Kites

Last autumn and winter I spent quite a bit of time counting the Red Kite roost in the evening. I stumbled on it by accident but now know of its significance. This autumn it has been slow to get going with counts in the teens and twenties until in less than ideal conditions the other evening there were 122. It can be quite a spectacular show. 

Kites in the sky (you might need to zoom in).

We don't have Magpies in our neck of the woods, I have seen them occasionally in the village but the only time we get them around us and on the patch is in autumn. They turned up as expected over a few days with a three and and then various others, one even venturing into the garden.

Magpie

The Stonechat has re-appeared once (or a different one) and there has been a trickle of Redwing. The most spectacular migrant was a Gannet, that I missed, but was reliably reported. A bad dip indeed.

Moths in the light traps have been unspectacular of late, but Feathered Thorn is always nice to see and I've had a couple of Dark Sword-grass.

Feathered Thorn.

Otherwise it has been the usual suspects. Lots of Spruce Carpet and Red-green Carpet, lingering Common Marbled Carpet, Red and Yellow-line Quakers, Chestnut, and of late Streak and November Moth agg. I dissected a couple of male November moths and had one Epirrita diluta November Moth and one Epirrita christyi Pale November Moth. A single Autumn Green Carpet was nice to see.

Autumn Green carpet

The Streak, a common autumn species here.

A lot of recent activity has been about peering at leaves and looking for leaf mines and for other small leaf-living things. It's a good way of finding very under recorded things like aphids, psyllids, bark flies galls and leafmines.  There are excellent websites for many of these where there is help to identify them, but it can be a bit tricky. For example there are thousands of alder leaves at the community woodland covered below with this yellow rust. 

Alder leaves covered in Melamsporidium hiratsukanum

These rusts should be species specific, however, I did find a paper where Melamsporidium betulinum had been located on Alnus and not Betula. As I don't have the kit to explore this further I'll have to decide if this is a PSL tick, or not. Probably on iRecord I'll record as "Likely".

But other leafy inhabitants are a bit more straightforward. I explored some old trees on the border of the community woodland, in a difficult to access area.

Rowan Sorbus acuparia

 Other old trees in this area included Ash and Hazel. Searching the Hazel was especially productive. With quite a few leafmines discovered, some were occupied.

 

Hazel Corylus avellana

Various moth leafmines were found.

 

A bit unsure of this one, it may be the Phyllonorycter, see below, but could be Parornix devoniella, more research required.

Phyllonorycter nicellii mine, sure of this one.

Stigmella microtheriella, I think and not Stigmella floslactella, comment most welcome.

I have various other puzzles pending....

I had to go to Stirling again last week and instead of staying at the bottom of the hill I walked up to the Church of the Holy Rude near the castle. This was a good decision as following the wind the grass had been cut and there were insects all over the gravestones. I rarely find beetles in graveyards but on this occasion there were plenty. Just two new ones, a very good one in Nimbus obliteratus, very few Scottish records.

 

Nimbus obliteratus

There was a Oulema,  which on dissection proved to be O. melanopus, several Stenus similis, and one each of Philonthus cognatus and Philonthus carbonarius. Cream-spot Ladybird was NFM and Larch Ladybird was also present.

Calvia quattuordecimguttata

Oulema melanopus (dissected).

Stenus similis

There were also some interesting diptera. A Palloptera species that was almost certainly ustulata, but you can only be certain by dissecting a male. and Tachypeza nubila which I'd not seen before.

Palloptera, probably ustulata.

Tachypeza nubila

Stars of the show were perhaps two Hymenoptera.

 

Encyrtidae, thanks KM, awaiting further deliberation.

Homotherus locutor (thanks MS).

And to finish, a bit of a note on a development that I'm currently opposing. Low Carbon are proposing to build a wind farm of 19, 200m high turbines at the head of Glen Leadnock, on the Invergeldie Estate now owned by sister company Oxygen Conservation (yes the company that has just bought the Kinrara Estate, where Brewdog planted their Lost Forest - there's quite a bit about this on Parks Watch - https://parkswatchscotland.co.uk/2023/10/09/brewdogs-lost-forest-at-kinrara-senseless-destructive-and-a-misuse-of-public-money/ ).  Needless to say I have now for some time not bought any Brewdog beer. The forest was indeed "Lost" because a lot of those trees planted with tax payers' money died. Parks Watch have quite a bit of information on all of this. In Scotland we are facing a land-grab because the Scottish Government seem to be very keen to encourage wind farms that we, in Scotland, don't need (we have enough energy production for our needs thank you, even with the % efficiency being some distance off 100%; the problem is we do not have storage) and we do not have the capacity to send the electricity to England, so the developers are being paid a fortune to turn the turbines off - https://wastedwind.energy/2025-10-19 It will take at least five years to construct the connections to send the electricity south. The cost of "curtailment" as it is called (turning the turbines off) is added to all our household electricity bills, and it is a cost that is set to increase year on year.

Then there's the trees. On Kinrara, which I understand is now quite badly damage in places, the trees were planted using tax payers' money from Scottish Forestry (Scottish Government). I believe deer fences were erected inappropriately, causing a problem for Capercaillie. Trees would have regenerated there naturally with a bit of deer management (perhaps quite a bit of deer management) but the fences and the spending on trees could have been avoided (but there's no money in that).

The money is all about carbon trading I think. I struggle to understand the basis of all this. I don't think it has very much to do with the Scottish Government trying to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, although that is a driver. Personally, I think this has more to do with rich people getting richer. Thus the land grab. However, in Brewdog's case I believe this has caused the company something of a financial headache, so the financial gain, despite Government subsidies and payments, is not without risk.

Anyway, back to the kites. Low Carbon's Environmental Impact Assessment estimates that they will kill, over the 40 year life of the turbines, 13 Golden Eagles, 18 White-tailed Eagles and 112 Red Kites. (This is using NatureScot's tools for calculating collisions. I believe there are some issues with this methodology as I think it is based on much smaller turbines.) That's the middle estimate, it could be more, it could be fewer. The birds will be killed by collisions with turbines. Invergeldie is not very far as the Red Kite flies from the largest roost of the species in Scotland. 

Golden Eagles are not keen on turbines and tend to move away from areas where they are placed. I don't know too much about the Golden Eagle population in Scotland, but I do know that the species ranges widely and needs large territories. My understanding is that eagles vacate territories near to turbines and won't hunt near them. This may reduce the immediate number of collisions but it causes other issues as competition for suitable territory away from turbines is increased, this is likely to have an impact on the overall population. It will put pressure on young, inexperienced birds when they disperse and they may well wander to vacant territories that contain turbines, and thus increase the collision rate. These issues are not, in my view, calculable. I don't believe there is any modelling of this impact of turbine placement.

In the EIA Low Carbon state that the impact on the Scottish populations of these three species, Golden Eagle, White-tailed Eagle and Red Kite will not be significant. It is difficult to see how this can be stated with any certainty, particularly taking into account the cumulative impact of applications for more wind farms across the Highlands. 

Compare this with your typical game shooting estate. If they were to announce they were putting in place some measures that over forty years would kill this many protected species I think they would be in some bother.

For more information Save Glen Lednock has a Facebook Group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/saveglenlednock Despite what it is stated the date for formal objections to the Energy Consents Unit (the clue is in the name) of the Scottish Government is not past. All objections have to be considered up until the point the decision is made. Information on how to object is on the Facebook Group, or make a comment and leave a point of contact and I'll send you the information. 

And finally, I do recognise the need for alternatives to fossil fuels. However, there are ways of going about that.  What appears to be occurring in Scotland is that our countryside and wildlife are being sacrificed on the altar of money. This issue is a lot more complex than it might seem, and the above barely scratches the surface.