© Kirkmaiden Natural History Group 2011
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Alex introduced Peter Norman, the Biodiversity Officer from Dumfries & Galloway Council..
He gave a very interesting presentation telling us that biodiversity means all forms of life and how 80 organisations were involved in producing the new Biodiversity Action Plan published in April 2009. He gifted a copy of the book to the group saying that it was available free on disc from D & G. He’ll send copies to Rena so if you haven’t already put your name down for one, you can give it to Barbara at the next meeting. Free summaries, beautifully illustrated, are available from our library.
We were given a fascinating insight into his work in conservation. For instance he told us that there were lots of benefits from looking after our bogs because if they dried out dangerous amounts of carbon would be released and also our water would not be so pure. Mull of Galloway is one of the most important sites in D & G because of many rare species.
Before he moved on to lovely pictures of coastal flora and fauna in preparation for our Freugh walk he told us of the tiny eggs we had found on our walk there in April. Although a spider was found in the curled up leaf, they were not spider’s eggs but those of the vapourer moth. He had taken a sample home and now the eggs have hatched into pretty caterpillars which will become females without wings who crawl into trees and send out a scent to males who can fly. We feel very privileged to have seen them and one of our main objectives in future walks is to try to locate them again. Alex thanked Peter for his very informative talk and Rena persuaded him to come and talk to us again in the autumn.
See more information on biodiversity in Dumfries & Galloway here.
At members’ time we examined a bunch of local flowers and between us we identified most of them (no flowers were damaged in the picking of these!) Doesn’t it feel good to be able to point out to friends and family, “There’s allium triquetrum” instead of just calling it garlic? A collection of shells was on show with an appeal for better specimens before Jim Logan’s talk in August. Ed’s butterfly, though large, was actually the small tortoiseshell and unfortunately not the large tortoiseshell which is becoming rare if not already extinct. Paul told us that Alex’s rock, found at Sandhead, was a metamorphic conglomerate which had most likely come from the River Clyde. Yes, even rocks come from afar to live in our beautiful area!
Have a good summer and Happy Foraging,
Rena
Small tortoishell
