Homeward bound

14th August.  Time to leave the far north and head back to Stirling.  Poor weather forecast so very thankful for the good weather yesterday.  Remarkably, there was another person searching for Great Yellow Bumblebees near Wick yesterday and the day before, Professor Pierre Rasmont from Belgium.  Prof. Rasmont has been working on bumblebees for many years, and was looking for male Great Yellows to further his research.  He located males feeding at two places, both new locations, and kindly passed on this valuable information.

 

At Helmsdale I stopped to look at an area of red clover, presumably an agricultural variety, sown along the A9.  I don't know if this was done by the Council or a local landowner.  Despite being quite early in the morning, it was quite humid (which brought a few midges out to play).  There were many Garden Bumblebees feeding on the clover - this very long-tongued species thrives on this crop - and a few Common Carder Bees.  It would have been nice to find a Great Yellow but I was more than 20 miles along the coast, south of Occumster - can't have everything!  Such crops by a busy road - even at the 30 limit entering the village - may be a concern, because of a high likelihood of traffic collisions.  Otherwise the journey was uneventful, though there was another road-killed polecat-ferret near Dunbeath (birthplace of the famous Scottish novelist, Neil Gunn).  As with the others, this looked just like a proper polecat.

 

At Golspie I met Jenny Grant and Tom Kellett of Scottish Natural Heritage.  We discussed the issues regarding designated sites and where Great Yellow Bumblebee occurs.  In many ways, SNH's hands are tied as they need to assess the condition of these sites based on the notified features, which may be geological or biological.  Sadly, invertebrates are rarely notified features, though the typical habitat that they use may be.  Thus, the East Caithness Cliffs SAC (Special Area of Conservation), an area of over 440 hectares, is notified for its "Supralittoral rock (Coast) Vegetated sea cliffs".  However, the monitoring to assess the condition of this site may not involve the actual flower species used by Great Yellow Bumblebee, such as the abundant lesser knapweed.  The associated Strathy Point SAC (over 200 hectares) in Sutherland is a potential area for Great Yellow Bumblebee, but heavy sheep grazing means that there are simply no flowers available - though Scottish primrose is present.   Jenny also mentioned that she may have seen a Great Yellow Bumblebee earlier this year, up at the Kyle of Tongue in Sutherland, from where there are no recent records.

 

A final stop at Strathpeffer, where the rain was truly bucketing down.  This was to meet Murdo Macdonald, chair of the Species Action Framework project for Great Yellow Bumblebee, and whose extensive work since the late 90s indicated where Great Yellow Bumblebees were still hanging on in Caithness and Sutherland.  After a really good chat and chance to catch up, I dropped off the van at the ever-reliable Jacks in Inverness, and settled down for the train journey back to Stirling, by coincidence meeting someone who shared a mutual farming acquaintance, with a fine fold of Highland cattle.