Cottage Holidays throughout Scotland

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.

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”.

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.