This year looks to be a good year for Scottish chionophiles (snow loving organisms). Close to forty patches of snow, tucked into gullies and huddled under crags in the Scottish mountains, have survived the summer. Although these ragged fragments of hard-packed snow might seem small and insignificant, they provide an important ecological niche. Mosses, lichens and liverworts thrive underneath the snowy blanket, benefiting from the stable temperature maintained underneath the snow and the lack of competition from flowering plants. And when the snow starts to melt there is a burst of plant growth at the fringes, providing rich insect and seed pickings for snow buntings.
Some snow patches are familiar sights almost every year, like the evocatively named “Laird’s Tablecloth” near the top of Beinn a Bhuird – legend has it that the Farquharson family will lose Invercauld if it vanishes. Others are less dependable, requiring a snowy winter and a cool summer to survive. In the past two centuries there have only been five summers where no snow survived, the most recent being in 2003 and 2006.
Iain Cameron is fascinated by snow patches, and every autumn he tots up the number that remain, gathering observations from an army of enthusiastic hillwalkers. In the current issue of the journal Weather he reports how last year was remarkable with twenty-one patches surviving until the winter of 2014. Exactly what drives the rise and fall of snow patches from year to year isn’t yet clear, but Cameron’s count indicates that this year is looking better still, perhaps reflecting the stormier winters and cooler summers of recent years.
