Seed Collecting Workshop - Saturday 26th of August 2017

Anthony McCluskey, BC’s Urban Butterfly Project Officer, came up from Aberfeldy to lead this workshop. Eleven folk gathered at Talla nan Ros in Kingussie – a lovely converted church used for community events. Anthony started with an illustrated introduction to the work of BC, familiar to some of us but not to all since there were two non-members present. After a break for tea and Kate’s tasty cake, Anthony gave a second presentation about the why’s and how’s of wildflower seed collection and how to store and propagate seed.

After lunch, we drove the short distance to RSPB’s Insh Marshes nature reserve. We walked part of the Invertromie nature trail and looked at the seeds of different flowers and learned how to tell if they were ripe and ready for collection. In spite of the initial threat of rain, it was a very warm afternoon and we actually saw 7 species of butterfly on the wing – Small Tortoiseshell, Scotch Argus, Common Blue, Green-veined White, Dark Green Fritillary (very worn), Small Heath and Small Copper (my first of the year)! And Tom found an egg of Northern Brown Argus on Rock-rose, its food-plant.

There are several well-spaced patches of Rock-rose along the trail and Northern Brown Argus can be seen at these patches in July. I was keen to collect Rock-rose seeds because I have a plan to join up the Rock-rose patches through scattering seed and possibly planting out plug plants.

We returned to Talla nan Ros for a final round-up and a cup of tea to wash down the last of Kate’s cake! It had been a very informative and enjoyable workshop – many thanks to all who attended an especially to Anthony for imparting some of his extensive knowledge.

Pete Moore