Back in Scotland

I awoke refreshed, having slept in a bed for just the sixth time since heading south twenty-nine days earlier. I was on the road early and soon arrived at Eskrigg NR near Lockerbie. 

This is a known site for Purple Small-reed Calamagrostis canescens, a plant I've never knowingly seen before. It grows here between a small woodland and a lake and should be fairly obvious, towering above the other marginal plants. My plan was to sneak through the screen of trees and scan the waterside vegetation with my binoculars before, assuming it was possible, approaching the plants to check them out with a handlens and key. One glance at the lake full of fidgety wildfowl blew that plan out of the water, so I resorted to wandering the path and scanning from bird hides. Lots of birds seen (including my first Nuthatch in Scotland) but I could see nothing resembling the Calamagrostis from the first two hides. There was one last hide to try, I wandered the track and stumbled across this fine Box-leaved Honeysuckle, a lifer no less!

Leaf 20mm with raised midrib. Whole bush less than 2ft tall. Lonicera pileata sorted!

Box-leaved Honeysuckle has been on my radar for a while now, I'd worried that I'd overlooked it as Wilson's Honeysuckle, but actually it's quite a different beast - and the leaves really do look like Box leaves. This appears to be the first record for Dumfries & Galloway. The final hide was a bit of a washout, I'd officially run out of publicly accessible viewpoints without finding the Calamagrostis. The reserve was by now rapidly filling up with dog-walkers; I decided to quit the site and head elsewhere in search of another target plant that I had in mind. 

Possibly Round-leaved Crowfoot Ranunculus omiophyllus - on the wrong side of a wide stream

I'd like to come back to Eskrigg NR and try for the Calamagrostis later in the year. Despite the multitudes of dogwalkers, it's a really nice reserve and the hides are some of the best I've ever seen. For now though, I aimed myself towards the bleak hills a few miles north of Muirkirk, hoping to find a diminutive plant that I've tried for in previous years but have always failed to find. 

I have a quick routine that I employ when researching unfamiliar sites that I plan to visit for specific plants. First I find the site on this website, then I drop a pin on the nearest bit of road. Next I view that stretch of road on Streetview. This allows me to 'virtually' drive up and down the road scoping out the best area to park up, or to spot potential issues (high walls, deer-fences, private access signs etc) as well as allowing me to see the landscape I'll be visiting once I'm actually there in person. It's a good system, often I'll be approaching a site and say to myself, to give a random example, "oh yeah, I remember seeing that barn on Streetview. I can park a little beyond it and the gateway is just across the road from a phonebox". Which is how it happened with the meandering road that runs north of Muirkirk. I rounded a corner, saw a sign to a farm and remembered it as being the track that had a bridge across the river. Half a mile further on I'd find a layby, park up, walk back to the farm track and cross the river. And sure enough, half a mile up the road I found the layby. I walked back, crossed the river, walked upstream and soon arrived at the site for my target plant. All I had to do now was find it...

The dark, mossy flush in the middle of the image is where I needed to be

Dark, mossy flush now in the foreground. Eyes down and.... 

Success!!! This is Hairy Stonecrop Sedum villosum

I was pretty damned pleased to finally find myself eye-balling Hairy Stonecrop. I've twice tried for it elsewhere, both occasions necessitating a long, uphill slog. This was a mere twenty minute walk from the car on mostly level ground. With hindsight I could probably have parked up a little way along the farm track reducing the walk to just a few hundred metres. Then again, why risk having an irate farmer tip my car into the river with his tractor.

I know what you're thinking, that there aren't any hairs on the Hairy Stonecrop. Yes, quite. Even through a 10x handlens, I was hard pushed to say the plants were anything but glabrous. I found this somewhat disconcerting and started to doubt the identity of these plants. But they do key through to Sedum villosum, the grid reference was absolutely spot on and the colony has been known (and repeatedly visited) for over sixty years. Plus there are no other Sedums that occur in wet mossy flushes in the British uplands. Further investigations told me that some plants are glabrous, though not in this part of Scotland. My conclusion is that either this colony is atypically hairless, or that this late into the winter the hairs have worn off. Ghostie's conclusion is that it's something else and I need to remove it from my list straight away. I say he can go do one, lol.

I had one last target plant to attempt whilst I was still in southern Scotland, then I'd head northwards and back to Skye (and reality) once more. I hit the road, my destination this time being a large waterbody near Trabboch, about half an hour away.

Large waterbody near Trabboch, complete with swan

If this was on Skye I'd be jumping up and down in glee at the sight of a Mute Swan. But I was on the mainland, hence it was relegated to mere dross. We birders are weird like that. Ignoring the swan, other than to make sure I didn't hit it, I swung my trusty grapnel around my head and sent it flying across the water and into the depths. Or I would have done had I not been standing on the line. I sent it all of six feet into the water and hauled it up sans exciting water plants. My second lob of around 20ft was far more successful as I snagged my target plant. This is the pic of the spoils of my second hurl

About a cubic foot of Rigid Hornwort Ceratophyllum demersum - that's a lifer for me! 

Holy crap, I wish I was always as successful as that with my grapnel! Literally the second throw (well, first proper throw) and I successfully hauled up my first ever Rigid Hornwort. In fact my first species of any hornwort. An entire family tick, no less. I could see a second aquatic plant mixed in amongst the hornwort, extracting a bit I added Canadian Waterweed Elodea canadensis to the yearlist. I later discovered that it's already known from the site, but I didn't know that at the time. 

Rigid Hornwort Ceratophyllum demersum (upper images) and Canadian Waterweed Elodea canadensis

I needed to cut back to a main road and bypass Glasgow. A veritable maze of country lanes saw me unexpectedly enter a place I'd heard of but didn't honestly think I'd be visiting anytime soon

I definitely didn't see that coming!

I didn't spot any oligarchs, despite the fact that Putler hadn't sent his army into Ukraine just yet. I guess they were all busy making sure their yachts were out of the dry docks just in case they'd be required for a lengthy voyage to, oh I dunno, the Maldives perhaps.

There were roadworks around Glasgow and so I took a 'shortcut' which went wrong. I've done this before and a sudden dread came across me as I realised I'd done it again. Bugger, I was heading north towards Callander instead of northwest towards Loch Lomond. Worse, I was stuck behind a moron who was resolutely sticking to the speed limit. I hate folks like that. Anyway, every cloud has a silver lining - I arrived at Callander and noticed loads of plants growing in a roadside wall. I parked up, walked back to check them out and found myself grinning at the sight of hundreds of Fairy Foxglove rosettes

Fairy Foxglove Erinus alpinus in the fading light

Seeing as I was already parked up in a proper town, I followed my nose and soon found a Chinese takeaway and feasted (yes, feasted!) on the most delicious food I'd tasted in seemingly years. Man, I love a Chinese takeaway! Once I'd finished feeling sick from eating my own bodyweight in spring rolls and noodles, I emptied all the rubbish from my car and headed in what I hoped was the right direction for Skye. Eventually I found Crianlarich and was back on track. Several hours later, I crossed the Skye Bridge and settled in for the home straight of my epic tour of the south. I was back in Uig by about 10pm and in bed (for the seventh time in 30 days!) about an hour later. The really great news was that I discovered that I wasn't expected back in Uig for another day, so I would take tomorrow as a day off work too. Haha, what a complete plonker - I could've had another day in England! Anyway, my journey south had been hugely successful and I returned home with a frankly ridiculous 495 plant species on my yearlist. Tomorrow I would find another five and be halfway to my hoped for 1000 species by the middle of February. And if you'd have told me that at the start of the year, I'd have called you crazy.  

I've recently found myself enjoying what I think is known as hardcore punk. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to find out about this bunch, but I'm liking what I hear. This is Swedish band Refused and if you like this track you ought to try their album The Shape of Punk to Come which is downright brilliant (and a lot less mainstream-sounding). As per usual, hope you enjoy!