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, 

Its Scarce...and not very Prominent.

 

Scarce Prominent Odontosia carmelita Howick 26/04/25 

I began moth trapping when we moved in here in 2009. 

Over the years, the garden list has steadily increased by annual stages, with some moths that are very common and others less so. Some species trapped have been firsts for Northumberland and no less than 90 species have been recorded here on only the one occasion. These are made up of a few migrants but most are strays on the wind from other habitats.

Over the years one species fired my imagination . The Scarce Prominent Odontosia carmelita. 

This is not a rare moth in Northumberland with 240+ adults recorded from 50 different widespread sites, but it is not abundant either. North Northumberland VC68 only has 12+ records. It is a moth of old birch woodlands, favouring taller, mature trees that are mainly found at inland upland sites in the county.

The Victorian Lepidoperists found it a very rare insect that was difficult to obtain. Adults don't feed so it wasn't attracted by Sugaring. The larvae were always too high, so this left digging lightly around the base of birches in autumn looking for pupa or looking around the base of birch trunks in spring for newly emerged adults. It wasn't until the invention of electric Mercury Vapour Moth traps that this moth became more widely found.

In recent years I've pondered taking my battery bucket trap into an old birch wood on Alnwick Moor to try and find it but never got around to it. 

Fast forward up to Saturday night when this moth wasn't even in my hindsight. Late, before going to bed I thought I would check the garden trap to see if there was much doing. At the minute is all Orthosias with a few geometers like Shoulder Stripe and Water Carpet for interest. Peering in to the egg tray lined depths a furry head could be seen so I lifted another tray to get a better vie of the half hidden stranger within. Only then did it reveal itself. 

Its always great to find one of your hero's or most wanteds in the trap, but even more so at this early time of year. 'carmelita was duly potted and placed in cool storage until the morning where these photos could be taken. On the evening I took it into Village Wood ,where there are a few old birches, for release. I tried to sit it on an old gnarled trunk but it was having none of it. After a bit of a flutter around it launched itself up and off over the canopy. 

I wonder if I'll ever get another...