Spring 2012 - Glasgow & SW Scotland Branch of Butterfly ...

Impressive numbers of new species continue to move north into central
Scotland. The rapid spread of Pale Pinion has already been
documented. In the autumn of 2010 Stan Campbell added it to the
Dunbartonshire (vc99) list and this year the author added it to the
Stirlingshire (vc86) list when he caught one in a trap at Mugdock Country
Park on 10 th April and another in Lennoxtown on 18 th April. Another
species continuing to move north is Blair’s Shoulder-knot. It first
arrived in the UK (on the Isle of Wight) in 1951. It found that its preferred
larval foodplants, Lawson’s and Leyland Cypress, are common garden
trees in the UK and it spread rapidly. By 1996 it had reached Cumbria
and by 2001 had crossed the border into Kirkcudbrightshire. Since then,
it has spread to Ayrshire, the Borders, Lothians and into Fife as far north
as Anstruther so it was not unexpected when one found its way into a
trap in Milgavie on 4 th November 2011.
The most unexpected new
arrival, however, was Buff
Footman. The map in vol. 9 of
Moths and Butterflies of Great
Britain and Ireland shows that in
1978 the Buff Footman had a
patchy distribution mainly south
of a line from the Severn to the
Wash. However, by the time
that the Provisional Atlas of the
UK’s Larger Moths was
published in 2010 there had
been considerable northward
Buff Footman © John Knowler expansion into northern
England and southern Scotland. In 2011 the species made it into central
Scotland. The first was caught by the author at Lennoxtown on the 11 th
July, another was in the catch for the 2 nd August of the Rothamsted trap
at Rowardennan on Loch Lomondside and a third was caught by David
Bryant at Bridge of Allan on 11 th August.
Keeping up-to-date: Moth highlights for vice counties 86, 87 and 99 can
be followed in the Central Scotland Moths Blog
(http://centralscotlandmoths.blogspot.com/ ).
JohnKnowler, Moth Recorder for Stirlingshire, West Perthshire and
Dumbartonshire (VC 86, 87 and 99).
28 On the Spot – April 2012