Butterfly Conservation: Highland Branch

Welcome to Highland Branch of Butterfly Conservation

Butterfly Conservation is a registered charity dedicated to the conservation of butterflies and moths.

Highland Branch membership has been on the increase in recent years and we are fortunate in having members in the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland as well as in Highland and Moray.

Branch field trip to Morrich More, Tain. Photo by Bill Slater.

Our activities include recording butterflies and moths, organising events and field trips, and publishing newsletters which you can download from this site. We welcome contributions about interesting sightings of butterflies and moths, and queries relating to identification. To get in touch, just fill in the form on the Contact us page.

Moths of the Month: May

In this regular feature, Roy Leverton illustrates a selection of characteristic moths to look out for in our area at different times of the year.

Clouded Silver Lomographa temerata

Few moths are so pure a white as Clouded Silver. It may well be a recent arrival in our area, since older literature gives its northern limit as Argyll, and it is still quite local and infrequent here. Read more...

January and February | March

2012: April | May

October

November and December

Learning more about butterflies and moths

Tony Mainwood, based in Golspie, is available to give talks on butterflies and moths to schools and other interested groups in places north of Inverness.

If you'd like to find out more, please get in touch with Tony. His email address is tony.mainwood@btinternet.com

Chequered Skipper survey

Full details of this survey, including maps, will appear shortly, but in the meantime please visit Butterfly Conservation Scotland webpages at:
http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/text/4884/chequeredskipper.html

There you will find an email link to Dr Tom Prescott, who is co-ordinating the survey, and can provide more detailed information.

Chequered Skipper Hunt, Spean Bridge
Sunday 20th May 2-4pm

Come and see one of Scotland’s rarest butterflies, the Chequered Skipper, that only occurs within 30 miles of Fort William and nowhere else in the UK.

After a brief indoor talk we will go out to look for the butterfly at a nearby site. The aim of the event is to learn more about and see Chequered Skipper, but also to encourage attendees to take part in Butterfly Conservation Scotland’s national survey.

For more info visit www.butterfly-conservation.org/chequeredskipper

Meet at Spean Bridge Community Centre (Grid Ref NN224816), 9 Altour Road, Spean Bridge.

Directions from Inverness: turn left off the A82 in Spean Bridge onto the A86 road to Newtonmore. Altour Road is the second turning on the right, keep going to the end of the road to find the Community Centre.

Directions from Netwonmore: as you enter Spean Bridge Altour Road is c400 yards on the left past the school, keep going to the end of the road to find the Community Centre.

This event is being undertaken as part of Highland Soil Biodiversity Festival which is being organised by the Highland Biodiversity Partnership

For further details of field trips in 2012, please visit our Events page.

Forthcoming field trips

Sat 19th May: Lynwilg, Allt na Criche path - Target Species: Pearl-Bordered Fritillary & Moths.

Sun 20th May: Chequered Skipper Hunt at Spean Bridge: see item above.

Sat 2nd or Sun 3rd June: Polmaily butterfly walk, near Drumnadrochit - Target Species: Pearl-bordered Fritillary and Dingy Skipper.

See Events page for more details of these and other planned trips.

Branch Newsletter, Spring 2012

A copy of our Spring Newsletter is available to download here (PDF file).

Butterfly Atlas

A few copies of 'Atlas of Butterflies in Highland and Moray', published in 2008 by Butterfly Conservation Highland Branch and Highland Biological Recording Group, are still available, and we're offering them at the reduced price of £1 plus £1 p&p...

Click on the image for further information.

Scottish Macro-moth List 2011

Roy Leverton has recently revised the Scottish Macro-moth list, and has also written an introduction.

Both documents can be downloaded from these links:

Notes on the Scottish Macro-moth List, 2011 (PDF)

Scottish Macro-moth list, revised February 2011 (Spreadsheet, .xls file)

Moths of Caithness

This new website has been launched to make available information about the status and distribution of moths in Caithness so as to encourage greater interest in the recording of moths in the County.

Please visit the site at: www.caithnessmoths.org.uk