Cromdale Field Trip - August 13th 2016

The weather forecast for the day of the field trip was pretty poor, dull with plenty of showers, so that is perhaps why there were only 3 of us who chanced it.  However, as is often the case, the forecast was wrong; not only were there just a couple of showers, but there was occasional sunshine.

 

After looking at galls beside the layby we’d parked at, and spotting a Small Tortoiseshell, we walked upstream along the Spey on a track that fishermen use.  We started seeing Scotch Argus which was the most numerous butterfly of the day, but also saw a couple of Speckled Wood.

 

As we reached a really nice picnic hut that is for the fishermen, we turned away from the river along a rough track into a grassy meadow.  The track soon becomes grassy and a bit indistinct, however we followed this around the meadow before looping back to the main track and heading back to the cars.

 

In the meadow we saw lots of Scotch Argus, some Small Heath, Common Blues and a single Meadow Brown.  We also saw some Northern Eggar and Fox Moth Caterpillars and a few day-flying moths as well as a few spider’s nests, at least some of which contained spiders.

 

Butterflies	Moths	Others
Scotch Argus	Udea lutealis	Common Hawker Dragonfly
Common Blue	Shaded-broad Bar	Dor Beetle
Small Heath	Dark Marbled Carpet	Areneus quadratus Spider
Speckled Wood	Fox Moth larva	Robin’s Pincushion Gall
Meadow Brown	Northern Eggar larva	Aceria cephaloneous - Gall
Small Tortoiseshell		Rose Pea Gall
		Eriophyes laevis - Gall
		Forficula auricularia - Earwig

Scotch Argus on Devil's-bit Scabious

Common Blue

Araneus quadratus