Monday, February 6, 2017

Skye - Creeping along quite nicely

Managed to get out and about in the square a couple of times this week. Not too many additions to my overall tally but good hits from the beach included Black Guillemot, the fungus Stigmidium ascophylli on Egg Wrack bladders, the kelp fly Coelopa pilipes and an Otter at point blank range. 

The dark spots are the fruit bodies of Stigmidium ascophylii. Pretty damn stunning huh....
Ok, so I need to buy a proper camera!
In the woods plants are starting to burst into life with budburst being particularly advanced in both Elder and Fuchsia. Lots of Primroses pushing through too, I found the flymine Chromatomyia primulae on several old leaves, all vacated and hence (by my own rules) not admissable on the tally. Similarly the empty Thornback Ray egg case I found on the beach isn't on my tally. 

Empty - therefore not countable by my own Rules. Same with leafmines/galls/dead stuff.
Woodpigeon finally hurled itself onto the list, I'd been living on Skye two months to the day before I saw one (in fact it was two together. Bit like buses here. You wait 2 months....)

Very much looking forward to discovering which plants are here (I'm not too hot on 1cm tall seedlings) and massively looking forward to seeing lots more invert action. Apart from midges, but I guess that goes with the territory over here. 

Tally as of 5th February is 290 species and I've plenty in pots plus this afternoon free. Shouldn't be too much longer before I reach the 300th species...he says in a hopeful manner!

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