Stepping on an adder

I trod on an adder on Wednesday, not the one in the picture but a smart, freshly shed skin little female. Both of us were a bit surprised, and luckily it was the side of my foot on the soft bog surface so neither of us suffered. But it did make me jump a bit, the heart beat a bit faster and i was glad of my wellies. I tend to wear these all year round not just to keep a bit drier but also as snake protection. After staring a me for a bit in surprise she just slithered away into the tussocks into the adder sized network of tunnels under the surface. It was at the end of a fantastic day out on the Moss taking the water table measurements. It feels like we are on the cusp of season change. It was cool to start off with and then warmed up to become bright and breezy. There were lingering signs of summer with the willow warblers singing half snatches of songs and swallows, sand and house martins filling up on the Moss abundant insects to fortify themselves for their epic journey south. One of the Moss creepy crawlies made itself felt as I went round, a huge spider had hitched a ride on my back and dropped off when I stopped for a drink, making my pack at least a pound or two lighter. See it on my pencil. But autumn in close at hand and nothing showed this more than there sitting on top of the first water monitoring station was a beautiful 2ND year male hen harrier. It had a brownish tinge to its back feathers showing that it hasn't yet got its full spotless grey breeding plumage. They spend the winter on the Moss after breeding further north so this one was early. I am not ready to think about winter yet, especially after the last one so am trying not to take this as a sign of a hard winter to come but just an individual with a wanderlust and desire to get places early.

Not So Moth Magic

It has been a great year for moths so far and with a bit of effort we have added a few species to the Flanders list. But there are times when opening up the moth trap just doesn't quite reach the peak of excitement and the other day was one of those times. It had looked a potentially good night but the temperature dropped and it turned out to be probably a bit too cool. Arriving at the trap with Prof John Knowler, the resident Flanders moth expert we immediately found virtually no moths on the vegetation around the trap...not a good sign. We then started into the trap and found a gently scattering of moths but no mass burst of fluttering. A few large ears (a moth not a personal comment) and a chevron were new for the year and a smart late ingrailled clay as shown looked good. But in the end there were only 35 moths of 15 species which was a bit disappointing. It was good thing that Prof John was along as when we got to the bottom of the trap there was a little group of very small moths that I took for micros. Now micro moths and small and very difficult to tell apart. It usually takes a real expert and a bit of genitalia dissection to identify them (the micros not the experts) so I tend to just leave them alone. But John grunted a surprised grunt a picked one up for a better look. "Ahhhh, a marsh oblique barred" he said. This had me scrabbling for my book and it turns out that these moths were actually macros (big moths), there were 10 in all, and are a national scarce moth recorded in fewer than 100 10 km squares across the UK and this was the largest single catch that John had caught. As you can see from the photos it may not be stunning but it was by far the best species of the trap so sometimes good things come in small packages.

Here be bog dragons - is that it ?

Well last week we were out looking for bog dragons on Flanders... or the northern emerald dragonfly to be precise. This dragonfly is a north species and a bit of a mystery to boot. It is found mainly in north Scotland and was found on Flanders Moss 3 years ago by our redoubtable volunteer Prof John Knowler. He found 1 recently emerged individual while out looking for moths and this has proved to be the most southerly record in the UK of what is quite a scarce species. So after more searching with no luck we invited down the Scottish dragonfly recorder Pat Batty to help us see if we could find out a bit more about this creature. Now the best way to confirm the presence of this insect is not to look for the adults but the larvae. These creatures live for up to 4 years in wet, peaty pools that are completely filled with sphagnum. This makes hunting for them with the usual nets very difficult so a quick raid on the kitchen produced a plastic colander that is ideal for sieving the sphagnum to find these little larva. According to Pat you can tell the difference from other dragonfly larva because they are hairy and have a round bum, probably best to say no more on this point.
Anyway within 10 mins. of starting to look we found 1 larva, so excited we set off with enthusiasm sieving sphagnum in likely pools for the rest of the day. But never found another larvae for the rest of the day despite sampling likely habitats across the Moss.
So the mystery is not only how do these strange creatures survive in thick sphagnum soup, what do they eat and how do they catch it but also what makes them choose specific squidgy bits to live in ? So next year the search will continue to find out more about these dragons on Flanders with trusty colander in hand, and guess what the wife is getting for her birthday ?

The battle of the trees

When meeting people out at Flanders Moss we gets lots of questions about all the birch trees that are growing up around the boardwalk and the area to the west. People generally know that too many trees aren't good for the bog as they dry it out by sucking water out of the peat and intercepte the rain with their foliage so that it never reaches the bog surface. So they want to know what we are doing about them all. Well things are happening though it is not always obvious. One thing that is going on is in the Plantation, the 40 ha area to the west of the boardwalk over looked by the viewing tower. The conifer trees were removed back in 1997/8 and since then ditches have been blocked to make it wetter but the birch has still started to spread. In the long term we aim to get grazing going in this area to control the birch regrowth but in the meantime we are working with a fellow government agency Forest Research to trial methods of applying herbicide to kill the birch. Plots have been marked out with posts and herbicide applied to the small birch using different techniques to see which one works best and which one has least effect on the bog vegetation. You can see the cleared squares from the viewing tower.
Over the last couple of weeks Forest Research guys have been sweating it out in showers of rain and clouds of midges to fix markers in the plots and carry out studies on the effects of the herbicide.
So these plots are really just a little skirmish against the birch but should help us plan our tactics to escalate the conflict to a battle as part of an overall war. Cor, makes me sound like a war correspondent ! Will keep you posted from the front line.

Those Lizards

It's Friday and it was blowing hot and cold, a light north breeze and some cloud made it cool but when the cloud broke the sun was warm. And when the sun came out the boardwalk was just heaving with lizards. I walked around and counted 70 small lizards born this year and 11 big ones that were at least 2-3 years old. A recent visitor said that her son loved them as he thought of them as his very own dinosaurs. They were so tame that they just sat there as I walked past slowly and quietly while watching me with their beady black eyes. There was one big brightly coloured one that I decided to photograph and as I edged closer and closer it decided to check out my camera by leaning forward and running its forked tongue over it, hence the blurred blob. For a full on close up wildlife experience when you are visiting look out for them and see if you can get as close but do it soon before the weather cools and they head for hibernation.

Look Up

I was chatting in the car park to a chap who was making his first visit to Flanders when he suddenly said "what's that ?" and above me appeared an osprey flying low over the us heading south circling slowly. Very exciting, grabbed my camera and took a few poor shots. Ospreys breed in the area, drawn especially to all the lovely big trout stocked in the Lake of Menteith. The young have lefts the nests and hanging around the area before the plucky up courage and give into instinct and head south the spend the winter in the west of Africa. So now is as good a time to see them in the area. Look up and you might be lucky. This was the chaps first osprey he had seen as well so a good day all round !

One moth's poison is another's food.

On a warm summers day parts of the Moss smell fantastic at the moment. With the heat of the sun the smell of the bog myrtle fills the air and what a fantastic smell it is.
It is a smell that captures the whole feel of Flanders Moss in summer for me but it is hard to describe it, resinous, warm, pleasant and then I run out of words but you will know it when you smell it. Tradition says that bog myrtle has insect repellent properties and some companies are making products which are meant to keep midges at bay out of an extract from the plant. However as I have been walking out on the Moss on midge filled days I have seen clouds of them come up from bog myrtle bushes that I have walked through so I am not sure how effective it can be. The smell is all part of the chemical warfare conducted between plants and insects. Plants producing chemicals that make the plant less edible so stopping it getting completely munched. However there are always ways of overcoming this form of defence and 3 of our special moths all live on the abundant bog myrtle on Flanders. The Rannoch brindled beauty, the great brocade and the argent and sable are all nationally scarce moths (that means that they have only been recorded in less than 100 10km squares in the UK) that use the bog myrtle on Flanders for their life-cycle. Mostly their caterpillars have worked out a way of overcoming the plants chemical defences and feed on the leaves for example the argent and sable caterpillar sticks the leaves at the end of branches together into a sort of tent inside which they can chew the inside of the leaves while hidden from predators.
Purely from a peatland habitat point of view the bog myrtle usually grows on parts of the bog that have been damaged by ditching or the surfaced disturbed. So as is often the case what is important for some special animals represents damaged to another even more special habitat. But the bog myrtle is there to stay now and there is not much we can do about it so I will continue to enjoy the heady aroma and also the beautiful inhabitants that live on it. I may even try the old shepherds trick of trying to keep the midges at bay by putting a piece of bog myrtle behind each ear. Then you'll know me when you see me.

Big ones and little ones

Aren't lizards brilliant ! Before the boardwalk was put in at Flanders I used to see lizards regularly on the moss but only in glimpses. Now you can get a right good look just from a short stroll along the path. The other day I went round on an overcast day and the lizards were obviously needing to get out to warm up as I counted 46 individuals along the way. Of these only 2 were fully grown adults, the other 44 were all very small, nearly black young beasts that would have been born this year.
And the being born bit is a big surprise because most reptiles lay eggs. But our lizards the common lizard Zootoca vivipara is specially adapted to live more northerly than any other species of reptile, one of those adaptations is to give birth to between 3 and 11 live young. once hatched these quick settle in to catching small insects and start to grow. Males mature in 2 years while females take three. Our Flanders lizards have another 6 to 8 weeks to feed up before, depending on the weather, going into hibernation when it turns cold. On the Moss they can't hibernate to deep into the ground because of the high water table so they probably spend the winter in rotting piles of brash and the large hummocks ready to come out win April when spring warms up. They made be small but they are real wildlife that just about everyone can see if they are quiet and slow moving and in the right weather.

How much from above ?

Those regular followers who like me are becoming obsessed with amounts of rainfall then they will be pleased to know that things have improved a bit this last month. 119mm of rain for July is above the rough monthly average for Flanders (about 100mm a month) but is actually represents a dryish July, Scotland summers being on the wet side. The Moss has been looking a lot wetter but the sponge that is the body of peat that makes up Flanders still needs more topping up. After only a week of little rain it is starting to look dry again. So August here we come.

Anyone walking around the boardwalk will notice the difference between now and just a few weeks back. It is quiet. The bird song has dropped off completely as males no longer hold territory but hide away with the females moulting and trying to replenish their fat reserves before going on migration. It is a sad fact that April / May seems a long way away when we will next be hearing that cacophony of birdsong that so lifts the spirits.