2022 County Report for Kirkcudbrightshire

David Hawker and Sarah White

This year the major concern was the adverse effects of a proposed new SPEN pylon power line on two species – Hydrilla verticillata (IUCN Threatened) at its only extant UK site, and Pyrola media (Sc GB 2021: Vulnerable) at one of only known 4 VC73 sites.  Both populations adjoin the construction route.  I attended Hearing Sessions in November but the Reporter will not produce an opinion until late 2023.  The VC’s remaining quality habitats are under increasing pressure from numerous windfarm and commercial forestry applications, existing forests already occupying around 30% of the land area.

 

The local group met 10 times this year (see BSBI’s VC73 webpage), covering a wide variety of habitats, low tide to the uplands, including several monads with no previous records.  In addition, several members individually surveyed selected monads close to their homes.  There are around 5500 records from 35 monads, which included monitoring selected populations of 14 Locally Rare or Scarce species, notably Meum athamanticum, 2 Zostera spp., Silene viscaria, Ophyris apifera, Carex elongata, C. punctata, Anthoxanthum nitens, Ranunculus sardous and Thelypteris palustris – some with data going back to 1947!

We advised 4 conservation-oriented farmers on measures for high value habitats, in particular safeguarding populations of M. athamanticum, O. apifera, Platanthera spp, and Carex limosa.  I submitted 1988 and 1993/4 personal data on Zostera spp. to the Seagrass Project.

The RPR is an ongoing project while an annotated checklist is proposed for 2023.