New hoverflies for NN02

Female Eupeodes latifasciatus at Cruachan Power Station 07/05/2013

I made my first visit of the year to Cruachan Power Station, Argyll, on Tuesday, coinciding with the hottest day of the spring so far. Temperatures reached 20ºC and I managed to complete my first set of Breeding Bird Survey transects and have a poke about for inverts.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the cold conditions until now, the spring flowers are well behind schedule, with no Cuckooflower, Bugle and Bluebell present – so hopes of an early Pearl-bordered Fritillary were not forthcoming. There was plenty of Primrose though, and masses of Lesser Celandine in the new wildflower patch we've been creating at Cruachan Visitor Centre.

These produced a number of decent flies including five 'firsts' for the site list – Eupeodes latifsciatus (thankfully a female, making ID easier), Cheilosia albipila, Melangyna lasiopthalma and Ferdinandea cuprea. In additon, there was a clear-winged Pipiza spp that I caught and which will need to go under the microscope for proper keying out.

Ferdinandea cuprea at Lesser Celandine, Cruachan 07/05/2013

This lot moves the site list up to 49 species and puts a few more dots on the map. The four species named have been only occasionally recorded in Argyll, based on maps shown by the Hoverfly Recording Scheme, and these are all ticks for NN02. F.cuprea was recorded in the neighbouring square (NN03) – but over 100 years ago.

In general, though, numbers and diversity of hoverflies at Cruachan were low – none of the really common flies were present, possibly due to the cold weather. Four species of butterfly were present, however, and the bird transects went well – although very few Wheatears had taken up territory in the upland parts of the site. Hopefully, we'll see the weather continue to improve and I'll make a second visit before the end of the month.

Cheilosia albipila at Cruachan 07/05/2013

The big white ghost

Adult summer Glaucous Gull at Longannet, Fife, 29/04/2013

Survey season is in full swing and I've contracts to carry out fieldwork in Fife, Argyll and Dumfriesshire. Hopefully the weather will start to improve – I reckon we must be about a month behind following the cold, dull start to the spring. Today (06/05) the Blue Tits in my garden are only just starting to collect nesting material for the bird box.

Winter was certainly lingering the other day when a scan of the gulls at Longannet Power Station's ash lagoons produced a very fine adult summer Glaucous Gull. This species breeds in the Arctic but small numbers spend the winter in the UK, mostly in Scotland. They are seen barely annually in Fife, so this is a decent record.

The Glauc was found with a bunch of juvenile Great Black-backed Gulls offering a great chance to compare their sizes. It is a truly impressive bird with that pale grey mantle and all-white wingtips – it stands out even better in flight when it looks like a big white ghost.

Adult summer Glaucous Gull in flight at Longannet, Fife

Flora of Renfrewshire

Nodding Bur-Marigold at Barscube Hill Pond, Renfrewshire

I am delighted to be asked to supply a number of images for Keith Watson's new book "Flora of Renfrewshire" which is due for publication this year.

Keith is Curator of Botany at Glasgow Museums and the Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI) recorder for Renfrewshire.

The county account will list and map the distribution of all plants recorded as growing wild in the old county of Renfrewshire. And I know it has been a labour of love for Keith, so have been pleased to assist, filling the small number of gaps in his own photographic list.

I am supplying a mix of plant portraits and a few wider landscape shots. The portraits include the Nodding Bur-marigold Bidens cernua shown above, which occurs on my home patch at Barscube Hill Pond – one of only a few sites in West Central Scotland for this species.

Another is Round-leaved Crowfoot Ranunculus omiophyllus which is generally scarce in Scotland – plus a few arty shots of White Butterbur Petasites albus.

I am also finding a use for my portfolio of landscape shots taken in and around Knockmountain Farm at the start of 2012. This will help illustrate new forestry planting in the region – and was taken from the Gallahill Ridge looking southwest towards Kilmacolm. The low plant among the rocks in the foreground is English Stonecrop Sedum divergens.

I don't take nearly enough flower shots – I'm usually more interested in what's sitting on them than the plant itself. I'll try to rectify that this growing season. Good luck with the venture, Keith.

Round-leaved Crowfoot at Barscube Hill West, Renfrewshire

White Butterbur growing at Finlaystone Burn, Renfrewshire

Knockmountain Farm, Renfrewshire, with recent forestry plantings

Dotted Border

Male Dotted Border at Langbank, Renfrewshire

There aren't many moths about yet and my finds so far have been predictable ones. These male Dotted Border moths always turn up around my birthday in mid February – and my first of 2013 was found on Feb 16 on a hawthorn hedgerow near my home in Langbank where I find them every year. A common but variable species, they are not the most showy of moths but can be told from the similar Mottled Umber by the row of tiny black dots on the hind margins of both sets of wings.

It's interesting that these use a similar hawthorn hedge habitat as Early Moth, which I encountered last month. I've counted more than a hundred male DBs along the 600m stretch of hedge along the Station Road lane – but never seen a female which, like Early Moth, are wingless, small and inconspicuous. My best hope would be to find a mating pair – so eyes peeled. Mind you, a big area of high pressure is over us just now and night temperatures are due to drop. Might be too cold for moths (and moth hunters!)

Some January county ticks!

Great Northern Diver, Garvel Point, Greenock. January 2013

When I was younger I did a lot of twitching – travelling the country to see rare birds I'd never seen before. These days I'm a bit more sedentary but you never lose the satisfaction that comes with putting a tick against a new species on one of your lists. Therefore, the first month of the new year was notable for me increasing my Renfrewshire/Inverclyde county list by TWO whole species.

This 1st-winter Great Northern Diver was seen about 200m off Garvel Point, Greenock, Inverclyde, on Jan 18. Although it rapidly moved out into the Clyde Estuary, I was able to rattle off a few record shots. This record coincided with a mini-influx to central west Scotland with other GNDs seen from the north shore of the Clyde around Cardross and also a couple that turned up on freshwater at Loch Lomond.

Spotted Redshank, Erskine Harbour, January 2013

The other tick brought in the new year on Jan 01 when I found this winter-plumaged Spotted Redshank with other waders at the roost on the quay at Erskine Harbour, Renfrewshire. The Clyde Estuary doesn't have a great record in attracting scarcer waders, especially in winter, so the Spot Red attracted a decent crowd over coming days. A second individual was quickly discovered and the birds remained to the end of the month and into February.

Mixed wader roost, Erskine Harbour, January 2013

Here's the Spotted Redshank again along with a Common Greenshank, a Dunlin and lots of Common Redshanks. The short daylight hours and generally poor weather in January otherwise limited opportunities to get out and about and add to the Blue Leaf stock library. I've also been busy with university assignments and some deskwork. Here's the best of the rest:

Common Buzzard, Craigmarloch, near Kilmalcolm, Inverclyde. January 2013

Black Guillemot, Port Glasgow, Inverclyde. January 2013

Yellowhammer, Barscube Hill, Renfrewshire. January 2013

Grey Heron, Woodhall, Port Glasgow, Inverclyde. January 2013

Travelling in time at Flanders Moss

Plastic dam put in place to retain water and help re-wet the moss

To bring in New Year 2013, I took a journey back in time – following in the footsteps of a 10-year-old explorer back to Flanders Moss. It’s uncomfortable to think it’s been 36 years since my last visit to the Stirlingshire lowland raised bog. Life cannot be so short.

I remember my childhood expedition as a day full of discoveries – a sodden trek on a blistering hot June day that left me with sunburn and a stomach bug. So parched were my companions and I that we took to drinking out of a stream that we later realised was the stripling River Forth.

My childhood notebook records some of the discoveries that, in retrospect, made the discomfort worthwhile. We walked through a huge colony of Lesser Black-backed Gulls – many with eggs or small chicks – while it seemed that Common Adder were on station at every grassy tussock. We also recorded Black Grouse and a single female Western Capercaillie – my first and to-date only sighting.

These memories flooded back on my return to Flanders Moss at the start of 2013 to gather some information for a college assignment. There was certainly no need for sun cream on the mild but overcast January morning, nor was there a long trek in over fields from the Thornton road. As a National Nature Reserve, declared in 1982, the moss has become explorer-friendly. A car park leads to a boardwalk which elevates pedestrians a few centimetres from the peat and mire. No wet trousers and ruined boots.

Mixed Sphagnum moss and Cladonia lichens at Flanders Moss NNR

A total of 550ha of active raised bog remain, characterised by a heath field layer and ground layer of Sphagnum mosses. A further 250ha is degraded raised bog that has been subject to past drainage and tree planting. Fourteen species of Sphagnum have been identified at Flanders Moss – an indicator of the excellent condition of the bog habitat. Yet the gull colony and the grouse have become extinct at Flanders Moss in the past three decades – even as management starts to restore the bog.

But masses of Pink-footed Geese flew overhead and I also saw Roe Deer, Common Buzzard, Brambling, Common Snipe and Great-spotted Woodpecker. I look forward to returning on a hot June day – but I won’t allow so much time to elapse before my next expedition to Flanders Moss.

Early arrival of a winter-flying moth

My first moth species of 2013 – the appropriately-named Early Moth Theria primaria. The mild start to the year brought this winter-flying species out in force on Jan 03 – my earliest ever date by just over a week. At least 31 of these males were present perched on a mixed hedgerow at Gleddoch, near Langbank, Renfrewshire.

These winter-flying moths look pretty dull but they fascinate me – in lepidopteran terms, they are the very antithesis of finding a nice fritillary on a warm, sunny May afternoon.

My sightings of this species in 2010 were the first Renfrewshire Vice County records, but I've found them to be fairly abundant in the right habitat (hawthorn and blackthorn hedgerows). Look for these wee moths on the very tips of hawthorn/blackthorn stems on January nights. They sit with their wings closed, exposing the pale undersides so they readily reflect light from a torch, making them easy to spot. I've found that a well-managed hedge is better than one that's grown wild.

I took hours of searching before I found my first female, however ...

Like many of these winter moths, the female is flightless – retaining only the stubs of wings. These are really tiny, just a few millimetres. This was a lucky spot last winter but I'm told the best way to find them is to look for congregations of males – who use their feathered antennae to pick up her pheromones.