ATISHOOOOO........

Two sunny days here have brought the grass pollen levels up dramatically. This morning it seems to be the turn of the cocksfoot grass (dactylis glomerata) to come into flower (yes, grasses DO flower, see below). A puff of wind rippling a hayfield I was passing today showed pollen drifting from the patches of cocksfoot like a light cloud of smoke. Hay fever sufferers beware!

This distinctive, tall grass (one of the easiest of all the grasses to recognise), much more cultivated by farmers previously than now, was introduced to Britain in the late 1700s from North America. It has lost favour recently as a forage crop with the introduction of many species of ryegrass which are considered more suitable for making sileage. Cocksfoot, nevertheless, is a strong, deep rooted grass which does very well in drought prone soils or in low rainfall areas, and produces very rapid re-growth after mowing

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Moonshine....

This week there is a tiny crescent moon in the sky - but can YOU tell, just by looking at it, whether it's a new moon or an old moon, whether it's waxing or waning? And does it matter anyway? According to many cultures, there are many things which should only be done under a certain phase of the moon. Take gardening, for example.
It is said that during a waxing moon you should:

• repot your houseplants,
• sow seeds and transplant vegetable crops such as peas, beans, lettuce, cabbage (all 'above ground' crops
  
• plant any fruit trees and bushes
• fertilise all plants

and under a waning moon you should:

• plant bulbs
• sow seeds or plant vegetable crops that grow below the ground, such as potatoes, turnips, onions carrots, beetroot etc

Anyway, back to the original problem - how to tell. Well, help is at hand in the form of a poem by Christina Rossetti:

O Lady Moon.
O Lady Moon, your horns point toward the east:
Shine, be increased;
O Lady Moon, your horns point toward the west:
Wane, be at rest.

In other words, (because the moon travels round the southern sky in the northern hemisphere) if the horns on the moon you are looking at point to the left, it's a new moon; to the right, it's an old moon.

So much moonshine? Try it and see.......

Where have all the visitors gone.....

I am reminded of the old Pete Seeger song "Where have all the flowers gone?" - except in this case it's "Where have all the visitors gone?".

After seeing record numbers through the door of the Visitor Centre in May (up 67% on last year), June numbers have crashed again. June has of course been a bad month weatherwise even for NE Scotland, both cold and wet: could it be, to go back to Pete Seeger (well, nearly!) that the response is "Caught pneumonia, everyone" ?

Our figures for May had, of course, two major boosts. The first was the week-long local Whisky Festival which without doubt attracted large numbers of visitors into the area, and the second was the 'Julia Bradbury effect' following a showing on BBC2 of the episode of "Railway Walks" that was shot on the old railway between Craigellachie and Ballindalloch. (This is available on DVD from the BBC and also from outlets such as Amazon). The night after this was shown there was a spectacular spike of hits on the Speyside Way website, and since then we have had a real influx of visitors asking where the locations were!

Never under-estimate the power of the media!

Life and death on the Speyside Way

One of the many benefits of working as a ranger are those concerning wildlife sightings. Sometimes it can be a fleeting glimpse of a squirrel scampering through the trees, a flash of a woodpeckers wing or the cry of a buzzard.

Live sightings are a pleasant bonus to my working day, but unfortunitaly more often than not I see quite a few road casualities. The two victims I see the most are badgers and red squirrels, both are seen scampering across the many roads around the county. As sad as it may be even these RTA victims can help in the on going monitoring of these particular two animals.

If you do see any sightings of badgers or squirrels, then log onto these two websites and report your sightings, yes, even road victims. So even in their death they can help towards the continuing monitoring and research of these two very welcomed residents of Speyside.

www.scottishbadgers.org.uk

www.grampiansquirrelgroup.co.uk

Have a browse through these websites to learn more about these creatures and how maybe you can help with the monitoring of them

Silver Linings!

'Flaming June' ? Pah! Flaming Heck! What happened to June, more like! Relentless arrows of rain have been showering down on Aberlour this morning and the sky still looks moody and sullen - but hey-ho-it's still early-ish -so anything can happen. On the bright side - if you are a duck you are gonna love it today on the Speyside Way.

If you don't wimp out at the thought of a little rain, then there is plenty of good stuff to be enjoyed on the 'Way' at the moment.
Something amazing has happened to the plant life - in amongst the wildly burgeoning hedgerows there are blinks of bruised blue forget-me-nots and purple vetch. April and May brought primrose, bluebells and fragile wood sorrel and sexy wild garlic- both edible!

Now it's June we have the headily exotic scents of Dame's violet, the intensely spicy yellow broom, banks of whins wafting coconut and frothy cream, aniseed scented Sweet Cicely.

Now, surely, with all that laying seige to your nostrils you could use your imagination, forget the Scotch mist and enjoy this feast for the senses.

If in the unlikely event that you need further encouragement to take a trip to Speyside, the forecast is all set for sunny intervals over the weekend. So come and enjoy.

No motor vehicles, please.......

Driving a motor vehicle on the Speyside Way, except of course where the Way follows a public road or the vehicle has specific permission from the landowner, is an offence under Section 34 of the 1988 Road Traffic Act:

"1) Subject to the provisions of this section, if without lawful authority a person drives a motor vehicle—

(a) on to or upon any common land, moorland or land of any other description, not being land forming part of a road, or

(b) on any road being a footpath or bridleway,

he is guilty of an offence.

(2) It is not an offence under this section to drive a motor vehicle on any land within fifteen yards of a road, being a road on which a motor vehicle may lawfully be driven, for the purpose only of parking the vehicle on that land".

Police will and do prosecute offenders - Aviemore police, for example, are currently investigating an alleged incident between Aviemore and Boat of Garten with the intention of bringing just such a prosecution.

The very cold showery weather persists - day-time temperatures are struggling to get into double figures, and there are reports of night-time frosts. This, we fear, must have taken its toll on ground nesting birds in particular - tiny chicks such as the newly hatched snipe I saw last night really struggle to survive a soaking in cold conditions.

Don't panic!

Don’t panic! The aliens have not landed (well, not that we know of, anyway)!

The ‘cobwebs’ you can see on many Bird Cherry trees (prunus padus) along the Speyside Way are not the work of an invasion of giant spiders, only the result of activity by a relatively common moth, the Bird Cherry Ermine (Yponomeuta evonymella)

On hatching, the caterpillars of this moth can quite quickly spin a silk ‘tent’ over the twigs and branches where they can feed on the leaves in safety, protected from birds and parasitic ichneumon wasps by their surrounding shield.

During a major infestation of ermine moth caterpillars, whole bird cherry trees can be completely enveloped in this silken stocking and become totally defoliated. These outbreaks are sporadic, however, and while the trees may appear leafless and lifeless immediately afterwards, they tend to recover in subsequent years.

On Speyside, this is the third attack we have had in successive years, and some of our bird cherries are looking a bit sorry for themselves.

We will not, however, be sending out the Rangers to clean the trees, as has been suggested to us!

Out and about....

Well the weather has drastically changed from the weekend and earlier on in the week. We were down near Tormore distillery doing some fencing repairs in shorts and t-shirts. Now I'm back in trousers and jumper......a better sight some may say if they've ever seen my pasty white legs.

Life as a SW ranger is wide and varied with every day different. The best laid plans and all that. I'm hopefully going down to Nethy Bridge and Boat of Garten today to lop back the broom and gorse from the track down there......nature never rests and its a continual battle to keep the track open. A good session of lopping will be welcomed to keep this cold weather at bay.

Normal service has been resumed!

Well, summer did not last long - the northern European gloom has re-asserted itself and we're back down to 12 degrees!

Still, the Speyside Way seems busy with back-packers - perhaps more than we've seen for quite a few years, and the Visitor Centre is busy too - though not actually this morning, as it happens. We now have an added attraction next door where the tearoom has re-opened for the summer, in the original part of the Aberlour railway station.

Out on the track the birds are in full song - is it my imagination or are there more sedge warblers around this year than usual? Their raucous chattering song seems to be coming from
every bush. Any thoughts?

If you would like a reminder of what these enthusiastic wee songsters sound like, follow this external link for a couple of snippets of sedge warbler song:

http://www.freesound.org/tagsViewSingle.php?id=2945

Get a grip!

Well ,this is my very first blog posting but hopefully not my last. Being a Ranger on the Speyside Way I am more at home with taming vegetation, constructing boardwalks, talking to the plants etc. Blogging is a new and interesting world that I will have to get used to, small steps mind!

Whats happening out on the way this week. Well, Chris and I will be continuing to lay down sheets of gripping on the bridges on the B'lloch to Craigellachie stretch. Things were getting a bit slippy on the bridge surfaces for SW users, so hopefully these new no-slip surfacing sheets will help feet, hooves and wheels to travel in peace.

Be on the lookout for us and do stop and say hello, Sam and Paddy the faithful ranger dog side kicks will always appreciate a tummy tickle.