Kilpatrick Hills, West Dunbartonshire

Little Round Top Wood (OS map grid reference - NS4773) is an excellent 'bluebell wood' rarely visited by walkers - I spent the day listening for the songs of arriving warblers and trying to immortalize with photos the ephemeral newly-minted-lushness of spring foliage.

Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)

Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)

Crab Apple (Malus sylvestris)

Crab Apple (Malus sylvestris)

Cultivated or Domestic Apples (Malus domestica) are mostly descended from the Central Asian Wild Apple (Malus sieversii) which was brought to Europe and later crossed with closely related 'Malus series' apples, including our native Crab Apple (Malus sylvestris).

Cuckoo Flower (Cardamine pratensis)

Cuckoo Flower (Cardamine pratensis)

Cuckoo Flower (Cardamine pratensis)

Blackthorn or Sloe (Prunus spinosus)

crab spider (Xysticus cristatus) female

Dog's Mercury (Mercurialis perennis) in Little Round Top Wood

Dog's Mercury (Mercurialis perennis) in Little Round Top Wood

Dog's Mercury (Mercurialis perennis) in Little Round Top Wood

At this time of year, Dog's Mercury (Mercurialis perennis) forms a thick carpet of fresh green leaves in Little Round Top Wood. Few creatures seem to nibble at this pristine foliage, possibly due to its poisonous nature.
Culpeper's Complete Herbal (published in 1653) warns 'there is not a more fatal plant, native of our country, than this'. Ingestion causes severe haemorrhagic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract and kidneys.

Ground Ivy (Glechoma hederacea)

Gorse (Ulex europaeus)

I had a look at the steepest part of Little Round Top Wood (above the marsh) which will be overgrown with nettles & bracken, and inaccessible within a month or two.

Hairy St. John's-wort (Hypericum hirsutum) grows on the scrubby slope and Square-stalked St. John's-wort (Hypericum tetrapterum) grows in the marsh below. St. John's-worts, of which there are many species, are better identified by their leaves and stalks than by their golden-yellow flowers (which appear in late June).

Hairy St. John's-wort (Hypericum hirsutum)

Hairy St. John's-wort (Hypericum hirsutum)

Hairy St. John's-wort has a rounded, hairy stem and the leaves are hairy, elliptical in shape and do not possess the black gland-dots which are found on many other Hypericum species.

Wild Pansies (Viola tricolor)

Mugdock Country Park & Kilpatrick Hills, East & West Dunbartonshire

I'm not usually a twitcher, but repeated sightings of a Great Grey Shrike at Craigallian Loch over the last few weeks proved too much to resist!

My dad and I caught a train from Dalmuir to Milngavie, walked through Mugdock Country Park to Craigallian Loch and then walked back to Duntocher (via Burncrooks Reservoir, Duncolm and the Greenside).

We saw a pair of Treecreepers as we walked through the soaking wet woodland in Mugdock Country Park. Near Craigallian Loch we saw a male Kestrel hunting and heard a Tawny Owl hooting.

Clouds of mist and rain drifted through the trees and the valley echoed with the drumming of Great Spotted Woodpeckers. On the loch there were groups of Tufted Duck and Goosander.
We wandered along the path, fruitlessly scanning every fencepost and scrubby tree for the shrike. As we waited, a Green Woodpecker landed clumsily atop a nearby pine.

Disappointingly, the shrike never made an appearance.

On the way home, at Edenmill Farm, we saw a large flock of Goldfinches and a ploughed field full of Lapwings - their zipping calls are like radios tuning.

Greenside Reservoir

Above the Greenside looking towards Duncolm

By the side of the burn flowing into the Greenside, I found the inedible Twisted Deciever (Laccaria tortilis) growing on a mossy boulder.

Twisted Deciever (Laccaria tortilis)

Twisted Deciever (Laccaria tortilis)

Twisted Deciever (Laccaria tortilis)

Twisted Deciever (Laccaria tortilis)

Twisted Deciever (Laccaria tortilis)

Twisted Deciever (Laccaria tortilis)

Twisted Deciever (Laccaria tortilis)

Twisted Deciever (Laccaria tortilis)

 

Kilpatrick Hills, West Dunbartonshire

Today I walked from Duntocher to the Mohican Woods, over the Slacks and to The Test marsh. It didn't rain but the sky was darkly overcast and snow survives in colder hollows on the hills.

Below the Mohican Woods I disturbed a group of Roe Deer (two hinds and a buck) which were grazing along the forest edge. The two hinds - with flared white rumps - disappeared deep into the undergrowth, but the buck only retreated a little way into the trees.
I lay down on the ground, making myself as unhuman-like as possible. A few seconds later, the buck re-emerged and high-stepped towards me cautiously, until the shutter of my camera startled him back into the forest.

Roe Deer (Capreolus capreolus) male

Roe Deer (Capreolus capreolus) male

Roe Deer (Capreolus capreolus) male

Roe Deer are Britain's smallest native deer, weighing only 10-25kg, and are the only hooved mammals which exhibit delayed implantation: an egg fertilized during the summer doesn't begin development until January.


This male has 3-pronged antlers which means he's at least 3 years old. The furry 'velvet' covering his antlers supplies blood to the antlers as they grow and will be shed within a few weeks.

Mohican Woods

Scottish Blackface Sheep

Snow-melt puddles littered the moorland on the Slacks. The only signs of life were a pair of Red Grouse (Lagopus lagopus) which exploded loudly from the heather.

The Test marsh

In the rocky moorland to the north-east of the Test, a Brown Hare leapt up and sprang like a gazelle over the heather.

It left behind a pile of fresh droppings:

Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus) droppings

Bombhole near the Test (OS map ref. NS 476 741)

The Clydebank Blitz (13th & 14th March, 1941) left the Kilpatrick Hills pitted with bombholes and the odd piece of rusty bombshell can still be found lying on the moor.

Psathyrella sp. at Little Round Top Wood

Jackdaws (Corvus monedula)

Pairs of Jackdaws nest on every rooftop on my street, they walk the pavements and roads with a bobbing swagger and fill the air with their pleasant calls - an almost musical "chak!" - which gives them their onomatopoeic name.

Kilpatrick Hills, West Dunbartonshire

I went to the disused curling pond below the Mohican Woods to look for mating Common Frogs (Rana temporaria) - I normally miss them due to the miserable February weather.

Mohican Woods

Mohican Woods

Ferns in the Mohican Woods

No frogs at the curling pond, but I did find a large clump of frogspawn.

Common Frog (Rana temporaria) eggs

Bracken (Pteridium aquilinum)

Red Elder (Sambucus racemosa) bud

Coral Spot (Nectria cinnabarina) - conidial state

Yellow Brain fungus (Tremella mesenterica)

Yellow Brain fungus (Tremella mesenterica) was growing profusely on bare Gorse branches near Little Round Top Wood. This fungus is an obligate parasite on other fungi (Periophora sp.).

Hazel (Corylus avellana) catkins (the male flowers)

Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus)

At Little Round Top Wood, on a massive toppled Ash tree, I found some Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus). These are the oyster mushrooms encountered in supermarkets and are amongst the best edible wild mushrooms (in my opinion, better-tasting than the bland 'table mushrooms').

Oyster Mushrooms contain lovastatin, a HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor which lowers cholesterol levels (high cholesterol is a major cause of cardiovascular disease).

Pleurotus species are both saprotrophic and carnivorous - they feed by secreting digestive enzymes from a microscopic network of 'roots' known as hyphae which digest rotting wood and nematode worms (which are first paralysed by a secreted toxin and then digested alive from the inside by hyphae which enter orifices).

Dalmuir Golf Course, West Dunbartonshire

Dalmuir Golf Course is actually a great place to see wildlife, including Great Spotted Woodpeckers, Roe Deer, Dippers, Kingfishers and Barn Owls (the latter two species are scarce in this county).

Mixed planted woodland and remnants of native, broad-leaved 'bluebell woodland' surround the golf course which is crossed by the Duntocher Burn.

Beech (Fagus sylvatica)

Beech (Fagus sylvatica)

Crisp Beech leaves the colour of fox fur clung to nearly-bare branches and the forest floor was carpeted with glossy-leaved Ivy which creeped up trees and formed a viney lattice around their trunks.

Flocks of Redwing and Fieldfare shifted secretively between the trees and we saw mixed groups of Blue Tits, Great Tits, Long-tailed Tits and Goldcrests in the tree-tops.

Fox (Vulpes vulpes) - dead

The dead Fox we found in the leaf litter, its body frozen stiff, seemed in otherwise healthy condition - no visible disease, injuries or bullet wounds. However, I couldn't shake the feeling that it had been killed by human hands...

Orange Ladybird (Halyzia 16-guttata)

Orange Ladybirds (Halyzia 16-guttata) are herbivores (unlike most ladybirds), feeding on mildews (fungi of the order Erysiphales, which grow on leaves). They are found in deciduous woodland and are often active at night, when they are frequent visitors to lighted windows.

This species can be distinguished from other white-spotted ladybirds by its very bright orange colouration, 12-16 white spots on the elytra and by its unspotted, semi-translucent pronotum.

Ivy (Hedera helix) on Lime tree (Tilia sp.)

Ivy (Hedera helix) on Lime tree (Tilia sp.)

Kilpatrick Hills, West Dunbartonshire

It snowed heavily from the end of November to mid December, when I was still in Dundee.
Snow ploughs heaped the deep snow from the roads onto the narrow pavements where it froze into impassable mountains of ice. Icicles half a metre long, like glass swords, hung from rooftops and windows (the government even issued warnings, in case anyone should be impaled by falling icicles). Temperatures dropped to -16 degrees centigrade and record numbers of Waxwings surged to our country, driven by the harsh weather conditions.

By the time I returned to Duntocher for Christmas, the weather had mildened and the snow mostly melted. I went for a short walk up to the Test with my parents in the afternoon.

Fields near Duntocher

Erskine Bridge

Above Little Round Top wood we put up a Woodcock which had been resting in the rushes.

Fieldfares congregated with Wood Pigeons on the fields around Little Round Top and flitted in vast numbers through the dark tangle of Blackthorn bushes. We caught a glimpse of a Sparrowhawk gliding between the trees, sending the panicked Fieldfares scattering.

I found a dead Common Shrew which had evidently been caught by a predator and then discarded as distasteful.

Common Shrew (Sorex araneus) - dead