Hello my fellow amphibians! What a terrible summer we’ve had so far, I swear I am growing webbed feet!
So anyway….what have I been up to this last month?
Well it all started with a murky Sunday spent surveying for Odonata, or dragonflies and damselflies in plain English. The morning at Earlsburn Reservoir was fairly uneventful, with no records. However, I did manage to lose my leg down a boggy hole, causing much hilarity as I tried to pull myself out! The afternoon was more successful at North Third Reservoir, finding all 5 expected damselfly species, but yet again I fell down another hole…..Amanda says shes going to write a seperate risk assessment for me next time!
The next day, Amanda and I attended a Bird ID course at Aberlady, East Lothian. We had a great time spotting lots of seabirds, dodging golf balls and angry golfers, and even spotted a few seals along the way.
I also attended a course looking at Brownfield Invertebrates, which was also great fun and we visited Fallin Bing and found lots of grasshoppers, 6-spot burnet moths and lots of hoverflies.
I have also done two butterfly surveys, one at Fallin Bing and Wester Moss where I spotted one Orange Tip, 15 Common Blues and 23 Large Heaths!
Large Heath Butterfly
I carried out the other survey at Plean Country Park on a rather murky and muggy day, but surprisingly I saw one Small Tortoiseshell, 5 Meadow Browns and 37 Ringlets!
Continuing our team-working, Amanda and I delivered a pond dipping activity at the David Marshall Lodge in Aberfoyle for the RSPB as part of National Insect Week 2012. It was a really wet day, however we did get a few large families braving the weather to dip for water boatmen, diving beetles, mayfly nymphs and dragonfly and damselfly larvae….oh and the odd newt! One boy was so excited he ran about and fell flat on his bum in the pond!
The next day we continued on the National Insect Week by helping out at the Ugly Bug Ball at Blairdrummond Safari Park, introducing visitors to a wide variety of insects, and even taking part in a macro photography workshop run by Dean Bricknell.
And finally, after much planning and organising, my Summer Ranger Events are well underway in Cultenhove. So far I have delivered 4 events. Uptake has been slow, but I put it mainly down to the weather.
Geology Rocks! was 
the first event, with 3 participants and the sun shining, it was a nice easy start. We got great views from the top of Cultenhove over the Stirling Carse and the Trossachs. This provided a great vantage point to illustrate just how the Forth Valley was formed by volcanoes, earthquakes
and ice! Cultenhove itself lies on top of a drumlin, a large glacial deposit of gravel. We even had time to create Cultenhove’s first GeoCache. Details of the Geocache can be found here: Coxit Hill View
The next event was Wonderful Weather….and what wonderful weather we had…NOT! The rain was awful, and was even d
ripping through the gazebos. I still managed to attract about 16 people who all came along to learn about the Great British weather, how to make a tornado in a jar, a cloud in a bottle and we even built some kites, which flew despite the rain and lack of wind.
The third event was Minibeast Explorers, on yet another rainy day. 
However, the rain didn’t stop two enthusiastic residents coming out on a bug hunt in their wellies! We found lots of minibeasts hiding in the grass including an Orange Underwing Moth, lots of spiders, slugs, snails and a caterpillar.
This week’s event was Tree’s A Crowd, and luckily the rain held off for a lovely walk through Gillies Hill, a local woodland steeped in history and home to some great wildlife including red squirrels. A
gain, only three turned up, but they had a great time having a go at identifying trees from their leaves and meeting some giant Sierra Redwoods and Britain’s 4th largest Scots Pine, all planted here as part of the Polmaise Castle Estate in the 19th Century. We were also joined by a local expert, Roddy Ross, a never ending fountain of knowledge. We even had a go at GeoCache hunting, however we never managed to find it.
Next week will see a bus full of Cultenhove residents visiting Flanders Moss, a local NNR and one of Scotland’s largest remaining Lowland Raised Bogs. Here’s to hoping the weather improves and that nobody falls in!
I think that’s the lot for this month! So, in line with the recent weather and in the words of Dory from Finding Nemo:
‘Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming swimming swimming!’
Over and out!
Kate