Last Wednesday, Skye Botany Group visited a croft in Fiskavaig by invitation of the tenant. We recorded 170 plants and there are undoubtedly more as it was early in the season and we saw several that would benefit from a revisit later on. My word, does he have Himalayan Balsam! There were no real rarities but a nice mixture of habitats from moor to marsh and a species-rich burn.
There were lots of moths about but my attention was mostly on the plants. As well as several Common Carpet in flight, we noted a Dotted Border larva on Luzula multiflora subsp. congesta (not a food plant, so probably preparing to moult) and two common micromoths: Micropterix aureatella (sometimes called Yellow-barred Gold) and Syndemis musculana (sometimes called Dark-barred Twist). There was also a small Caddis Fly that will have to wait to be determined and a bright green weevil that I have sent away as there are several lookalikes.
Later: It is Polydrusus pterygomalis a useful record for Skye as all the previous records were from NG52 in 1998-99.
On Tuesday and Thursday I went to Cuidrach, south of Uig on Skye, exploring southwards one day and northwards the other. I caught a few flies for determination by Murdo in order to improve the known distribution of Diptera in VC104 plus a couple of micromoths: a rather worn Celypha lacunana (Common Marble) and Monochroa tenebrella (Common Plain Neb) the latter being the second vc record following my first sighting of it almost exactly a year previously in Sleat.
There was a cocoon belonging to a Six-spot Burnet (Zygaena filipendulae) and I was slightly surprised, but probably shouldn’t have been, to find Carex pallescens (Pale Sedge) in fruit already.
Quite stunningly blue was this dead Green (!) Tiger Beetle:
I revisited a patch of escaped saxifrage that I had spotted at Edinbane in March and recorded as Saxifraga x polita (S. hirsuta x spathularis, False Londonpride). I wasn’t certain but I am now – and Mike Wilcox kindly looked at some images and concurred.
Finally, the moth larva that I put in a pot with some moss back in March made a cocoon for itself and yesterday it emerged. It turns out to be Epiblema scutulana (Thistle Bell). I had one of these in the moth trap in early June five years ago, so no great surprise – but nice to successfully rear such a thing.
Plants of Skye, Raasay & The Small Isles 
August 15, 2023 at 7:49 pm |
[…] Michaelmas Daisy near the road at the Fiskavaig croft we visited a few weeks ago has caused a certain amount of confusion and debate, not least in the taxonomic nomenclature, but I […]