Newsletter 13: Spring 2008

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Contents

Chairman's Introduction | Highland Branch News | Pale Brindled Beauty
Notes from the East | Promoting Butterflies and Moths in Sutherland and Caithness, 2007
Moth Recording in East Ross-shire (VC 106), 2007 | National Moth Night, Tannera Mor, August 2007
Common Blue | Field Trips Report, 2007 | Moth Traps | Books, Hatches and Dispatches | Moths Count
The Historic Treaty of Kindrogan | Report from the West Coast, 2007
Obituary

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Pale Brindled Beauty

It was a Pale Brindled Beauty, the first I have seen, a super moth record to start 2007. Jim Miller mentioned it in his Inverness Courier article: 

“Global warming could bring more tourists — and midgies”.

Published:  13 February, 2007 in the Inverness Courier.

Jim mentioned it was a surprise to see it in January. He found it on a wall and caught it in a jamjar before taking it inside for a closer look.

He went on to say "it was clearly a moth, and quite a large one, the size that flutters from the woods on a balmy summer evening to batter against the window". "The wings were a dusty, mottled grey-green colour and it had a hairy body, a bonny wee thing in its way".

Pale Brindled Beauty photo by Tony Mainwood.

His little book of moths was no help in identifying it, so he called on me as chairman of the Highland Branch of Butterfly Conservation to pronounce judgement.  Initially I was a bit stumped but quickly worked out the family and then the species as a Pale Brindled Beauty, widespread but not particularly common anywhere.

My thanks to Jim Miller for bringing it to me and to Tony Mainwood for the photograph.

By a strange co-incidence I was to receive another record from a colleague at work and then a third from Tony Mainwood all in the space of a week. It must have been a good year for them.

Jim's record:  Pale Brindled Beauty    26-Jan-2007    Bunchrew   NH64   618458  1 Male  Identified by Jimmy McKellar - found at rest on a caravan wall around 4pm. Jim Miller

Jimmy McKellar