Review: Last day of year 7 Lichen survey of SD86

 Review for the year March 2025 to March 2026 

So this is sort of my annual report for my Lichen activities.. I can look at it next year and work out what I did in 2025-early 2026.

I now have 69 monads where I have recorded at least 20 species. (well 19 spp) . That's almost 70 monads. So I have kept up my 10 a year aim. ( I was only at 59 monads this time last year last year). 

The average number of species per quadrat stands at 35.8

I spent some time getting a few squares up to 50 or more species.
The cliffs above Huntworth Common, the field near Settle Reservoir, Kirkby Malham Churchyard.

 The BLS have made the dots in the BLS interactive maps change colour at 10 or more species and at 50 or more species. 

Then the last 3 months I have concentrated on monads near a road, and just doing one (or two) visits so that I could record over 19 species. So the road to Kirby Malham and Airton, and the road over Malham Moor and starting towards Malham now have yellow squares (20 species) on my map of my area following the orignal colour scheme of 2019

I started sending records in to Janet, The BLS data manager, in August 2025 for the hectad. My records needed the locations changing so that they start with the name of the parish. I use

  https://maps.walkingclub.org.uk/admin/north-yorkshire/parishes.html to find this.

By 30 March 2026 I have sent Janet 20 monads - the first 2 rows - to SD8169, I have the first six monads of the next row ready to send and would like to complete the third row

Lichen Events this year.

I did not go to the winter workshop in 2025 (Preston Montford) or 2026 (Preston Montford).

I went to the Autumn Field Meeting in Hebden Bridge Oct 2025, to the BLS Conference in Carlisle (Jan 2026) and to Fort Belan (March 2026) and will be attending the Appleby spring meeting in April 2026.

I failed to organise a lichen day meeting with Allan Pentecost.  I spent a day with Ann Claypole, Sue and Lez at Linton this year - well maybe March 2025. I visited Edith's Wood near Ingleton with Dee and recorded lichens on a branch. . I failed to attend Cumbria meetings. I have talked with Simon Robinson of Settle who has attended Fred's LABs course.

At the BLS Winter meeting they presented me with the Ursula Duncan award  for organising the LCIG meetings which we started 5.5 years ago. That was nice.  It is a bit hard with the feeling "I should have emailed lots of the LCIG people to get them to commit to a date for sorting out talks" hanging over me. Still, from May I might give myself a break this summer and just do them every 2 months or 6 weeks till next September. And use the time to invite lots of guest speakers ready for Autumn 2026 

I have started recording Leptogium gelatinosum, Leptogium pulvinatium and Bagliettoa baldensis  and more this year which has helped with increasing the length of species lists. And looked out for Enchylium tenax ssp cerenoides

Perhaps this coming year I can get my head round Lecidella scabra & Amandinea punctata

As I spend more time sorting lichens, it puts pressure on other activities - Speakers Club, Chairing CCG, Church, Housework (what?)  Eco Explorers, Green Christian website, Settle "News Email - temporary stalling while I decide whether to pay for Mailchimp; Excercise classes/swimming.. taking friends out who stay in care homes etc out, .. and one day going to visit relatives. Hey Ho.

 

Fort Belan - BLS extra early-spring meeting - North-west shore of Mainland Wales on Menai Straights opposite Newborough Warren

 Mon 16 - Friday 19  March 2026

We had a wonderful time. The event was organised by Eluned Smith. In the end 14 of us were resident.

John, Maxine, Tracy, Philippa, Judith(me), Raymond, Sue, Eluned, the Shropshire group (Mary, Eric, Susan-Mary, Simon, Mark, Eluned  and two local people came Julie and Susan. 

Fort Belan was built in the late 1775 as a fort to defend the Menai Straits -at the time the American Civil War

Quoting Wikipedia: 

Situated at the tip of the Dinlle Peninsula, the windblown, north-westernmost point of the Welsh mainland, the fort is cut off twice a day by the incoming tide. (Judtih adds:You drive to the coastal village and iron age fort and shingle ridge and dunes at Dinas Dinlle, then follow a bumpy road (the old airstrip of the airport) for two miles. The fort itself and grounds are private. )

The fort was built in 1775 for a reported cost of £30,000^[2][3] (equivalent to £4.5 million in 2023),^[4] by Thomas Wynn, then MP for Caernarfonshire and later to become Lord Newborough. He was worried about the vulnerability of Britain's coastline to attack, particularly because of the recently begun American War of Independence. Fort Belan was the only purpose-built fort of the American Revolution on the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean.^[5] It guards a narrow passage of 35 m (115 ft) width.^[6]

 Whilst we had to drive through some rain and cloud to get there on the Monday, Days Tuesday to Friday had sun and warm weather. 

There are two sets of buildings: One block is the  Fort with outside walls, inner walls and courtyard and moat and mini orchard. the second block is "The dock"  which is U shaped covering a similar area but the courtyard part has a lawn  and the dock- an inlet with two or three boats docked. 

The place is now used as about seven holiday cottages. Each cottage has a piano (in tune) in its lounge. The owner especially likes to organise groups of people to meet up and play music... but she is encouraging other interest groups to come and stay and was pleased to welcome us coming to look at lichens.

She had two music friends visiting her, staying in another of the cottages I presume - and the three of them enjoyed playing tomusic together.

I was lucky to stay in Dock Cottage - and this is the view from the kitchen, looking south east. At low tide the shingle in the inlet is exposed and I watched oyster catchers, a white egret and a wader on different mornings. At high tide this lagoon fills up, 

The walls are made out of a great variety of stone - limestones, conglomerate, volcanic type rocks, sandstones, bricks - making it a fun, but challenging to predict which lichen would grow where ..

 

We looked at lichens:

On the variety of rocks in the walls, and at mortar and soil in the cracks of the walls

Including walls rising from the sea (Caloplaca  marina)

On the grass in the cannon firing area (Peltigera canina)

On the cement and tarmac causeway that gets covered for an hour at high tide (John found Lichina sp) On the tarmac - Xanthoparmelia conspersa

On the pebbles and rocks near high tide level, (Ramalina siliquosa and several mystery species)

Hydropunctaria (Verrucaria)  maura

On the young trees in the new orchard:  Physcia aipolea, and on the walls: Bilimbia sabulatorum  

Glaucomaria (formerly Lecanora) rupicola

Lecanora rupicola

On the flags and path in the courtyard .. well, one day  I am going to write a mini-talk/post on that

On  wooden fence posts that gave with John and Maxine and Tracy and other people's help - an excellent resource for teaching me how to recognise species on lignum (old worked wood) including Amandinea punctata, Lecanora confusa, Xanthoria polycaulon and both Flavoparmelias, 

We had three full days there. On the second day, Eluned had planned a trip inland to a wood part owned and managed by a relation of hers, who showed us round, and to the "Powder Store" Nature reserve Beddgellert. through old woodland up to higher rocks of various igneous origins. A small group of us attended this - whilst many in the party were so happy at the fort they just stayed there. 

They could look at a lichen, take it back to the microscope room we had set up, and then go out and find it again if needed.

Or just go for pleasant walks looking at the sea or shingle. At night we went out with our UV torches to check out lichens by UV.  and we saw the twinkling lights of Caernarfon and Bangor in the distance.

I prepared a powerpoint talk for the LCIG group when we came back of my first 24 hours - mostly species on the walls, which I recorded. On day I would like to write about "Lichens on Lignum - the fence posts" -(as an exercise to teach myself)  ready for next week's LCIG talk.  .. but .. it is still on my wish list.