Durness

An opportunity to spend a few days in NW Sutherland and see Highland Council Countryside Ranger Donald Mitchell.  The great yellow bumblebee is perhaps more vulnerable here than anywhere else in its now highly restricted range. Donald has seen more than anyone else in recent years but numbers are usually very low. The availability of spring forage for queens had been a concern last year, with bird's-foot trefoil and kidney vetch the main flowers likely to be used early on.  I have received reports of good numbers of queens in Orkney over the past week using the former. Sango Bay has a good amount of both species, particularly around the Tourist Information Centre, so it is hoped they will be visited by newly emerged queens. There are other areas where yellow rattle, red clover, tufted vetch and meadow vetchling will become available - the first two had already started flowering - which will be vital as the queens start their nests and the worker numbers build up during July.  There was also some eyebright, a beautiful but very complicated group of species, one of the reasons why the Sutherland coast is an Important Plant Area. There is also a fair bit of bush vetch flowering, used by great yellows at the nearby Sandwood Estate by Kinlochbervie.  There, I met Don O'Driscoll, the John Muir Trust ranger, where the bush vetch was flowering well and used by common carder bees and garden bumblebee.  We caught a single moss carder bee queen, but Don spotted perhaps another, that seemed to be visiting a nest.

 

I also checked a 5km stretch around the Kyle of Tongue, from Melness to Talmine and Strathan.  One area was superb, with spring and summer forage, perhaps too small to encourage a wandering queen to establish residence, but nearby crofts could hold the key. Other areas had excellent summer forage to come, particularly knapweeds but also tufted vetch and meadow vetchling. However, suitable flower-rich areas were patchy. This area is the largest gap in the current distribution along the north coast. It would be wonderful to discover the great yellow bumblebee here in the summer - a final stepping stone linking the Sutherland and Caithness populations.  There is an old record from Skullomie, near the bay at Coldbackie on the east side of the Kyle.

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