Visitors from far and wide

Rudy Gardin has come all the way from Italy for his holiday on Islay, and sent us this lovely picture of a thistle he saw between Lagavulin and Ardbeg. Anyone know what species it is?

Some things to see at Loch Gruinart

More photos from Chris and Harold Burslem, following their recent trip to the island. Here's another visitor, a Black Tailed Godwit, looking handsome in the summer sun

And just up the road at Ardnave, here's one of the locals...

Bog Pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis)

Bog Pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis)is very common on the uplands here - forming rather lovely carpets of tiny flowers at this time of year.

Funghi in cattle dung

This was found growing out of a cow pat at Sanaig - but I cannot identify it. I don't think it is the same as Malcolm's Psilocybe coprophila - not least because the cap was around 10cms in diameter and the stem was 8-10cms long...

Carl

Magpie Moth (Abraxas grossulariata)

Grass of Parnassus (Parnassia palustris), Bog Asphodel (Narthecium ossifragum) and Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia)

Magic? mushroom

You've doubtless heard of dung flies and dung beetles, well here's a dung fungus! There are a number of species that grow on dung, some of them difficult to identify, but I'm reasonably certain that this is Psilocybe coprophila. The Psilocybes are also known as "magic mushrooms" for the effect that they have on the person eating them - the term used by the medical profession is "psychoactive". However, whether one would want to eat a fungus grown on such a substrate would presumably depend upon just how much one wanted a "psychoactive" experience!

Malcolm

Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus)

This was a really bright, and most obliging, male Common Blue butterfly up on the hills above Sanaigmore. There is no colour enhancement of that shot at all - he really was that bright....

Common Sundew (Drosera rotundiflora)

A carnivorous plant the leaves of which are covered in sticky hairs for trapping insects. Found these on a walk up the hill west of Sanaigmore.

Wild Raspberry (Rubus idaeus)

Found near Whin Park on my way back from the Sheepdog Trials. It isn't there any more because I ate it. Delicious.

Seal research team arrive on Islay for four days

What and how many fish do seals eat around Scotland?
The Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU), part of the Scottish Oceans Institute at the University of St. Andrews, is being funded by the Scottish Government to carry out a study on the diet of harbour (common) seals and potential competition with grey seals across the whole of Scotland. There have been substantial declines in harbour seal populations during the last decade in some areas of Britain and this project is part of an overarching study to understand the nature of the harbour seal population decline in Scotland.

From March 2010 the Seal Diet Team will be systematically searching the coastline of Scotland to locate populations of seals and collect their faecal waste for analysis.


http://www.sealdietscotland.co.uk/

Meadow cranesbill (Geranium pratense)

Is currently adorning many of the roadside verges of the Rhinns

Flowers in a Bridgend ditch

The yellow one is a widely naturalised garden escape - The Monkey Flower (Mimulus guttatus) while the red one is Redshank, sometimes known as Common Persicaria (Polygonum persicaria). Both like wet places.

Trochulus striolata

A little snail on a leaf. Not being an expert on snail classification I did a sort of identify-a-snail quiz thing and Trochulus striolata, is what came up on www.conchsoc.org viz

- Trochulus striolata (C. Pfeiffer 1828)
Description: 6.5 - 9 x 11 - 14 mm. Shell slightly depressed convex and conical above, flattened below, with 6 convex whorls which have moderately deep sutures. The last whorl is slightly angled at the periphery, and often encircled by a pale and more opaque spiral band. The umbilicus is medium (one-eighth to one-fifth of width of shell); mouth elliptical, slightly flattened below, with a slightly reflected lip below, and strengthened within by a conspicuous white rib. Shell opaque or slightly translucent, with coarse and irregular growth ridges, and hairless when adult, but slightly hairy when young. Colour variable from dark red-brown to creamy-yellow.
Habitat: Woods, hedges, roadsides and waste ground; gardens (widely spread by man). Usually in damp and shaded places.

Port Ellen Girl wins UK UNESCO Biodiversity Competition

Alice Grey from Port Ellen School has been named the winner of a UK wide 2010 International Year of Biodiversity Competition organised by the UK National Commission for UNESCO. Alice’s winning entry was praised by the judges for using jigsaw imagery to show how all living things are linked, displaying a strong understanding of biodiversity.

Christopher Patterson, also from Port Ellen Primary School, was named runner up. His entry was deemed by the judges to be very artistic and colourful with a striking design that would work well as a reproduced logo or postcard.

The winning entries are displayed on the website of the UK National Commission for UNESCO and the competition will also be featured in the next edition of the newsletter for UNESCO Associated Schools International which will be sent to schools in 180 countries.

The competition was judged by Diana Garnham (Chief Executive, the Science Council), Felix Pepler (Creative Education Consultant) and Leo Vincent (UNESCO Associated Schools in the UK). Diana Garnham said: “The competition entries were outstanding and we had a really enjoyable – and difficult – task to choose the winners. There was inspiring creativity and students demonstrated a real understanding of the challenges to biodiversity as well as of the need for us to take action. Well done to all who took part and especially to the prize-winning entries!”

The competition called for children and young people to help raise awareness of the International Year of Biodiversity by creating an eye catching campaign to celebrate and underline the importance of biodiversity. The United Nations has designated 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) to celebrate the importance of biodiversity and highlight the different threats facing this irreplaceable natural wealth across the globe.

As part of its work to promote the International Year, the UK National Commission has produced an information pack for schools entitled ‘Biodiversity is Life’. The pack includes practical suggestions for how schools can celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity and examples of how UNESCO helps protect biodiversity in the UK, including case studies from UNESCO Biosphere Reserves and natural World Heritage Sites which have distinct biodiversity, including St Kilda.

Grey seal

This young grey seal was resting on a rock this morning immediately opposite the MiniMarket. It was completely indifferent to people including two who went within less than 20 m to photograph it. Hopefully, it's a sign the mackerel have arrived in the loch!

Malcolm

The search is on for Islay's first Purple Hairstreak

After a week of typical holiday weather on Arran, the sun finally decided to make a brief appearance and I decided to search for a butterfly I have always wanted to see - the tiny Purple Hairstreak. I won't bore you with the details because I could go on for hours about it, but - fanfare - I saw it! Now, obviously, this is Arran, not Islay, but it has been recorded there before, as well as Colonsay, so why not Islay? It likes oak trees (its Latin name is Neozephyrus quercus - quercus being Latin for Oak) so, get out there looking - I'm not giving any more clues than that because I want to be first to see it!

Those of you who know me will recognize the hand!

Becky

Garden Tiger Moth

Found a lovely Garden Tiger moth whilst trying in vain to make the Visitor Centre sign stand up in the hurricane this morning. Who needs a moth trap? Picture from Wikipedia

Rock pooling

Every Tuesday and Friday afternoon (2 to 3.30 pm) throughout July and August, the Natural History Trust holds outdoor family activity sessions, covering such things as pond dipping, beach combing, bug hunting, exploring woodlands and, as yesterday afternoon, rock pooling. Posters and leaflets advertise where to meet - or phone the Natural History Centre (01496-850288) to ask. They're good fun and can be quite instructive as the leaders try to identify every creature, bug or plant encountered and to answer the excellent questions that children always seem to manage to ask.

Malcolm

Two ferns

Ferns enhance our ditches and woods and are well worth looking at. Some can take a bit of effort to identify as it may depend on the colour of scales at the bases of the stems, or on the shape of the spore-bearing bodies on the leaves, but here are two straightforward ones.
Hard Fern (Blechnum spicant) has simple, unbranched leaves of two distinct types. The ones with broad leaflets are sterile and grow close to the ground, and are quite different from the more upright fertile leaves (those bearing sporing bodies) with their very narrow leaflets.
Lady Fern (Athyrium filix-femina) looks superficially like many other ferns, with many large leaves growing out from a base. However, the leaves are softer to the touch and more delicate than other species, with the leaves coming to fine points which droop slightly downwards.

Malcolm