Ray Collier Country Diary- Bats

Bats - 22nd September 2009

There are 16 resident species of bats in Britain although only four of these are found in the Highlands and one of these is very restricted in its distribution. The Natterer’s bat is not found north of a line roughly from Tain to Kyle of Lochalsh. Perhaps the reason for this is that it is a bat that favours a wide range of broadleaved woodland, large gardens and open parkland and there is not much of any of these north of that line. The Daubenton’s bat is found over almost all of the mainland but absent from either the Northern or Western Isles. It feeds low over water of lochs, rivers and burns and forages almost exclusively in the one metre airspace above the water. Insects are taken on the wing by the large feet or tail membrane and quickly transferred to the mouth whilst it continues its flight. The insects are taken both in the air and from the surface of the water and some of these bats have been seen taking as much as 40% of their prey from the water surface. The brown long eared bat with, as the name suggests, large ears, is more widespread in that it also occurs on the Northern Isles as well as the mainland. It prefers open woodland and parkland and is found in urban areas with large gardens and trees. The pipistrelle bat is the most widespread and commonest of the four in the Highlands and it occurs on the mainland and Northern Isles. Recent distribution maps show no records for the Western Isles but there have been a few roosts found in Stornoway although, as yet, none in the Uists Its abundance must be due in part to their adaptability as they feed wherever there are enough plants to support an adequate number of insects. Pipistrelles also come out earlier than the other bats and are often seen flying in the daylight before the light fades.
Just in the same way as bird boxes can help birds so bat boxes can help the four bats found in the Highlands as all of them will frequent such boxes at varying times of the year. Pipistrelles are unusual in that they more frequently use the boxes as mating roosts in the autumn. The boxes are meant to compensate for the lack of suitable holes in old trees, old buildings being renovated and new ones designed so that birds or bats cannot find a niche there. There are many thousands of bat boxes in Britain and one of the very first efforts was a large number of such boxes erected in Ardross Forest by the Forestry Commission. The bat box schemes vary from a few put up by individuals or large schemes involving hundreds of boxes put up by various organisations including bat groups. The success rate varies considerably with some only having 10% occupation and others even 100% although occupied boxes may only be used for a few weeks in the year. Daubenton’s, Natterer’s and brown long-eared bats will use the boxes as nursery roosts. The boxes vary from a simple design with a slit in the bottom and grooves cut to enable the bat to crawl up inside the box to other designs that have been used with success such as one with a variable number of narrow chambers stacked together, each just wide enough for a bat. Bats could well be the most successful mammals ever to have evolved and it is an interesting thought that in Britain one in three of the native land mammals is a bat.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Hazel

Hazel - 15th September 2009

Although hazel is often classed as a shrub rather than a tree it can grow to 30 feet. Very few reach this height because they have been traditionally cut and the many stems rising from the "stool" form coppiced hazel. These very pliant hazel rods have been used in a wide variety of ways from building primitive boats to hurdles to pen sheep. At this time of the year the tree is in full leaf each leaf growing to four inches long and broad with a variable outline. The leaves are alternate, with saw-toothed edges, a drawn out tip and hairy surfaces. The nuts grow in clusters of up to four with each partly enclosed in leafy, overlapping bracts. The characteristics of the leaves and nuts can be seen in the photograph that was taken on a roadside in September at Strathnairn just south of Inverness. The trees widespread throughout the Highlands and occurs on the Western and Northern Isles. It grows under larger trees in woodland but is equally at home on roadsides, hedgerows and cliffs.
Hazel was one of the first colonisers, after birch, once the ice age had retreated and at one time it would have been the most abundant shrub. The new shoots have always been used by man and there is evidence that deliberate coppicing may have started some 4,000 years ago. The hazel rods can be split lengthways and twisted and bent at sharp angles without them breaking. This enabled them to be woven, bent back on themselves and even tied into knots. It is still used to peg down thatch in which pieces of hazel have to be bent through 180 degrees. The cutting of hazel, usually over a cycle of about seven years, was of considerable benefit to insects such as various species of butterflies. This coppicing cycle meant light came into the woodland in the form of glades that not only gave calm and sunny conditions but also a wealth of wild flowers that the butterflies used as a nectar source.
The myth and folk lore surrounding the hazel manifests itself in a variety of ways. It was considered to be a protective tree much in the same way as the rowan. Carrying a twig or a cluster of nuts, particularly a cluster of three, was supposed to guard against all evils. Twigs could protect horses from enchantment from fairies by tying hazel twigs into their manes. The nuts ripen from mid-August to October and it is said to take nine years for a tree to produce its first full crop of nuts. Nine is a sacred number and this is one of the reasons the hazel is anciently revered. The ancient Celts regarded the hazel as the Tree of Knowledge and all knowledge was contained in the hazelnut’s kernel, hence the saying "in a nutshell". The nuts have always been a food source for a variety of animals such as red squirrels and wood mice plus wood pigeons and pheasants.
One of the less known uses of hazel was for divining water. Forked hazel wands, traditionally best cut on Midsummer’s Eve, were gripped in each hand and pulled apart until a pressure pulled them together. The fork is supposed to turn back and turn as you pass underground water. This practise has also been used to search for mineral veins and even buried treasure. Hazel is the plant badge of Clan Colquhoun and was formally registered at the Lyon Court. Bearberry was also used but not registered. The Gaelic name for hazel is "calltainn" although the spellings vary and a local name is "nuttall".

Ray Collier Country Diary- Butterflies

Butterflies - 8th September 2009

Butterflies need two types of food, nectar or other liquids for the adults and food, mainly in the form of leaves, for the caterpillars. Nectars come from a range of flowers with some butterflies seeking only one or two species of flowers whilst others take a wider range. Most of the thistles found in the Highlands, including the white form of the marsh thistle in the photograph, provide a nectar source for a wide range of butterflies. Areas with thistles at this time of the year are well worth looking at when the sun is shining. One of the commonest garden butterflies, the green veined white, uses a wide range but is particularly attracted, for some unknown reason, to both white and pink flowers. In contrast the dingy skipper, which is rare around Inverness but found at Nairn dunes, mainly seeks nectar from common bird’s foot trefoil. We are all used to a range of butterflies such as red admiral, small tortoiseshell, peacock and painted lady using Buddleia but some butterflies will look elsewhere for substitutes.
A good example is red admirals that will freely go to any fallen apples as juices are available after they have rotted slightly or have been attacked by birds or insects. A more specialised source is obtained by such butterflies as the speckled wood that in recent years has spread to new areas of the Highlands. The adults will seek nectar from ragwort and other wild flowers but the main source of food comes from honeydew from aphids found on ash, birch and oak. The purple hairstreak, that has only recently been recorded in the Highlands, goes one further in that it drinks the honeydew from aphids only on oak trees. It is perhaps not surprising then that the food plants of the caterpillars of the purple hairstreak are the leaves of the oak. Sap oozing from trees is often visited by butterflies and some of the old collectors used to attract some butterflies such as the red admiral and purple emperor by putting out decaying meat, such as rabbit, along woodland rides. In periods of hot weather, certainly not like this summer in the Highlands, butterflies will often freely go to water, such as puddles, to drink.
One critical part of the butterflies life cycle is finding the correct food plant for the caterpillar stage and some butterflies accept a wide range of plants whilst others, as with the nectar source, are more specialised. One of the commonest butterflies in the Highland is the Scotch argus and the caterpillars feed on virtually any of the broader leaved grasses. They have even been seen laying their eggs as the adult female flies just above the vegetation such as a roadside verge. White butterflies such as the large white and small white will feed on a wide range of brassicas which is one of the reasons they are so successful. Six species of fritillary, including the two pearl bordered fritillaries, that occur in the Highlands all feed on various species of violets. In contrast 12 species of butterflies that occur in Britain are reliant upon single caterpillar food plants.
One aspect of the life cycle of butterflies is why some species have an association with ants. This is particularly the case with members of the "blue family", which in the Highlands includes the common blue, which is widespread. What happens is that the caterpillar emits sweet liquids from a gland that attracts ants day and night and they simply drink the liquid. The attendance of the ants helps the caterpillars chances of survival because the ants keep predators and parasites away.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Aspens

1st September - Aspens

Aspens are small poplar trees growing up to 20 metres tall and are relatively short lived, living to about 60 years of age. The young silvery-green bark becomes part covered with black diamond shaped markings as it gets older. The male catkins are brownish while the female catkins are greenish and borne on separate trees. Aspens very rarely set seed in this country but reproduce with great vigour by means of suckers, often resulting in the growth of a small wood around a single parent tree. They must set seed at some time, because they occur in isolated sites that could not have been colonised by any other means. Apart from their habit of suckering so freely, the most remarkable characteristic of the trees are their leaves. In the summer, they are a light, almost sparkling green that turns to a glorious amber yellow in the Autumn before dropping to the ground and fading to black. The leaves are hairless except when very young and are almost round. They have edges like large rounded teeth. Unusually they are waterproof with two minute resin-lined cups at the bottom of each leaf blade which catch and absorb the moisture. The very long leaf stalks that can be seen in the photograph are flat and grow at right angles to the blade of the leaf. This means they catch the slightest breeze and forever seem to be trembling - hence one of their Latin names "tremula". The length of the leaf stalks means the leaves rub together so that the whole tree will make a soft, rustling, whispering sound. The trees are to be found scattered throughout the Highlands and , perhaps surprisingly, in the Western and Northern Isles. They can be frequent in rocky or wet woodland, gorges, cliffs, waterside and on heaths. Sometimes the tree grows singly in the midst of other species in woods, sometimes in the open and occasionally in small copses with only aspen present. It can be rather awe inspiring to suddenly come across a single aspen with suckers miles from any other trees, especially when it is in its autumn colour of amber yellow with occasional clumps of red leaves. The autumn colouring is so outstanding that one can look at a wood or cliff from a distance and readily pick out the aspen by its colour. Some people believe that the aspen at Carbisdale Castle near Bonar Bridge is the largest in Britain but there are many other places where fine examples can be seen. The main track up towards Ben Wyvis from the west runs alongside a gorge with some superb aspens, whilst, in contrast, there is a small grove of them on the banks of Gask Burn near Balnafoich just south of Inverness. The distribution of aspen in the Highlands is now better known than ever before. This is largely due to the recent realisation they are very important for a wide range of insects that feed on them or are associated with them. Unfortunately, the tree suffers from overgrazing by rabbits, sheep, deer and wild goats. However, this fact has now been realised and some areas of aspens have now been fenced off. Before the beaver became extinct in Scotland in medieval times, the aspen must have provided the animal’s staple diet - as the American aspen still does for the beaver in Canada. With this is mind it will be interesting to see what happens if the beaver is reintroduced into the Highlands and what they do to the aspens.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Blackthorn

25th August - Blackthorn

From a distance, blackthorn bushes are not easy to identify. However, on closer inspection in the next few weeks the dark bark - darker than any other tree in the Highlands - and the berries, called sloes, give them away. The bushes lose their leaves in the winter and will grow to five metres so that from a distance they look like a small tree. The crown is rounded and often broader than tall and its spreads widely by suckers. However, the easiest way to find blackthorn bushes is to look for them much earlier in the year as they have vivid white flowers that blossom as early as April. This means that they stand out from some distance and in most areas they are the only bushes in flower at that time of the year. It is these white flowers that give it the other name of whitethorn. The crop of sloes varies considerably and in some years there is none, while in other years the twigs hang heavy with them. Last year was something of a mystery as some bushes had an excellent crop whilst others in the same area had none, with the only sloes being the old shrivelled ones from the previous year. The sloe crop is affected by the weather, so perhaps some of the bushes were in a frost pocket and others escaped. The best place in the Highlands to find blackthorn bushes is around Inverness, either in hedgerows, copses or along the margins of woodland. Autumn is the time of the year to collect the sloes for making the famous sloe gin and people can be seen with containers hanging around their necks and walking sticks being used to pull the upper branches down. Unlike brambles, which are often eaten when collecting, nobody eats the sloes as they are very bitter to taste, although they look attractive as they are deep blue with a thick waxy bloom. There are only a few places where there enough blackthorn bushes to collect lots of sloes, so most people keep the locations to themselves. It is fortunate for the sloe pickers that birds, apart from blackbirds, leave the fruits alone until late October or even November, when all the thrushes, including the migrants from Scandinavia, will take them. Nobody is sure why they are not taken before this, as they are certainly ripe but perhaps they need some frosts to soften them enough for the birds. Another possible explanation is that when the sloes are ripe, so are the hawthorn berries and these are preferred by most of the thrushes. Other birds that take them include robin, carrion/hooded crow and starling and in a good crop they will take them into January. While the dense leaves and spines of the blackthorn have been used as stock fencing, at the same time the bushes give good cover for breeding sites for birds. Around Inverness they are often used by sparrowhawks plus the occasional loose colonies of bullfinches and one year a redwing nested in a line of bushes near Inverness. In company with May, the blackthorn has long been regarded as a plant that should never be brought indoors when it is in flower and the bush has long been associated with evil. However, the traditional Irish clubs, the shillelaghs, were made from the shrub and the traditional rod used for knocking on the doors of Parliament at its opening, is made of blackthorn.

Ray Collier Country Diary- White Dead Nettle

18th August - White Dead Nettle

White dead-nettle has a characteristic ring of large white flowers that are, on close inspection, faintly suffused with green. The leaves are broad and up to 8 cms long with a serrated margin and a stalk up to 5 cm long. It is a tall plant, up to 100 cm with green four angled stems and it spreads by creeping underground runners that form dense patches in some places. This may be the reason that despite being attractive and the leaves used in cooking it is not often grown in gardens. It grows in a variety of places from open grassland to woodland and generally on moist, fertile soils. There is a mystery over the distribution of this plant in the Highlands. It is reasonably common around Inverness but elsewhere it is very rare indeed with just a couple or records from the west coast, virtually none in Sutherland and Caithness or the rest of the mainland. It is absent from the Western and Northern Isles. This is despite the fact that in all these areas there are apparently suitable habitats for the plant to flourish.
The leaves are eaten by the caterpillars of one of our most attractive moths, the burnished brass. As the name suggests this moth has shiny brass like wings that are formed by light playing on the microscopic scales. Other moth caterpillars that eat the leaves are angle shades and garden tigers. Only certain insects such as bees can reach the nectar in their flowers but some insects attack the side of the flowers to bore in after the nectar. This nectar source is particularly valuable to insects early in the year before other blossoms have come into flower. From our point of view the young shoots and leaves are edible but are best picked before flowering and can be eaten in salads or mixed with other leaf vegetables and cooked like spinach. Young shoots, leaves and flower buds can also be added to soups, sauces and stews. At one time youngsters used to suck the bottom of the flowers to get the nectar to eat. Medicinally it has been used as a herbal medicine by making it into a tincture or powder for treating a variety of problems. At one time in the Highlands it was used as an ointment to treat bleeding cuts and for sore feet and toothache.
There is another mystery surrounding this plant as its origin in Britain, including the Highlands, is open to debate depending which book you consult. Some say it is native whilst others say it is an introduction or an escape from cultivation. There is the suspicion that it was anciently introduced, perhaps for food. It gets its name from the fact that before it flowers it very much resembles stinging nettle, an easy mistake to make in the spring. The flowers are quite different and the plants are not in any way related. Local names include bee nettle because it attracts bees, archangel, blind nettle and deaf nettle. The Gaelic name is Teanga Mhin meaning smooth tongue. The photograph of the plant was taken on a drystone wall just south of Inverness. At this time of the year such sites are a riot of colour with blossoms of harebell, lady’s bedstraw, ferns and birds foot trefoil. It is also one of the dominant plants in an adjoining field that has been planted with a mixed seed crop that will not be cut for two years. The resulting dense cover shelters and feeds pheasants that are released every year for sporting purposes.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Oak Trees

11th August - Oak Trees

The pedunculate oak is impressive by any standards as the large branches rise from a short trunk to form a massive crown rising up to 115 ft or more. The leaves are alternate and almost stalkless with four or five lobes on each side. Young bark is smooth and shiny but with age it becomes fissured forming narrow vertical grey areas. The male flowers hang in thin catkins on narrow branches with the small female flowers at the ends. The acorns sometimes occur in pairs with long stalks and the years they are abundant, known as "mast" years, only occur every six or seven years. The acorn crop is mainly determined by the weather conditions of the previous year at the time when the flower buds first form. In other years there are fewer acorns and in some years none at all. In the Highlands the pedunculate oak is common and widespread in the south and east but is less common in the west and north. It occurs in one place in the Western Isles and there are, apparently, none in the Northern Isles.
Of all the British trees, this oak supports the widest variety of insect life and is top of the "famous five" the others being birch, hawthorn, blackthorn and willow. More fungi are associated with oak than with any other native tree and many species seem to be restricted to them. The odd looking, but edible, beefsteak fungus occurs on old living oaks and dead oak stumps. Jays and squirrels will bury very many acorns to store them for future eating but, fortunately for the oaks, many acorns are not found again. It is difficult to over estimate the role that the oak has played in the history of Britain. Oak was, for centuries, the foundation of the Royal Navy and the dependence on oak beams for the construction of large buildings has been there since medieval times. What is often overlooked is the role of oak bark in the tanning industry. At one time 90,000 tons of oak bark was used each year for this industry which means about 500,000 tons of felled timber. In folklore the oak has been one of the most important elements of folklore throughout Europe since the earliest times. Druids in Celtic Britain held the tree most sacred and especially prized mistletoe growing on it which must have been quite rare. Oak was the sacred wood burnt by the Druids for their midsummer sacrifice and started by rubbing two oak sticks together. The acorns were widely used in medicine and also in culinary use. Acorn coffee was the national beverage during the rationing of the First World War and it is said to have antiseptic qualities. The acorns are roasted in a moderate oven until dark brown and then ground in a coffee grinder and prepare as with coffee. The leaves can make wine or tea.
The Gaelic name is Darach and it can sometimes be seen in place names such as Craigdarroch, although spelt slightly differently, meaning "rock of oak". The Latin name Quercus is said to be of Celtic origin, meaning "fine tree". Oak is the plant badge of eleven Clans including Wallace, Stewart and Shaw. It is the commonest of the oaks around Inverness, the others being the native sessile oak and introduced turkey oak. There is a particularly fine, large example of a pedunculate oak at Brahan and a fine roadside specimen near Farr, Inverness. With such a high value in terms of wildlife, building and scenic looks the future of this oak seems assured.