Our field trip today took us to the solitude and beautiful landscape of the intriguingly titled “Black Lochs” near North Connel. Leaving the A85 main road we followed a track towards Achaleven Farm and on past Cuil-uaine to the lochs. They are renowned for their variety of dragonflies and damselflies, but we did not expect to see too much as the weather forecast was poor. Luckily it remained dry, and there was a lot of damselfly activity despite the lack of sunshine.
Most numerous were the Common Blues. This is a pair in tandem. The female is of the usual green form; occasionally they are blue like the males but they always have much more black than the males.
Female Emerald Damselflies were fairly numerous. They are said to rest with their wings half-open. In practice they seem to do this half the time and rest with wings closed (like other damselflies) half the time. The pictures show both positions.
Blue-tailed Damselflies were also present; the one on the left is a female. The only dragonflies seen were one or two Black Darters, like the female on the right. As we sat by the loch side having lunch we were entertained by Swifts, House Martins and Sand Martins which are all attracted by the loch’s rich insect pickings. Frogs and toads were seen among the loch-edge vegetation.
Common Green Grasshoppers were leaping about and outwitting everyone’s catching skills, but the one on the left was spotted resting on a bracken frond, and the RH one landed on a coat lining, and liked it so much there it allowed a close approach. The two are different colour variants, one having green sides and the other brown. Most grasshopper species vary a lot in colour, but the Common Green can be recognised (out of the 4 Argyll species) by the shape of the pronotum and its lack of a broad pale hind margin. This is an indicator species of unimproved grassland and is common in the west of Scotland where a lot of such habitat survives.
Another insect that tried to join our party was this Forest Bug, which was noticed on a rucksack when we stopped to eat. It was reluctant to leave and would happily have accompanied us back to Connel.
As we approached Kilvaree we were treated to a nice selection of interesting birds. Firstly a male Wheatear appeared on a rock close by and then a family of Whinchat were heard chatting and calling between the bracken and a post and wire fence. Accompanying them was a juvenile Pied Wagtail on the wire and further along a group of Twite were feeding on the ground, looking like small mice as they extracted loose seeds from the track.
The black spiny caterpillar determinedly crossing the track will soon be a Peacock butterfly. It has left the nettle web where it grew up and is looking for somewhere to pupate. The second generation of Small Tortoiseshells are already on the wing and looking very fresh and bright. We found some of their abandoned webs on a clump of nettles, together with one small caterpillar that had been left behind, probably parasitised. We also found several abandoned Painted Lady webs on Creeping Thistle, so we should get a second generation of those soon.
Many Green-veined Whites and Meadow Browns were seen, and a probable Dark Green Fritillary. Trailing St John’s Wort was a pleasing find here and there along the track. Other interesting plants found were Great Willowherb in waste ground at Connel, Slender Sedge along the loch edges, and Whorled Caraway in great abundance in the Kilvaree area. The Ink-cap fungi on the right were growing on the site of a former manure heap.
Carl Farmer and Richard Wesley