Mountain Ringlet at Meall Liath, 15th of July 2014

Audrey Turner

 

 

This trip was postponed from the weekend due to unsuitable weather.  The forecast for Tuesday the 15th looked promising, so it was decided to go ahead with it even though there would only be two of us going.

We walked up a forest track climbing steadily through the trees until we left the track and started a steeper climb alongside a burn which runs down the middle of a grassy ride between the trees.  I found an ordinary Ringlet in the grass by the side of the burn, so at least one butterfly was about.

We got to the top of the treeline without finding anything else and went through a gate to start searching the area where the butterflies have been seen previously.  The wind was a lot stronger this high up with quite a cold edge to it; it was also quite cloudy with occasional sunny spells.

Despite searching extensively for a couple of hours, all that was seen was a Grey Mountain Carpet moth and a Small Heath butterfly.  As we were sitting eating lunch, I spotted a few Heather Flies – Bibio pomonae.  We resumed searching after lunch for a short while, but found nothing so decided to head back down.

On the way back down the side of the burn, I spotted a brown butterfly low down in the grass, thinking it was probably just a Ringlet, I knelt down for a closer look just in case.  Success at last, it was a slightly tatty Mountain Ringlet!

After we admired it for a few minutes and I took some photos, we carried on downhill searching carefully, but all we saw were a couple more Small Heaths, a Ringlet and the micro moth Udea lutealis.

When we were just a few minutes away from the car, I spotted an Adder curled up in short vegetation by the side of the track, the first one I’ve ever seen.

 

 

Species List:

 

Butterflies	Moths	Others
Mountain Ringlet	Grey Mountain Carpet	Adder
Ringlet	Udea lutealis	Common Frog
Small Heath		Heather Fly
		Roe Deer