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, 

Heartbeat Country..

I can't remember how I originally heard, that only about 120 miles away into the North Yorkshire wolds lurked some highly sought after species. It will probably have been on Twitter or some other internet spot. I then put social media to its best use and contacted some acquaintances for further advice. Soon a couple of people in the know, kindly gave me directions to their favourite spots and asked me not to widely broadcast, so forgive me for being a bit vague with the info on here. I'm sure a bit of dilligent internet searching will point you in the right direction.

Armed with our newly acquired info, on Sunday, we took a day trip out of the county to check out the sites . First stop was near Pickering for a couple of nice orchids that I did not know occurred this far north - Burnt Tip Orchid and Fly Orchid. In a very green and uninviting arable setting the small area below was a stunning oasis for flowers and butterflies.

We soon found several Dingy Skippers, Small Copper, Brown Argus and Small Heath butterflies, then 3 nice spikes of target No 1 Burnt Tip Orchid. Target No 2 lurked only a few feet away, Fly Orchids. There were more of these with about 8 spikes noted. We would normally have put the morning in at a site like this, but other delicacies were waiting...

The small limestone diggings shows the substrate favoured by the plants.

Dingy Skipper

Burnt tip Orchid

Early Purple Orchids in good numbers.

Above - Fly Orchids.

Brown Argus

Site No 2 was about 5 miles away, for a butterfly I have only seen once - Pearl bordered Fritillary.

We soon located up to 20 of these normally woodland insects, either dashing past a a rate of knots (males) or (females) being elusive, flutterhopping into dead bracken clumps looking for violets to lay egs on or near to. They are another declining species in the UK with scattered small colonies mainly with a westerly distribution.

Fritillaries dashed past or scurried around under the bracken laying eggs.

Pearl bordered Fritillaries above.

 As time was wearing on, we made a move, 16 miles further west towards Thirsk, for the star of the show, the headline act, so to speak, all arise please for - The Duke of  Burgundy.

The last time I met with the Duke, was on a Lancs limestone pavement a few years back, 

now here we are, in the other rose county, where we were very pleased to count 19+ in a small sunny area. Up to 7 at a time, 'kettled' in circles, squabbling together then dividing back to low perches on bramble leaves and grass stems. Anything flying by would be chased by these tiny terrors, not much bigger than a Small Blue.  I could have watched them all day.

Above - the haunt of the Duke...

Duke of Burgundy

 The time was getting on now and we headed off for the two hour drive home, very pleased that we had not only seen all of our target species, we had great views and decent numbers of them too!
While working out our next sortie away, its back to the patch for the rest of the Bank Holiday...
   

Dukes and Pearls.

A day off work today to head of to the west on a butterfly mission. I met Roger at his house before heading off to Gait Barrows, a woodland / limestone pavement reserve in North Lancs near Morcambe Bay.

Two special targets were on offer for me, Pearl bordered Fritillary and Duke of Burgundy butterflies. The Duke in particular is a very rare and declining species that needed to be looked for before its too late...

Our first stop was a wood on the other side of the hill to Gait Barrows above Leighton Moss, where we found our first Pearl bordered Fritillaries. We had about 5+ pristine individuals including a mating pair that allowed a very close approach.





Above - Pearl Bordered Fritillaries.

Also here were 1 Speckled Wood, 4 Orange Tip, 1 Small Heath and 1 Large White. A cool easterly breeze kept the butterflies into sheltered sunny corners. 6+ Speckled Yellow Moths defied photography attempts.

From here it was only a very short drive around the hill to Gait Barrows for our second and main target of the day - the Duke of Burgundy. A tiny butterfly with a wing span of no more than an inch, it proved more of a challenge to locate. With the help of some local knowledge we were soon in the right spots and found at least 4+ individuals defending tiny territories in the wood.






Above - Duke of Burgundy.

There was a good selection of butterflies here including 2 Brimstones, 1 Green Hairstreak, 2 Dingy Skippers and 2 Speckled Woods with a few more Pearl bordereds thrown in for good measure.

Another highlight in here was a large Slow Worm that made off too quickly for a photo!



Above - Dingy Skipper.



Above - One or two of these tiny micro moths were flitting around too, I think I've seen them on Dean's blog? Dean can you help with the i.d? [Its Pyrausta purpuralis - Thanks to Skev for the i.d...]



Above - We had a few Early Purple Orchids in the wood and at Silverdale...



Above - And about 50+ Green winged Orchids that were just past their best in the Silverdale meadows, a new plant for me.

A successful day then and all in beautiful scenery and bright sunshine. Nowt finer!