January roundup

So January comes to a close - at least I have made my last January visit this morning. I had set my sights on recording at least 100 spp in January on the way to a target of 500 for the year, and it turned out to be significantly easier than anticipated.

This was helped in no small part by the Southwest and Central Scotland recording group of Bryologists who took my meagre collection of 30-ish for the year and pumped it up significantly. There are still species which were found on that day that I didn't see, but a whole heap that I did. I will have to disentangle the iRecord records somewhat to disavow some of those spp which I didn't personally connect with - although I still have a chance for them through the year since I know that they're out there.

Remarkably I only connected with one non-avian vertebrate - Brown Hare, which I bumped into twice. They like the eastern leg of the reserve where they have some shelter next to open fields. On the bird front I made a decent start of 48 species. None of them was particularly exceptional, although Gadwall isn't always straightforward.

Also a decent start was made to fungi, a group previously not really recorded no the reserve. Some species found remain unidentified, beyond genus certainly, but I am hopeful that the target of 50 species is still a cautious one. The bryophyte target of 50 is of course, already smashed. So I'm declaring January the month of the bryophyte

Bryum dichotomum - Bicoloured Bryum