Tomich, Glen Affric and Cannich area

 We have just returned from a week up near Tomich in Glen Affric, Highlands. before we went, the weather forecast looked grim for the week, but it turned out not as bad as predicted. We still had some rain everyday except the Saturday, it was a Sunday to Sunday trip, that was fine and warm. The rest was mainly sunny with showers but it was quite cold all week.

The area seemed quite quiet for wildlife, maybe the weather was keeping things down. The hoped for Pine Martens didn't materialise, leaving our bait untouched despite them being nightly visitors to a house just a few hundred metres away. We didn't even see a single deer of any kind!  Very unusual that.

Still' a few things of interest did show including Osprey, Red Kite, a single juv Golden Eagle viewed from the bottom of the house garden over the Affric hills. Its white tail base, wing flashes and Golden nape could be seen clearly in the sunsine through the scope. A Red Squirrel ran along the road side near Beauly.

This is the house we stayed in Glen Affric View, Hilltop, Tomich, a lovely quiet place. The access track was a bit steep and undulating in the car, but otherwise, great.

As you can see from the top image, we were surrounded by birch woodland so the moth trap was deployed to see what was around. Despite the cold nights sometimes with white frost, moths were caught every evening. Highlights below - 

Acleris logiana, only one caught.

Barred Umber, one or two each night

Glaucous Shears, only the one caught.

Grey Birch, a few taken each night.

Ringed Carpet was my only new moth, 2 caught on one night. 

Scarce Prominent, maybe the moth of the week. Before this week I had only seen one, last year in our garden. This week up to a dozen per night! 

Pearl bordered Fritillary, only the third time I have seen this butterfly, this was my first in Scotland, in the garden by the summerhouse.

Some other odds and sods in the garden -

Orange Tip, female

Platismatia glauca, a nice lichen.

I kept seeing lighting fast beautiful shiny small beetles in the lawn. They were Poecilus versicolor, a Greenclock beetle. A new one for me.

This Harvestman Rilaena triangularis wasnt even seen until back home looking at photos of the lichen.

Oak Ferns in the birch woods, a new one to me.

Cowberry, Glan Affric

A few more of the local scenery - 

Above, all Glen Affric.

Plodda Falls, impressive...

The lovely village of Tomich.

We also were given a site in Strath Glass for Beavers. We visited and saw the lodge and some tree gnawing but no Beavers. Had we been staying a bit closer I would have put more effort in.

New additions to the PSL - Ringed Carpet, Oak Fern, Haplodrassus signifer, Plasmatia glauca,