Returning from my holiday in the Cairngorms (where I took the opportunity to study a few snowbed communities) I was then whisked away by fellow bryologists to Aberdeen. This was our base for a few days of square-bashing where we set out to record hectads in under-looked regions of Scotland.
All records are then sent to the relevant bodies to contribute to the forthcoming Bryophyte Atlas due out in 2012. Square-bashing involves cramming in visits to as many different habitats as possible in order to look for a variety of mosses and liverworts.
Some of the places we visit are sublime whilst others are horrid with syringes and used-condoms to avoid. We crawl around in stubble fields, scale coastal cliffs, stride across tick-infested grouse-moor, and enjoy back-drops of wonderful castles in our pursuit of moss.
We also discover some fabulous habitats such as calcareous fen-bogs with beautiful hummocks of Sphagnum warnstorfii and swathes of the liverwort Blasia pusilla doing its stuff. Interesting discoveries are made too.
On one coastal site my mentor found an interesting dreppy-thing that turned out to be Sanionia orthothecioides – a very rare species restricted to the northern coastal districts of Scotland and some of the far-flung islands in Britain. Globally it has a Circumpolar Boreal-arctic Montane distribution and favours the arctic coasts.
These exciting finds make visiting un-recorded squares and putting up with a few grotty places all the more worthwhile.
Oliver Moore.