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

Brown behind the Blue...

This weekend we had our annual visit into Scotland to look for butterflies. Its not as pioneering as it seems as we only go 5 miles over the border, a total of about 35 miles from home...

The sites were Lamberton and Burnmouth and our targets, Small Blue and Northern Brown Argus ( I will keep calling them Argos...). You can park in a good sized car park on the cliff tops east of Lamberton then walk north for a mile taking in the scenery, before reaching the nice Small Blue colony on some scree slopes.

As we arrived quite early our subjects were not even up, so we pottered about until the sun warmed sufficiently to put some blues on the wing. We ended up seeing about 13 individuals with some females egg laying. Also here were 20+ Small Heath, 6+ Wall Brown, 1 Grasshopper Warbler reeling, a Cuckoo and a Peregrine nest with 2 well grown chicks.

Small Blue habitat.

Female Small Blue on Kidney Vetch. 

Male Small Blue

Small Heath mating pair.

Kidney Vetch

Wood Vetch I think?

Our next stop was just a minute along the road at Burnmouth. Although it was now dull and breezy we still checked suitable rock rose and valerian sites where surprisingly we found 4 Northern Brown Argus.

Above -  Northern Brown Argus

Drinker Moth caterpillar

Plum Tortrix were on the wing in good numbers today.

Wall Brown.

 

Metallina segmentata a small orb weaver spider.

Border Blues....

A day off after a Bank Holiday Monday is always a good thing. Today I met up with John and we headed north of the border, all 5 miles of it, to the Lamberton / Burnmouth area, not far along the A1 past Berwick. This place is only 35 miles from home, so for us its considerably closer than swathes of SW Northumberland.

With a reasonable weather forecast in the offing we were hoping to catch up with the colony of Small Blue butterflies residing on the cliff slopes here. The sun soon emerged from some scattered low cloud to create a warm pleasant afternoon, ideal for butterfly hunting.

We parked at the small car park for the cliff top nature reserve just east of Lamberton and walked north along the scenic coast path. This dramatic and picturesque coastline, in days past,was home to smugglers and seabirds, but now, the smugglers have gone leaving the area to the wildlife. This piece of coast is good for Peregrines, Small Blues, Yellow Meadow Ants and true cliff nesting House Martins, and today we saw them all, quite easily.

Added to those, we also had several Small Heath, Wall, Peacock, Green veined White and a Ruby Tiger moth.

Smugglers den...

Slope where we had 3 or 4 Small Blues...

Above - Small Blue butterfly. 

Peregrine.

Down the road at Burnmouth, Spotted Flycatcher, Blackcap and Willow Warbler were the only birds of note, while a showy Orange-Tip was best of the inverts... 

Above - Orange Tip.