sawfly larva as Emerald Damselfly! 

This sawfly was one of two larvae I found during the day. Additionally, I tried to turn a Lepidoptera larva into a Symphyta. It was strange why this occurred, but I think I just expected the beast to be a sawfly. Fortunately I was put right online (slightly embarrassing) but a reminder to take my time and check and recheck identifications, even at the earliest stage, assigning the beast to the correct Order (sub-order) will help the ID process magically!!

In the first couple of hours, before lunch, I managed five new fungi ticks, four vascular plants, a spider, two caddis and two sawflies. Additionally, there was an interesting hoverfly, three species of moth, via larvae, and an opportunity to look at and photograph a number of other things of interest.

Tentsmuir is a very civilised place to visit, there are toilets and a food takeaway of some quality. I do wish people would respect the place a wee bit better, there's a lot of dog shit, and quite a bit of small rubbish. However, the school party who were visiting, it looked like an ecology field trip, were exemplary. And thank you to the students who recovered Louise's fleece top and ran after her to return it.

There's a lot to do after a trip like that. The spider turned out to be a very interesting species - Arctosa perita, and one of the sawflies is potentially new to Scotland, (potentially, 2nd UK record), however, it would be a long journey to prove that and get the record fully verified I suspect.

What do I do after a full day like that? Put the light traps out of course! The lights went out the following evening, and today has been spent photographing and identifying all of those species. After a bit of a slow run with moths things picked up with the temperature rising and two new species for me were trapped, Brindled Green and a very nice Devon Carpet, which I think is new for VC88. There's also at least one new bug Scobpostethus decoratus, and another I need to look at, a sawfly adult, some caddis and some beetles.

This evening I added Cormorant to the patch and garden list as we were eating tea, it flew over the house. Then younger daughter and I were distracted by bats. I think that the high flying small bats are the Soprano Pipistrelles, which I have recorded here. This evening they were much too high for the detector, there must have been at least fifteen in view from the garden. Common Pips were also wizzing around. But at tree top height there was something larger and slower flying, unfortunately it was too far away for the detector. We then walked down to the bridge to see and hear the Daubenton's Bats, always entertaining. On the way back we heard Tawny Owls, and then had very good views of the Barn Owl that was also added to the patch list recently. A Roe buck crossed the road and jumped the wall in front of us.

A recent addition to the garden list has been another mammal. Brief inconclusive views led to deployment of the camera trap, and Bank Vole was proven.

Ignore the data strip on the video, the date, time and temperature are well off.