6th July 2009

After a week back in Stirling, it's out to the islands.  During the past week, however, Pippa Rayner, newly in post with BBCT for England & Wales. visited from the deep south. We attended a Perthshire Grasslands project event, run by Christine Hall of the Scottish Agricultural College, with Richard Lockett, formerly of FWAG Scotland but now set up as Lockett Agri-Environmental after FWAG Scotland was wound up.  We caught several bumblebees, including the Blaeberry Bumblebee and a queen Broken-belted Bumblebee, another upland speciality in Scotland.

 

So, now to the Argyll Islands (Tiree, but sadly not Coll this year) and then north through the Outer Hebrides.  After an early morning drive to Oban, I met up with six grassland specialists representing the country agencies for all the UK.  Also on board was Jamie Loughlin, who was keen to film Great Yellow Bumblebee as part of a dissertation on bumblebee conservation.  A damp start as we headed up the Sound of Mull, but by the time we arrived at Tiree, the sun was shining and we saw two Basking Sharks in quick succession.

 

After dropping Jamie off at the dunes and machair at Hough, I rejoined the group where we were met by the RSPB representative on Tiree, John Bowler.  John's knowledge of and fondess for the island was clear, and we visited The Reef, a huge flat, flower-rich machair site with hundreds of pairs of breeding waders, and also Arctic and Little Terns, both of which were doing well this year.  John pointed out an area where he had found two Great Yellow Bumblebee nests in the past, but our search here was fruitless.  However, the Creeping Thistle was covered in caterpillars, presumably those of Painted Lady butterflies that had swarmed into the country at the end of May. The last of the Early Marsh Orchids were in flower, and there were more Frog Orchids here.

 

We picked up Jamie, who had had better success with bees, having seen two Great Yellow Bumblebee queens.  However, they were just too shy when it came to filming.  We stopped at Balephetrish - highly recommended by John Bowler - to look at the dunes there, and it was clear there were more bees at this site, including several of the distinctive island form of the Moss Carder Bee.  A big bee flew by - looked like a Great Yellow Bumblebee.  We would be back here tomorrow!