Lamberton and Burnmouth

On Sunday morning we took our annual trip up over the border to catch up on some scarce butterflies and moths.

On arrival at Lamberton Cliffs it was cool and breezy, so being a bit late in the season I didnt have much hope of seeing the Small Blues that inhabit the path edges here. Fortunately, down on the scree it was more sheltered and the butterflies were out in decent numbers. We had 20+ Small Heath, 7+ Common Blue, 13+ Small Blue, 2 Wall Brown, 2 Large Skipper and a few moths including our first Blackneck, an oddity here with most other records for this moth coming from south of Yorkshire. We flushed 9 Blackneck including a mating pair. Commoner lepids included Latticed Heath, Garden Grass Veneer, Silver Ground Carpet, Celypha lacunana and Timothy Tortrix all in good numbers plus 4 Chimney Sweepers.

Small Blue

Small Blue

Quaking Grass

Blackneck

Small Heath

Wild Strawberry

Large Skippers

From here we drove the short distance along to Partanhall scree cliffs where the masses of Red Valerian, Rock Rose and Salad Burnet were the home to 13+ Northern Brown Argus, 1 Painted Lady, 2 Common Blue, 2 Small Copper and 1 Small White. A tiny brown and white banded pyralid seems to be Pyrausta cingulata.

A good morning out, as it always is up here...

Northern Brown Argus

Common Blue

Common Footman caterpillar