Cottage Holidays throughout Scotland

19th May 2008 – Butterfly sites around Inverness

There are a number of good sites around Inverness for butterflies such as Glen Strathfarrar and Glen Affric where there is a mixture of old woodland, grassland and heather moor. To the east of Inverness is a coastal site at Ardersier where the combination of grassland and scrub supports a range of butterflies including one or two rarities. Further afield there is Loch Fleet on the coast near Golspie where the detailed recording of butterflies has been carried out for some years and part of the area is managed with butterflies in mind. All these sites fit the criteria which butterflies need starting with the food plants of the caterpillars. Some caterpillars feed on a variety of plants such as grasses whilst others are very specialised and only have one food plant which often means these butterflies are uncommon. The adult butterflies also need food in the form of nectar from a range of plants. Another essential requirement is sunshine but this has to be combined with shelter otherwise the temperatures are too low for the butterflies to be active.
Arguable the best site in the Highlands is on the eastern edge of Nairn where the sand dunes and their rich vegetation give a wide range of food plants for both the caterpillars and the adult butterflies. Eighteen species of butterflies have been recorded in this short section of coast which is around two thirds of all the species in the Highlands. Access to the site does not seem to be encouraging as you drive through seemingly endless lines of static caravans to reach the informal car park. The first part of the walk is through tall dense vegetation but any gaps give the shelter the butterflies need and then the open dunes appear and the butterflies can be overwhelming. In the next few weeks the flight season for some butterflies such as the small blue, dingy skipper and orange tip is in full swing. If you include the migrants such as painted lady and red admiral then it is still possible to see fifteen species of butterflies in one day.
Perhaps the most attractive of the smaller butterflies is the common blue as the males have an almost iridescent blue, sometimes called violet blue, on the wings. Their caterpillars feed on a range of low growing plants but the commonest is bird’s foot trefoil. The small yellow flowers are scattered in various parts of the dune system and the surrounding vegetation is often kept short by grazing rabbits. The small copper is also attractive and, as the name suggests, the wings are brilliant copper. This butterfly is unusual in that it can still be on the wing well into September. Of the larger butterflies in the sand dunes, the painted lady is one of the most attractive although, as it cannot survive our winters, the numbers depends on how many immigrants have come over each spring from the continent.
One of the rarest of the butterflies at Nairn is the small blue which, as the name suggests, is one of the smallest butterflies in the Highlands. It is apparently totally dependent on kidney vetch as a food for its caterpillars. Therein lies a mystery as the food plant is well scattered throughout the Highlands but the butterflies are almost restricted to sites within a few miles of Inverness. The exception is the isolated colony in the extreme north west of Caithness. Another rarity for the Highlands is the dingy skipper whose caterpillars feed on bird’s foot trefoil and only occurs along the east coast from Inverness. A world of butterflies hidden in the sand dunes.

12th May 2008 – Global Warming

Whether global warming is real or perceived is open to debate but the changes in the distribution of many birds and mammals have been put down to this phenomena. Insects have not escaped from this theory and some butterflies in the Highlands seem to fit the criteria. The small tortoiseshell is one of our best known butterflies and is certainly one of the most widespread and is regularly seen hibernating in the winter months in sheds and sometimes houses. In recent years there has been some concern over this common butterfly as in some years, such as 2007, the numbers seem abnormally low. However, the long term trends since monitoring began in 1976 seem to show that whilst the numbers fluctuate widely from year to year the overall trend is stable. For many years it was the only hibernating butterfly to be found in the Highlands but in recent years two others have started over wintering as adults.
One is the peacock that a few years ago was considered a butterfly that only occasionally wandered into the north. Then after an invasion from Scandinavia in September 2002 it seems to be over wintering in increasing numbers. In the last four years in the Highlands the peacock seems to have firmly established itself and last autumn many people were reporting larger numbers of peacocks in their gardens than the red admirals and small tortoiseshells put together. Like the red admirals and small tortoiseshells the food plant of the caterpillars is the common nettle although they are occasionally recorded on small nettle and hops.
The red admiral was a summer butterfly coming over from the continent each spring in varying numbers but was unable to cope with the very cold winters. Only two or three years ago a few were found hibernating in southern England and then slowly the records increased and in the last two years they seemed to have over wintered in the Highlands. Apparently no adults have been found hibernating but flying adults have been recorded early in February in a few places such as Aviemore. These are too early to have been migrants so it has been presumed that they did hibernate. Migrant red admirals still make up the bulk of records throughout the summer in the Highlands. The first ones come through and then lay their eggs and eventually emerge later in the year. The large numbers we sometime get in the Autumn are either from new migrants coming in and / or the ones that have emerged from eggs laid by the early migrants.
Whilst these changes have been put down to global warming there are changes in other butterflies in the Highlands that go back a decade or so and these have been the orange tip and the speckled wood. The problem is that just how long ago did this global warming start? As for recording the changes it all comes down to the records of so many enthusiastic volunteers. This will come to a head at the end of June this year when the new Highland butterfly atlas will be completed. The latest information is that it will be published at the end of this year. Then the true spread of various butterflies will be apparent. There is the other side of the coin as global warming may lead to the decrease in range of certain upland butterflies in the north such as the chequered skipper, northern brown argus, Scotch argus and even the large heath. Perhaps in the end it will turn out to be cyclic rather than long term climate change.

5th May 2008 – Gaelic Rhyme

There is an old Gaelic rhyme that goes ” Thrice the age of a dog the age of a horse / Thrice the age of a horse the age of a man / Thrice the age of a man the age of a stag / Thrice the age of a stag the age of an eagle / Thrice the age of an eagle the age of an oak tree.” In some ways these lines epitomise the role of the red deer in myths, folklore and mysteries that surround this icon of the Highlands. One of the most outstanding myths that has been perpetuated over the years is the famous “Monarch of the Glen” painting. This was by Sir Edwin Landseer who painted this large oil, 64 x 66 inches, in 1851. It must be the most famous and best known deer picture of all time. It has been used extensively to advertise a very wide range of products and figured on the 18 pence stamp in 1987 to commemorate the centenary of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887.
It depicts a red deer stag with twelve points on its widespread antlers. The inference is that the stag is the monarch of all it surveys but nothing could be further from the truth. In red deer it is a matriarchy with the hinds ruling the roost such as the one in the photograph taken on the Isle of Rum. For much of the year the hinds live apart from the stags although they may have a few very young stags with them. When the rut is on the hinds may only be ready for mating for a very short period and out with this the stag is ignored. Hardly “Monarch of the Glen”. Everyone know that antlers are used for fighting but are they that important as fights are normally few and far between despite what the media try to make out. Landseer’s stag is said to be a “royal” in having six points on either antler. But any six points will not do as a real “royal” has to have the lower three points in the right place. The top three points have to form a cup which is deep enough to support a glass of wine. In any case in the old days a ten pointer was called a royal so it can be confusing.
Another myth involves the famous parallel roads of Glen Roy near Fort William. These are parallel flat areas resembling roads that are found on the sides of the glen. The Kings of Scotland are said to have made these so that they could use them for their deerhounds to chase red deer. The dogs were reputedly kept on an island on Loch Laggan. This may be an interesting reason for these strange flat areas that form spectacular lines seemingly edged round certain glens in the area but the truth is equally fascinating. The roads are the old shorelines of ice dammed lakes during the glaciation. There is a mystery even in the venison which, as long ago as 1542, Andrew Boorde described as “meat for great men” and nowadays the meat conjures up thoughts of home made rowan jelly and a dram of malt whisky. In reality the situation is almost farcical as currently the British housewife does not seem to be enamoured with venison. As for the old Gaelic rhyme at the beginning, the inference of “Thrice the age of a man the age of a stag” is far out as a stag peaks as far as the breeding season is concerned around eight years old and relatively few stags live to reach fifteen years of age.