Abernyte Naturewatch - Winter 2025
Spring Flowers
It has become usual at this time of year to mention the date of the first flowering of snowdrops in Abernyte, usually the ones beside the burn at Southfield, which have been growing there “in the wild” for many years. This year the snowdrops were up very early, but deciding when they are in full flower is never easy – since that usually requires a little warmth – which has been mainly lacking. The snowdrops along the burn at Southfield are currently (14th February) in full flower but have been up and white for some weeks. Today they were accompanied by a few early Celandines. Like snowdrops, Celandines often do well in moist places in dens and beside burns. The cold weather has not brought out the pollinators to date – although Irene was lucky enough to see a single bee in her garden around the middle of January.
Red Kites and a Carcass
Have you seen a Red Kite?
Having been re-introduced to the Stirling area at Argaty, by Doune between 1996 and 2001, Red Kites are now seen regularly in and around Abernyte and the Carse. Steph and Mike at the top of the village spotted one, recently after a period of absence. It was to the N. side of Abernyte Hill heading towards N. Pitkindie last week. Red Kites differ from the more frequent Buzzards by their long elegant wings and “buoyant” flight and of course by the very distinctive forked tail which is visible even if the light is too bad to see their chestnut colour. Although they will hunt small mammals, birds and insects, they are renowned for feeding on carrion so usefully dispose of dead animals and road kill.
You can visit the Red Kite project at Argaty Red Kites where areas have been re-wilded to include Beaver ponds as well as to encourage other wildlife. Argaty is a working family farm – for further details see https://argatyredkites.co.uk/
Co-incidentally, Barry was alerted to the thoroughly dismembered carcass of a Roe Deer close to N. Pitkindie, part of the body so totally missing that we wondered what could have dismembered it, perhaps it was road kill eaten by a badger. Such rich meaty pickings might also provide food for Red Kites, Tawny Owls and other scavengers.
Beavers
Another new-comer, the Beaver has been seen not only dead on the A90 (as mentioned in the autumn newsletter), but is also around in the Braes of the Carse, but not as far as we know in Abernyte. The tell-tale gnawing and damning activities of Beavers are hard to miss. With the increasing problems of run-off and floods resulting from wet periods, beavers are thought to slow the water flow down burns, capture suspended sediment and reduce flooding. This could all represent a valuable contribution to resilience and mitigating climate change in our villages. Wetlands created by Beavers can also enhance biodiversity and create habitat for fish as well as their food such as dragonfly nymphs and other invertebrates.
It is always great to welcome a new season and a new year - nature is full of hope and so should we be! - Wishing you a verdant spring some wonderful walks and time spent in nature for 2025!
Cathy
14th February 2025
Welcome to Abernyte
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Abernyte Naturewatch - Autumn 2024 Luck has been on our side in recent weeks - having enjoyed, so far, relatively dry autumnal weather - making it possible to enjoy the colours of the leaves as they turn from green to yellows, oranges, chestnuts and finally browns. This year the leaves have come off the trees quite gradually, with only Storm Ashley to help them, the first named storm for the 2024/25 season. Fallen leaves are a pleasure to kick your way through, but only when they are dry! Looking at fallen leaves I have discovered recently can be a source of entertainment as well as interest. All sorts of small larval creatures, including flies and beetles as well as my favourites, moths, make lives within them. Often these “leaf miners” as they are known, are clearly visible. As they feed they make tiny channels of particular shapes within the leaf. Others make little “blister mines” and may cause distortion of the leaf, making them easy to see. The little moths which eventually emerge from the mines (not until next spring at this time of year) are beautiful little miniatures, each one with its own unique markings. Next time you are feeling a bit bored whilst waiting for a No.39 or Ember bus, have a look at the leaves and see if you can spot a leaf-miner! The bus will arrive much quicker and hopefully on time! Geese arrivals We saw our first skein of Pink-footed geese over Dundee Law on the night of 11th September. And then there were more seen over Abernyte the following day - exactly the same date that they were reported last year! Isn’t it wonderful to hear their excited cries as they pass overhead? Low butterfly numbers The weather earlier in the year however was not particularly favourable for Butterflies or moths with some very low overnight temperatures. Butterfly Conservation were so concerned at the low counts which resulted from their “Big Butterfly Count” that a Butterfly Emergency has been declared. Whatever we can do as a community to help butterflies and other insects the better it will be for their future, and for our own. What would the world be like without such beautiful creatures? We can all create a wild spot for Nature in our gardens or community spaces. Plant some wildflowers – or just leave a few “weeds” so that butterflies can lay their eggs on them and birds can feed on the seeds. Shark caterpillar There have been some alert nature-spotters around our area this summer. In July, Alan Sands at Southfield found a really gorgeous caterpillar on a garden Achillea being grown as a cut flower. This was a larva of a moth called the Chamomile Shark, which has only recently turned up in East Perthshire. It is usually found feeding curled up in the centre of Mayweed flowers. An adult of this same moth was also caught in Collace in May this year. Shark may seem a strange name for a moth, but there are a whole group of moths called by the name of Shark, apparently because of their rather pointy crest which looks, to the very imaginative, like a fin. Giant Aphids! On a warm day towards the end of September, Claudia at the Farmhouse in Abernyte alerted us to a most peculiar event. A spruce tree in their chicken pen was covered with enormous black insects which on closer examination proved to be aphids, but at 6mm long, much the largest aphids any that any of us had seen before. A bit of online research suggested that these were Giant Spruce Aphids. They feed on the resin of spruce trees resulting in a white wax secretion on their rear end. They lay eggs on the leaves. Fortunately they are not thought to adversely effect the growth of the tree (the chickens were not remotely interested in them). Hedgehogs and Road-kill The loveable and once common Hedgehog has been listed as Near Threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. I think a lot of us in Abernyte may have noticed a decline in the number of hedgehogs about, when compared with 15 or so years ago. Recording road-kill mammals does at least tell us that they are around and helps to monitor changes in their population. Recently fewer hedgehogs seen dead on the roads, suggests a decline. Counter-intuitively, hedgehogs seem to be doing better in the urban environment, a situation that is possibly related to the use of agricultural insecticidal sprays in the wider countryside. Climate change causing warmer winters could also be a factor which effects their hibernation. An unusual road-kill in the form of a Beaver was found on the A90 in March this year, and another two beavers were dead on the shores of the Tay. Despite their occasional annoying acitivity (to us humans) surely we should celebrate the return of this remarkable mammal to Tayside – after all, they were here before us and we managed to live alongside them until just a few hundred years ago! You can help to record road-kill and any other wildlife at the website below. You need to register first, which is very straightforward. It is best to include a photograph and position with your record. Link below. Cathy |
Watch out for Migrants!
The autumn has been wet, wet & more wet! Storm Babet, which lasted for 3 days. from 19th-21st of October. brought run-off pouring onto the B953 in Abernyte and flooding to the rest of the Carse. Unfortunately, the soil was already saturated by earlier rainfall! The road up through Lochton was temporarily blocked by fallen trees, one of them a large beech and there were other trees down elsewhere. Another victim of the storm seems to have been a Cormorant which was photographed looking rather sad and in poor condition in a field near Knapp. Storms make life testing for many sea-birds which can be driven inshore up and down the coast
Rain can be very dreary, but at least today, 6th November, the weather has become clear, cool and sunny enabling us to see a wonderful tapestry of autumnal shades of ochre, auburn and orange-red in the tree canopies, colour which has been developing almost unseen under the clouds.
The bird migrants do not miss a trick. The most obvious of these, the Pink-footed Geese - which are our regular autumn visitors - were here by 12th September. I heard my first geese on that morning, flying high over the village. They were by no means the first to arrive however, as several thousand were already at Montrose basin. Then on a visit down at the Errol reed- beds early on the morning of 14th September, there were more of them, flying up off the Tay, skein after skein, perhaps going off to feed elsewhere.
Fieldfares and Redwings are migrants from Scandinavia. I saw my first Redwings of the autumn at Little Ballo on 17th October. There are both Redwings and Fieldfares around now– a flock of more than a hundred Fieldfares were by Southfield early in November. Their hallmark call is a coarse “football rattle” sound. They love apples, so leave a few windfall apples in your garden for them – and these will be equally enjoyed by the blackbirds. There is yet another migrant, this one not belonging to the “thrushes”. That is the Waxwing. Waxwings are an object of desire amongst bird-watchers! Some years they arrive in larger numbers than usual, so could 2023 be one of those years? It seems possible as there have been several sightings of them already, although not in Abernyte as far as I know. One good way of seeing them is to listen out for a little “trill.. trill..” as a flock of Starling sized birds fly overhead. If you hear that sound there is a good chance that what you have heard is Waxwings. I was lucky enough to see a small flock of them near the university in Dundee on 4th of November. They will often settle in a Rowan tree, or other trees bearing berries. Even if the light is bad, you can see their crest silhouetted which tells you what they are. If you are even luckier, then you will see the bright red and yellow in their wings. They really are magnificent birds and worth keeping an eye out for. Particularly common places to spot them are supermarket car-parks or roadside Rowans around Dundee.
Birds are not the only visitors to our gardens in Abernyte. Red Squirrels have been visiting local gardens over the summer and autumn. Claudia at the Farmhouse was a little surprised to discover a Red Squirrel occupying her bathroom when she came in from the garden! A little later there was possibly the same one hiding in our greenhouse and we heard that Mairi and Stephen had also been visited by an inquisitive squirrel! The Red Squirrels are still around, and thankfully no greys have been noticed recently. The Pine-martens which are rapidly colonising the area are said to be partial to Grey Squirrel.
Birds were not the only migrants this autumn. There was a great influx of Red Admiral butterflies noted by folk in their gardens. These are the dramatically marked Red, black and white butterflies that enjoy fallen fruit, often plums. They feed on the sugary syrup as well as on late flowers in the garden. You can attract them to the garden with Michaelmas Daisies, Sedum spectabile with its pink flowers and one thing which they particularly like are the flowers of ivy. If you can encourage a bank of flowering ivy in or near your garden then you will be doing a great favour to lots of wildlife, including bees, butterflies and birds some of which feed on the berries later.
We have two “new” butterflies in our area. The Holly Blue butterfly has been seen North of the Tay for the first time, having worked its way up through Fife. Later this summer it turned up in Invergowrie, so who knows where it will have got to by next year? The Holly Blue lays its eggs on Holly in May and Ivy in August. Churchyards and large sheltered gardens are good places to find suitable habitat. The other relative newcomer is the Speckled Wood, which I have written about before. Over the last few years this has become more established around Abernyte, appearing in several gardens from Kinnaird to Abernyte (including High Rising and Hill House), and also at Rossie Estate. It is a lovely butterfly which is associated with the sunny edges and glades in woodlands. My attempts to find it on the Glebe, which looks a really suitable place for it, have so far failed but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there! Have you seen any new butterflies around Abernyte? With climate change in mind, it is a quandary whether we should be celebrating or feeling worried about such rapid changes in our local fauna, but it is difficult to be sad when seeing such beautiful butterflies here for the first time.
On Thursday 5th October friends of Barry and Cathy Caudwell found this lovely and very large Death's Head Hawk-moth outside their lab in St. Andrews. It had attracted the
attention of some local Magpies from which it was rescued. Barry and Cathy were privileged to become its keepers when it was kindly brought to them. As this species is known to raid bee-hives in its search for honey, it has been provided with an ample supply of honeycomb, as well as some lovely rotting apple.
This enormous moth, with an overall length of 6.5 cm, is a very rare migrant from North Africa. It has a quite substantial body. Most remarkably it bears a "death head with cowl" or "skull and cross-bone" marking on the top of its velvety head (actually the thorax). Barry was able to confirm that there have been 8 records of this moth in Fife since 1912, so it is a very unusual find indeed. Unfortunately it is not likely to survive the winter in our area especially as it has a slightly damaged wing and cannot fly, but at the moment it remains alive and well in an aquarium tank!
Weather
Overall we have not had a hard winter at all, the lowest temperature that we have recorded in Abernyte so far this winter has been -3 oC on 29th November. And on Hogmanay it was a balmy +7 oC. We’ve had a few frosts and no more than a couple of inches of snow over the winter. Our garden pond has been only frozen a few times in contrast to the situation in many winters when it remains frozen for weeks on end. But the higher temperatures have been made up by the windy conditions. We had Storm Arwen on night of 26th November when 82 kph was recorded at Errol and the Met office issued an Amber weather warning. And didn’t it blow. Many gardeners and landowners around Abernyte woke to devastation. Large trees and areas of dense forest were down all over Abernyte and the whole of the NE of Scotland and Northumberland as well as parts of the West Coast. Nearly all of the downed trees were conifers or others bearing leaves such as Eucalyptus. At Rossie Priory large Douglas Firs are down. A count of the rings of one of them gave it a venerable age of at least 114 years. Large areas at North Ballo have also been flattened. Not content with storm Arwen, that was followed in January by two more storms Malik and then Corrie on 30th January from a more usual direction. Despite the wind however, we have been lucky to have it relatively dry since Christmas and we have had some beautiful sunny days for walking, even if they were less frosty than usual.
Moths
We were encouraged to set a moth trap in our garden by the warm weather on Hogmanay. Moths are out and about most often on warm still and moist nights. There tend to be fewer of them flying on moonlit ones. The catch was small, but 5 moths of 3 species were captured – and later released. These have wonderful names – The Mottled Beauty, The Satellite – named for the little coloured celestial bodies on its wings and the Winter Moth. Moths have bad PR in general owing to the few of them which eat holes in woollens! But the rest of them are as beautiful as butterflies although often more subtle or cryptic. We couldn’t do without them to perform the essential service of pollination as well as providing food for birds and mammals.
Signs of Spring
It lifted the spirits when news of the traditional first signs of Spring, the snowdrops, popped up on Abernyte News earlier than usual. The ones by Rose Cottage in the village were declared out on the 19th January whereas in 2021 it was the 26th January. A short distance along the road at Southfield Bridge there were “wild” snowdrops out by the burn at about the same time. In 2021 the snowdrops were covered with snow as they came up through the ground.
Squirrels and Birds
Red Squirrels have been visiting Bryan and Elizabeth’s garden in Kinnaird regularly where there was also a Heron and some Bramblings. Barry ringed a lot of Bramblings during January. On 9th January he was very interested to find one with a Belgian ring, so that one has probably spent at least one winter or spring in Belgium; these birds spend their summer much further North and are not faithful to particular sites in winter. A Heron appearing beside our pond usually means that it is on the lookout for some juicy frogs coming to spawn. So far we have seen none ourselves but we are suspicious that the Heron has some inside knowledge! Have you got frogspawn in your garden pond yet? We have continued to hear Jays around Abernyte and wonder if the reason is that there was a poor acorn crop last summer causing them to look for food elsewhere. Other bird sightings have included news from David Tod of a Sparrowhawk in his garden and of both Hen and Marsh Harriers and Barn Owl around the Braes and Carse.
Some ideas to help wildlife this winter:
Plant seed or plant out seedlings of native plants. Foxgloves, Bugle, Viper’s Bugloss and Ground Ivy are all easily grown plants for pollinators. Garlic Mustard and Cuckoo Flower are two useful plants for butterflies. If you can have plants flowering from early Spring till Late Autumn it will help to provide for insects and other wildlife at lean times in the year.
Watch out for and avoid disturbing hedgehogs when they are hibernating. Leave some stacks of prunings for wildlife. Make a stack of wood rather than clearing it away.
Put out any rotten apples (if you were lucky enough to get a crop) for the birds.