Friday 7 June 2013

Mother Shipton

I did my BBS up on the hills behind Tyn Cornel YH this morning (SN75) and although it was quiet on the bird front I did see a Mother Shipton at over 400m on a grassy south facing slope*.  The plant life up there is about a month behind with bracken only just showing!  Usually on my second visit, end of first week of June, there are loads of small heath butterflies but I noted only one with a few whites which I did not classify.
The pattern of records for MS is interesting with 5 in 2011, 18 year before but previously only 1's and 2's.  Why such a lot from 2010?
*Fowles quotes lowlands and coastal distribution and shows absence in SN75, but that relates to 25 years ago!
I have just returned from 4 weeks in central Europe and must say I was dismayed at the absence of insect life throughout.  Cold at night and often wet or cloudy and windy during the day the only significant moth for me was a Silver Cloud and a faded one at that, caught in a garden amid the arable wastelands of the Argonne in Lorraine.

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