Feeder

 I made a Red Squirrel feeder (may also double as a Pine Marten lure, the mammal that lives all around us but I've never seen). The Red Squirrels that come in to our garden every morning don't like my feeder much. Skip along the back wall, past the feeder, shin up the Wych Hazel, decide they don't like Nyjer seed having had a peek at that feeder. Down the Wych Hazel, past the squirrel feeder, rummage around in the grass.

 It's all a bit disappointing....

The addition of the camera trap, some jam sandwiches (at night only, apparently Pine Martens love them) and some bits of carrot and sweetcorn might help, anyway the birds enjoy the peanuts etc.

Moth lights are out, despite the rain. It's not supposed to be raining, just as earlier it was supposed to be raining and wasn't, but forecasting here will be confused by the hills for sure. (This was written some days ago, subsequently Storm Bram has provided some entertainment water-wise.)

December Moth, there were seven between the two traps, again more in the LED.

Winter Moth, this one on the kitchen window but there were five around the synergetic trap.

Spruce Carpet

There were also two crane flies, a Tipula rufina and, new for the garden Trichocera major, with a wing length of 8.5mm out of the range of the other species in this genus, and the cerci shape looks good too.

Trichocera major

 I've been working on compiling the species list for the community woodland. https://www.cultybraggancamp.uk/community-woodland The site is 18 hectares and was MoD land, connected to the Cultybraggan prisoner of war camp. Once the MoD pulled out, but still owned the land, it was apparently used as rough grazing for sheep for many years with little or no use of chemicals. The site is a north facing bank near the lower end of Glen Artney, it sits above the Ruchill, a river that due to the lack of trees, through over-grazing and land management for "sporting" purposes can turn into a dangerous torrent in just a few moments. 

Anyway, prior to my turning up here there had been no great efforts to find out that much about the wild species present, except for birds which have been monitored and more obvious and larger insects like butterflies. A few botanical visits had discovered butterfly orchid, fragrant orchid and various Dactylhoriza species, without getting fully accurate determinations to species. Quite a few common plants had been identified though and a few less obvious insects had been photographed and identified. There is a sightings board, and I still need to obtain the lists from that board. Anyway to cut a long story somewhat short, with compiling other folks' sightings and with my own moseying about I've now got the list to 442 species. (This link might get you there... https://panspecieslisting.com/my-lists.html ) - initial target 1,000 species for the site. Currently the list doesn't include Pine Marten, which I know has occurred but I've not seen a record, Short-tailed Field Vole and Slow Worm likewise.

Here are the photos of one of the fallen but still alive Goat Willow Salix caprea on the site, photos I meant to put in the previous post.

Goat Willow Salix caprea - I bet a litter sample here would reveal a few interesting things...

Next year's project is to  get to grips properly with the botany of the site. And run light traps more often. I'm making a start this winter working on bryophytes and lichens. In the last week or so I've added a few of these.

I've identified this as Cephalozia bicuspidata, but I might need to review that ID, I'm not entirely convinced I've got this correctly.

I'm a more convinced by this, Lophocolia bidentata, another liverwort.

 

It's a slow job finding these, often hidden in samples of moss and only revealed once under the microscope, and then identifying them. For a group of only 72 species liverworts are pretty tricky. I'm also working on mosses, rather a lot more species.... AI is no help with bryophytes I find, however, it is much more helpful with lichens.

Hypnogymium physodes

Phlyctis argena

However, these Cladonia species required a more traditional approach. I'm fairly happy with these identifications.

Cladonia coniocraea I think

Cladonia fibriata

Hopefully someone will put me right if I've got any of these incorrectly.

I'm being encouraged, and thinking I might enroll on a BSBI course next year to develop my botanical skills. I think it would help me improve my rather lacklustre skills. I used the BSBI botanical skills ladder and place myself on just their second step, oh dear! Improvement required I think.