Box Strainers and Otter Poo

A good day yesterday. Nick, Stephen and myself spent the day repairing gates and stiles. I did the basic labour of digging deep holes in the sticky clay while Nick and Stephen did the skilled work of tensioning up the wires and fitting struts and rehanging gates. The gates we had bought are meant to be self-closing but on the clay soils the hanging and shutting posts move around so much when the clay dries out and wets up again that the gates had become self-opening. For the technical fencers Stephen and Nick fitted box strainers in the hope that this will stop the posts moving. It may have less effect when the West Moss-side Shetland cattle rub up against them or lean on the fence but we will just have to wait and see. The stiles were a health and safety issue, the old stiles were in such a state that if one broke when in use the resulting injury could have been very nasty.

A cool breeze kept us cool when digging, the rain showers held off and the birds kept us entertained. Up to 3 grasshopper warblers reeled away, the summer's first whinchat scratchily put himself on the map and reed buntings zip, zip zupped from thick patches of rushes. A couple of wheatears mooched around the arable fields, the anxious males have mostly passed through, rushing to grab a space, these laid back females passing through now are calmly confident of claiming a male on territory. All the while I dug away a skylark towered over me singing the whole while. I hope I didn't disturb him too much. Across the Moss the big caterpillars were on the march, I didn't know the species so just admired the hairy defence and singleminded migration.

And to finish off close to the last stile we found a small pile of otter spraint, a sign that they continue to use Flanders as a link between the Goodie Water and the Forth .

Trouble At Bog

Stephen Longster, Site Management Officer at Flanders Moss reports - "Spring has finally begun on the Moss, this is one of the best times on the Moss, no longer cut in half by the brisk northerly winds; the plants are growing, insects and lizards on the move. During the weekly visitor checks I took a couple of minutes on my favourite spots on the boardwalk, to see what the regulars were up to. The pond skaters were busy disputing (some times violently) their little patches of aquatic territory, there were recent signs of construction by the potter wasp, adding to her multi storey property and the reed bunting singing away on a stunted birch, clearly in the market for female company.
The summer migrants are returning. The willow warblers are warbling and the cuckoos are erm, cuckooing? Meadow pipits beware, if you end up with one massive offspring that bears an uncanny resemblance to a cuckoo, the chances are, you’ve been had.
The anti social elements are emerging from their all too short winter hibernation, and signs of there seasonal migrations are appearing at Flanders Moss. The telltale tracks of cheap cider cans and buckfast bottles are just one of the indications that a temporary nest site has been established on Flanders Moss.

The sporadic infestations of this life form are also evident from broken information panels and scattered glass. Largely nocturnal beasts, they can be occasionally be observed indulging in display rituals, which seem to involve shouting at each other and throwing bottles. Those of a more artistic nature may have noticed the subtle lines of a boot print where an attempt was made to kick out a glass panel.

It is unfortunate that nature reserves (not just Flanders Moss) can attract the attentions of people who regard such areas as an opportunity to get drunk and break things. Flanders Moss suffers relatively little which in makes it more of a shock when it does happen. Luckily nearly all of the visitors who come to Flanders Moss enjoy the experience and appreciate this 8000 year old habitat. Some take a real pride in the place so many thanks to the visitor who alerted us to the damage and had done quite a lot of the tidying up before I got there. We will have to get a few new bits and bobs such as leaflets dispensers and an information panel so please bear with us until we have them in place. Of course if anyone sees anti-social behaviour at Flandfers the best thing to do is either report it to us or the Police but hopefully this won't be happening enough to spoil other users of the site ."

So what is this all about the belly button fluff ?

So what is all this about fluff. Well the Rannoch Brindled Beauty is a rare moth. Flanders Moss is the southerly edge of it is range that spreads north through the central highlands to Inverness. The degree of its rareness is described as Nationally Scarce A. Officially this means that it has only been recorded in between 16 and 30 10km squares since 1980. It was first recorded on Rannoch Moor in 1871 hence its name, its Latin name is Lycia lapponnaria scotica which apparently means wolf-like and refers to its shaggy body but this thick coat is more about keeping warm when the adults are out in the cool early spring. Flanders Moss is fairly typical habitat as it likes boggy moorland and heathland especially where its caterpillar food plants, bog myrtle and heather species, are found.

The adults hatch out in spring, the female has no wings (and looks like a bit of fluff) so just crawls up a fencepost or tree trunk and pumps out pheromones (chemicals) to attract in a winged male. Once they have mated the female climbs back down and searches for the dry flower heads of heather species and bog myrtle where she lays up to 150 greenish yellow eggs. The caterpillars hatch in May and eat their food plant until about August when they climb down and burrow underground to pupate. The pupal stage can last up to 4 years while the caterpillar breakdown into a moth soup before reforming as an adult moth. So the adult phase of the life cycle is only a blip compared with the prolonged larval stages.

But there is still much to be found out about this moths life at Flanders. We still haven't plotted its complete distribution on the moss. We also don't know exactly what its food plant preference is and if it has any other special requirements. For instance how important are trees to it ? All the moths recorded have been found on trees but is this only a fraction of the moths that are present ? As much of our management on Flanders is about removing trees from the Moss to keep the bog wet this is an important question to answer as we want to continue to host this special moth as we work to restore the wet bog of the past.

Revolving door

With spring being so squashed by the lingering winter and an on-rushing summer, now it has warmed up the flood gates have opened. Summer bird visitors are pouring in and everyday new songs and sights can be seen on the Moss. Today the willow warblers and cuckoos who arrived a few days back were well established and have now been joined by redstarts. Three males of these lovely relatives of the robin were singing scratchily from the tops of birch trees along the south edge of the moss, one easily seen and heard from the car park. Even better there was a snipe drumming over the boardwalk. Drumming is the name given to the activity these birds do when marking their territory though it is not very descriptive. The birds make a bleating noise as they dive but this is no call but actually the outer tail feathers vibrating. Redpolls and crossbills were buzzing and chupping overhead respectively and a tree pipit put in a quick appearance close to the car park. But the highlight of the morning was a couple of redshank that dropped out of the sky to the pool by the stone seat making their soft pleading calls. Another called high up as it passed over so these 2 are probably only stopping for a quick rest but it would be great if all the wetting up of the moss tempted them to stay longer.

With all these spring birds decorating the changing season it was a complete contrast to hear a group of 100 late pink feet geese fly over, some of the last winter residents taking advantage of the recently turned southerly winds to make their break for Iceland. Their 'wink, wink' calls taking me back with a slight shiver to the icy winter just gone.

Thank you to Rachel of Thornhill Primary School for her fantastic picture of Flanders.

The finding of the belly button fluff.

Having missed out on the belly button fluff before Easter (see posting 9 April) I thought
I would have another go. The Moss is gradually shaking off its winter lassitude and is moving towards the summer business of air filled with birdsong and the bog surface being as busy with insects as the Royal Mile in festival season. The wind was still bitterly cold but there was a warmth to the sun and a brightness to the light intensity that is missing in winter. So I headed out onto the west side with invertebrates on the mind. The willows on the edge of the moss were already buzzing with activity, they are one of the first nectar sources available for insects so are a magnet at this time of year. Once out on the moss I started searching the south sides of the bases of the tree trunks. A cream-spotted ladybird stood out, as did various sawflies and weird looking wasps. A beautiful Engrailed moth did anything but stand out, matching the lichen covered trunk perfectly. And then finally the fluff. There clinging to the trunk was a small ball of grey and orange fluff, a female Rannoch Brindled Beauty moth soaking up the sun and waiting for a male to turn up. Gradually as I got my eye in I found more, after 30 mins 10 females and also 1 male with its delicately decorated tent like wings matching the lichens that it sat on.
All these insects are early birds, they get their life cycles going early in the year before there are too many predators about by trading less danger for colder temperatures and less available plant food. Even on the Moss there are species adapted to just about every niche and time of year.

What a difference 2 weeks can make

It's like grandmothers footsteps, as soon as you turn your back everything changes. After months of unchanging winter hardship I take a couple of weeks holiday and its all new when i come back. Well actually the weather is still the same mind with frosts, bitterly cold northerly winds though now seasoned with a sprinkling of volcanic ash. But things are happening. Even as I drove down the track to the boardwalk a wheatear flitted off the track onto a fencepost, its just passing through on the way north, and more unusual, a cuckoo swooped across the track onto the Moss - a good few days earlier than normal. Once at the car park the willow warblers had also arrived and were yelling at the top of their voices, curlews were bubbling in the fields next to the moss, the carrion crow was sitting on its nest and the common gulls had reached a gaggle of 20+ on the pool by the seat. Plant life was magically bubbling up from the dead moss surface, cotton grass flowers stuck up like a rack of spears and in one place a small patch of wood anemones showed. These give a hint of a past wooded spring landscape long gone. Spring is in full swing, if you blink you'll miss it.

The Search For Belly Button Fluff

This rare species and habitat monitoring is not always what it is cut out to be. Last week I was out on the Moss monitoring the water levels in the peat. This means an 8 hour, 12 mile slog in a big circle around the bog visiting all 22 water measuring devices to see how wet the Moss is and how weel our "making the bog wetter work " is going. As it was the right time of year I decided to check for one of our rarest moths, the Rannoch Brindled Beauty. This moth is an early one coming out of its pupae in March and April to meet up, mate and lay its eggs on bog myrtle. As it is a cold time of year the moth wears a thick furry coat to keep warm. The males have a fetching grey and orange mottled look that matches perfectly the base of the birch trees where they sit waiting for a warmer day. All the females have to do is crawl from the ground where they have pupated up a nearby birch tree and wait for a male to turn up. For this they don't need wings and so don't have any. However this means that with their thick fur coat they look very like a small bit of belly button fluff . So you can imagine the job, looking for a bit of fluff about 1 cm long on the base of trees across a nature rerserve the size of 2200 football pitches. And I didn't find any ! The pay back came in the form of a pine beauty moth and 3 golden horns moths, both common species but still beautiful. And the base of birch trees are not too shaby on the moss being encrusted with lichens and algae. But after 12 miles on the bog I was walking a bit funny the next day.

New Fence, Old Boundary

The fencers have finished a new fence out on the Moss. It fences off a piece of land on the west edge of Flanders that hasn't been grazed for many years. The aim is to get some sheep grazing onto it to increase the number of wildflowers you find there, the sheep removed the yearly grass growth, reduce the shady that the grass causes and thereby create gaps for wildflowers to grow into. This field is also right on the edge of the Moss so maybe act as a springboard for when we want to graze further out on the bog in the future. What is interesting is that for part of the length the fence runs along a slightly raised, straight bank. What is the story of this bank ? To find out you need to look at the historical maps and the Flanders Moss historical research project carried out by local historian John Harrison. It turns out that the bank was a land division put in in 1749 when a Mr. Hew Graeme, a local man and Edinburhg lawyer, bought the land. Mr. Graeme was a developer, different from the modern day developers in that he bought unproductive bogland that couldn't be farmer with the aim to turn it into productive farmland. He bought 2 parcels of land, the piece that we have fenced and a piece at Poldar Moss right next to where the boardwalk and car park is today. For 10 years he put in all his capital and considerable effort to try to turn a profit on the peat. At the Poldar Moss area he usedthe method of clayed moss, that is he (or his team of labourers) dug ditches across the peatland down to the clay and spread the clay he dug out onto the surface of the dried out bog and mized in with burned peat to make a soil. This was then ploughed with breast ploughs wrought by mean as the ground was too wet to bear oxen or horses. This he tried farming for a few years but after 10 years of toil his money ran out and he disappeared leaving the land to revert back to the people who sold it to them.
The fencers are local father and son team George and Alistair Watt from Gargunnock. They have done a large amount of fencing on the Moss and are well used to its soft, wet and wonderful ways. Last year they put up several 1000 yards of fencing out on the deep peat. Hard graft as it is too wet to do much by machine so a lot of the materials were carried out and put in by hand in waterlogged conditions. 200 years later, though they are doing a different task, the Watts labouring out on the Moss is very similar to the labouring done by Mr. Graeme's team but hopefully with more success.