Meeting report
VC83 Midlothian
21 April 2024 10:30 – 15:45
Leader: David Chamberlain
Corstorphine Hill is the most westerly, and wooded, of Edinburgh’s seven hills. It has several quarries, some inaccessible, and some rocky outcrops. The Hill is a local nature reserve with a Friends Group which looks after it’s walled garden and arranges natural history walks. However the area is heavily used by dog walkers and cyclists, so nature is limited to species which can cope with disturbance. An invasive plant, Salmonberry, now dominates the understory of much of the Hill.
Like Edinburgh’s Blackford Hill, geology is the main reason that certain species are present at this thin-soiled and much trampled site which lacks any water course. David has recorded bryophytes on Corstorphine Hill for many years and hoped to update his species “master-list”.
Our outing started with Pseudocrossidium revolutum on the car park wall. On an old log was Syntrichia laevipila, and on north-facing rocks was Fissidens dubius, recorded here by David in 2002. Scapania nemorea formed extensive patches on boulders. Dog-walkers had to divert around six bryologists searching for, and finding, Nardia scalaris, Pohlia annotina and Marsupella emarginata on a popular path. An adjacent quarry was quite acidic and had little of note apart from Brachytheciastrum velutinum, uncommon in Edinburgh. Despite careful searching we were unable to find Andreaea rupestris and Barbilophozia hatcheri in their previous locations on a glaciated rock outcrop and must assume that they have been lost.
In the afternoon we descended the steep eastern slope towards the edge of the site at Craigcrook, finding a few epiphytes such as Zygodon viridissimus and Pulvigera lyellii, and all the while hearing Ravens which must be nesting in these woods. A damp area at the very foot of the slope was unproductive but we did manage to add another couple of species to today’s list as we walked quickly back to the car park.
We found over 70 species in one monad on Corstorphine Hill and didn’t manage to visit any of the southern half of the Hill where David assures us that there is a very rich quarry. Thanks to David Chamberlain for leading and sharing his expertise. Thankfully we didn’t meet the Emus which had been seen here at the end of March.
David Adamson, April 2024
Notes from David Chamberlain
This excursion aimed to update the bryophyte records for Corstorphine Hill, one of the Seven Hills of Edinburgh. From the 1970’s the bryophytes on the Hill have been extensively surveyed though the records have largely not been localised. I hope to ultimately provide records localised to each of the four monads that encompass the Hill. As there is every sign of a change in the weather due to global warming; this should provide a baseline of records from the present decade. The records from this excursion are presented with records from previous surveys. There are a few indications of possible changes in the bryoflora of the Hill over the past 30 years; it is hoped that these will become more significant as the survey proceeds.
Records for this excursion from Monad NT2074 list 74 taxa, roughly 71% of the known post 1970 records for Monad NT2074, of these 14.5% were first time records. A further 14.5% of taxa recorded this decade remain to be confirmed, as do another 14.5% that are from the period between 1996-2019.
Download record list