There are a number of rare moths, dragonflies and orchids that are to be found only in Scotland in the UK. I have wanted to see many of these species for a long time and so decided to organise a week long trip this year with a friend to see as many as we possibly could. So early on the 27th June, Robert and I met in a quiet road in Bromsgrove to consolidate our kit into a single car and head north on the M6 for Scotland.
We had a planned stop along the way at Gait Barrows reserve in Cumbria in the hope of seeing Lady's Slipper Orchid and possibly a few early Dark Red Helleborine on the limestone pavement. As it turned out, we were too late for the Slipper and found only rosettes remaining with no flowers in evidence. We did, however, manage to find a few Dark Red Helleborines after much searching which was satisfying as we feared we may have been too early for these. Happy to have seen these and many Spotted Orchids we continued our journey North to Ben Lawers in the trossachs. We were hoping to see Mountain Ringlet but after much fruitless searching it became apparent that we were also too early for Britain's only montane butterfly at this reliable site and decided to move on to our base for the next few days on the shores of Loch Insh in Speyside. We did manage to see a few special target moths including Small Argent & Sable and Red Carpet so all was not lost. We put an actinic moth trap out and retired to bed in the endless twilight of mid-summer Scotland.
An early wake up to check the moth trap revealed that the temperature had fallen substantially in the clear night with few moths present. There were Bordered Whites. Barred Red and the attractive Map-winged Swift which I don't see in the south. After an enormous breakfast we headed for the car park at Cairngorm ski lift. A quick stop at Loch Morlich produced scope views of summer plumaged Red-throated Diver before we moved onwards to the ski lift car park and took a walk into Corrie an Sneachda. Common Heath Moths were abundant and Heath Spotted Orchids were numerous in the heather. We managed to find Satyr Pug and Grey Mountain Carpet and an attractive mountain specialist tortrix, Phiaris schulziana. Alas, we didn't manage to scope any Ptarmigan but did see plenty of Red Grouse around the car park.
The plan for the afternoon was to seek out the specialist dragonflies and orchids of Speyside so we headed to a site near Auchgourish on the banks of the Spey. The site was incredibly orchid rich with hundreds of Heath Fragrant, Heath Spotted and Lesser Butterfly Orchids in full flower. After a short search we found our target, dozens of exquisite Small White Orchids just coming into full bloom. Excellent. Also present was a Lead Belle and Northern Brown Argus which pleased Robert as he'd never seen one before.
Next stop was a small pond on the edge of Abernethy Forest where the hoped-for Northern Damselfly were in abundance along with Common Blue Damselfly and dozens of Four-spotted Chasers. We then moved on to a small pool on the edge of a bog for White-faced Darter and we were delighted to find several of the stunning black and red males in attendance as well as a mating pair. So that was two of our odonata targets seen in quick succession which was pleasing.
It was then back to orchids and we headed north a few miles to a site within a pine wood. We could barely believe what we found but a wet area of the wood was carpeted with hundreds of Coralroot orchids! I had expected this small and inconspicuous plant to be difficult to find but here they were growing in profusion! We took our time to take in the spectacle before commencing our search for another tiny orchid - the Lesser Twayblade. It took us a while but eventually we found a group of 6 growing in the mosses in very good condition. Flushed with the success of finding all three of our orchid targets in a day, we retired to the hotel for a rest and later ventured to Uath Lochans where we deployed the moth trap for the night.
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