A lack of posts is attributable to a community emergency, the county council, its elected representatives and its ALEO (Arms-Length External Organisation) have decided to close our village library, and those of six or seven other rural communities. Whilst the county council have brayed about the information related to these closures being "in the public domain" since the decision was made back at the end of last year it appears that elected representatives have been somewhat circumspect in their duties to inform the communities via the community councils. The long and short of this is that the proposal to close the libraries only became public knowledge following the ALEO issuing a wonderfully obtuse survey to library users, not actually mentioning the intention to close the library. This is a situation occurring all across Scotland, in one form or another, and I believe across England, although perhaps not managed in such an apparently underhand manner. I've been writing Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and then trawling through the outcomes to try to get at the details of the decision making process and the finances.
Save Comrie Library From Closure!
The creation of ALEOs, hiving off, "non-essential" services like libraries, museums, art galleries, sports centres and swimming pools, has become common practice amongst local authorities across the UK. In the case of Perth and Kinross Council these were created in 2016 and in my opinion the intention was always to create a buffer between the council and the electorate to prepare for cutting these services. One reason for the creation of ALEOs is that they may then apply for external funding that is not available to local authorities, however, in reality this is truly a bit of a smokescreen given the monies involved and how difficult it is to obtain such external funding in the climate of a slash and burn Westminster Tory government. Whilst the Scottish Government and the Barnett Formula provide some protection to some Scottish services, for this particular ALEO to somehow come up with nearly £1,000,000 (Bank of England inflation calculator) to just hold its funding at 2016 levels is unrealistic. Initial budget funded by Perth and Kinross Council in 2016 c£3,400,000 (worth c£4,500,000 in today's money), latest service fee from the council to the ALEO in April 2024 was c£3,500,000.
There is some interesting research by UEA carried out on Suffolk libraries demonstrating that for every £1 spent on library provision the economic benefit is about £6. I'm struggling to find the URL for this, but will post it here when I do. I have an electronic copy that I'm happy to share though if anyone would like one.
That was a bit of a long aside.... I must try to make more shorter posts, it would be easier.
On the wildlife front species are still getting added to the various lists. I had a good fungi day on Saturday adding five species from Loch Monzievaird, near Crieff and from Glen Artney where I stumbled across three new waxcaps in just a few metres whilst out on a mountain bike excursion.
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| Both the above are Hygrocybe coccinea Scarlet Waxcap, just older (top) and more recent (lower). |
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| Hygrocybe chlorophana Golden Waxcap. |
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| Vermillion Waxcap Hydrocybe miniata. |
There were also some quite spectacular funnels at the same site which I'm pretty sure are Trooping Funnel Clitocybe geotrupa.
The whole issue with identifying fungi is a bit fraught, I'm doing the best I can with them but I feel the identifications are a bit less rigorous than with other taxa. I'm thinking I should go back through iRecord and put most as "Likely" rather than "Certain" as without some exacting spore examination I'm not sure how certain any identification can be, and even then.... At Loch Monzievaird I found both Stereum rugosum and Stereum hirsutum, both of which can be quite variable. Interestingly, I also found Yellow Brain Tremella mesenterica there, growing on Oak, I'd thought it was exclusive to Gorse, but apparently not.
I thought I'd not do much birding in Perthshire, but I'm just as interested, although there is considerably less expectation of finding anything rare. My local list continues to grow and local specialities are of interest. There is a Red Kite roost a short walk from the house and it's quite impressive. My best total so far is 114 all in the air at the same time and counts of over 80 are not infrequent.
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| Red Kites soaring pre-roost. |
Counting the kites is not easy. Groups tend to drift off in one direction, and then maybe they drift back again, or maybe it is a a quite different group. It is quite a spectacular sight in any case.
My main birding mysteries are the species I haven't recorded as yet. No crossbill of any species, no redpoll of any species(ish).
Moths are still being trapped, I trapped two nights ago before the cold snap began, and caught six moths. On 2nd November I caught well over 100, and on 8th November about 70, moth of these were Spruce Carpet, but those are still got numbers for November. When the temperature goes up after this cold I'll be out looking for winter moths with Operophtera fagata Northern Winter Moth my target species, as I've never seen one.
Moth highlights have been three species of Epirrita, Scarce Umber, which I failed to photograph, Red Sword-grass and December Moth. The Epirrita species were all new and of the other three I've seen very few in the past.
With a bit of a lull with moths I've been looking more carefully at the caddis I've been catching and have identified a few. Most pleasing was Chaetopteryx villosa which I'd not seen before and I found in the field at the Community Woodland in some numbers. This is a fairly distinctive species, but I dissected to be certain.
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| Pair of Chaetopteryx villosa in cop. |
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| Female gendet. |
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| Male gendet. |
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| Male, note the long wing hairs, dimples from which the hairs protrude, and short, very broad wings. |
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| View back from a wee way up Glen Artney. |
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| Evening sky near the kite roost. |
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| Another evening, more sky. |
